Tag Archives: passive aggressive

Revenge is best served in clogs.

24 Oct

I haven’t posted about my noisy upstairs neighbor for a while, not only because I didn’t have much fodder for a post, but also because I didn’t want to jinx things by telling you how good he’s been.

Oh, don’t get me wrong — I’d never mistake his unit for vacant. But he’s been pretty good about limiting his walk-abouts to more normal hours, quieting down by 11pm and not starting up (officially) until around 6am most day — unless it’s the weekend, in which case he’s pretty good until around 7am.

That’s a vast improvement over his previous schedule (during which I could only bank on silence from 1am – 4am each day).

This weekend my parents were visiting from Michigan. I always get a bit tense when I have guests, hoping Michael remains on good behavior so everyone can get a good night’s sleep. Before going to bed the first night, my mom asked how the noise situation had been lately.

“Great,” I told her. “It’s much better than it was. I can actually live with the pattern we’re in now.”

“That’s great,” she responded. “You know what you should do? Take him a bottle of wine or something and make a big deal out of how good he is – a little positive reinforcement.”

I nodded thinking, “No thanks — he’s not THAT good.”

Fast forward to the next morning. I was brewing coffee when my mom emerged from the bedroom around 8am, which is early for her vacation schedule. “Sleep well?” I asked.

“Until the last hour,” she commented. “Ever since Michael got up, I’ve been hearing him.”

“Well, at least it started around 7am,” I said. “That’s at least reasonable.”

The look on Mom’s face told me she didn’t find 7am reasonable. “You know what you should do?” she asked, oddly reminiscent of the previous evening’s conversation. Bracing for another lesson in positive reinforcement, I was halfway through an eye roll when she said, “Make friends with the people who live above him. Then you can go up there and stomp around to pay him back.”

There we go. Now that’s the kind of advice I expect from someone who once gift wrapped dog turds for a guy who let his dog crap in her yard. In fact, I won’t be surprised if the next time they visit, she brings along a pair of shoes that look like this:

Tags: , , , , , ,

If third graders worked in offices, this wouldn’t be funny.

5 Aug

First a bit of back story… I’m a pretty easy going person, so my knee jerk reaction if someone can’t do something or doesn’t have what I need is, “No worries.” And I almost always mean it.

Last week at work I was typing that exact phrase into a chat window in response to a co-worker, when it struck me as funny if — instead of saying “no worries” — I actually wrote back: “I HATE YOU.” Don’t ask me why, but that completely tickled my funny bone.

I was still giggling at the thought when a work buddy chatted me, so I had to explain why I was laughing. The great thing? He completely cracked up too. We immediately both adopted the phrase (but only in response to each other), but used it infrequently enough that each time it popped up it caught me off-guard and struck me as hilarious all over again.

I encourage you to try it, but only with a work buddy. If you do it to a non-buddy, they will think you are an asshole.

Anyway. So last night, I thought I would share this tip with the world (by which I mean the small handful of people who follow my twitter feed out of sympathy). Except, instead of posting it where you’re supposed to tweet, I sent a direct message to one of my followers. This is what I wrote:

Work tip: the next time you’re about to type “No worries” in response to someone who can’t help you, instead type “I HATE YOU.”

That triple cracked me up. First, because it’s just a hilarious tip to share. Second, because it looked like I had personally sought them out for these words of wisdom. Third, this person had reached out to me about six months ago, asking if a restaurant they represent could quote my review on their website.

Steal my content? I will cut you.

I had given them permission, and thought I was pretty cool about it. Instead of bartering for a credit at the restaurant, I simply asked that they link to my blog to drive traffic back to the source of the original article. The tweeter said she’d check and see if it was possible.

Did they link? No. Did they post the entire content of my review on the company’s website? They did. Did I get a kick that it was in the “media” section, between two legitimate restaurant reviews written by real people, while mine had to be attributed to someone named Pithy Pants? I did.

[Note: they’ve apparently since wised up and realized I’m in no way an official restaurant critic or journalist, because when I just checked the site, that entire section was under construction. Maybe they’re running background checks on all the content they repurposed from strangers?]

In any case, I like that after six months of not communicating, the way I reached out to this person was via a direct message giving her tips on how to be awkwardly aggressive. And even sweeter? That our previous exchange had ended with her promising to look into linking to my blog, and my writing back three simple words:

Cool. No worries. 

Tags: , , , , ,

Celebrity Look-Alikes: Compliment or Cut-down?

31 Aug

Tonight I had to restrain myself on Facebook. One of my friends posted a photo of his teenage daughter’s new haircut.

My first reaction: Awww! She looks like Pam Beasley on The Office!

I almost typed that, thinking it was a compliment, but then I realized a teenager might not want to identify with the adorable secretary on a show that is cast with people who aren’t overtly pretty, but who are pretty average (at least by Hollywood standards).

Thankfully, I restrained myself.

A few years ago, I wasn’t quite as thoughtful. I informed my new co-worker: You know who you look exactly like? Andy Kaufman!

The words had just left my mouth when I processed his facial expression. It was not unlike someone discovering that they have as many nipples as a cat: fascination turning into horror.

For a minute it crossed my mind to say, “I meant you remind me of him because you’re so funny!” But I don’t find Andy Kaufman funny. So instead, I just said, “It must be the eyes,” and left it at that.

But that’s kind of the thing, right? No one will ever be as attractive as the celebrity to whom you are comparing them (unless it’s Andy Kaufman!), so it’s always going to be a losing battle.

On a recent trip to Chicago, someone on the team there told my friend Margaret that she looks like Barbara Hershey. And then promptly had to follow-up with, “You know, except she’s a brunette. And she’s older than you. And…”

Based on that description, she could be MY celebrity look-alike.

Awesome. Sure beats the Steve Buscemi comparisons.

Tags: , ,