Creative solutions to life’s little annoyances
You, like me, may be able to tolerate people who cut in front of us in line at the grocery store. We can toss junk mail without too much angst, and ignore loud cellphone yakkers (OK, I fail on the last one), but if you know of someone who lets life’s little annoyances drive them bonkers, there’s a new book just for them. It’s called, not surprisingly, Life’s Little Annoyances, and is written by New York Times writer Ian Urbina. From a BoingBoing post:
- It is a compendium of human inventiveness, by turns juvenile and petty, but in other ways inspired and deeply satisfying. We meet the junk-mail recipient who sends back unwanted âbusiness replyâ envelopes weighted down with sheet metal, so the mailers will have to pay the postage. We commiserate with the woman who was fed up with the colleague who kept helping himself to her lunch cookies, so she replaced them with dog biscuits that looked like biscotti. And we revel in the seemingly endless number of tactics people use to vent their anger at telemarketers, loud cellphone talkers, spammers, and others who impose themselves on us.
Ah, passive-aggression at its finest. I just ordered two for a couple of people I know who get mad as $% and can’t take it anymore all too often. I know, it has nothing to do with meeting planning, but it seems to me that planners have to take more of these little annoyances than those in other professions. (For an idea of what the book is about, check out Mr. Urbina’s blog, where you can submit your own ingenious solutions.)
Related Topics: Just for fun
October 23rd, 2005 at 5:59 pm
Somehow my home business line got onto a list and I’ve been innundated with calls the past couple of months. While I’ve been waiting for my submission to the “do not call” list to take effect, I’ve found a script that stops telemarketers in their tracks.
I tell them that they’ve called a business line. Most will say, “Sorry” and hang up. But when that doesn’t stop them, I proceed to tell the caller that I’m a marketing and sales consultant. I tell them my hourly fee and ask for their billing address so that I can send an invoice for the amount of time they wish to talk to me.
That stops them cold. And I’m sure it’s produced some interesting notes in their call logs.
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