I hate …

It’s not only unhealthy, it’s unrealistic and counterproductive. Multitasking doesn’t really work. It’s only possible to concentrate on one thing at a time. Every switch back and forth while changing gears wastes time and breaks the flow.

Multitasking is the ability to do several things at the same time poorly.

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OOf yeah, the last week or two in my office has been like that. All the big clients who’ve been sitting on their hands for the last 3 months decided they needed their things NOW now. It’s a headache and a half, trying to deal with everyone insisting they need to be at the front of the line. Actually, that reminds me of a funny story - in the movie “Wreck It Ralph” they had a bunch of villainous characters on screen at the same time, and nearly every single one of the licensing companies said they wanted their character to be “bigger than everyone else in the room” - which, obviously, wasn’t going to work out.

Same kind of deal - to everyone else, the thing they need is the most important thing, so obviously theirs should come first. You’ve gotta learn what to prioritize and when and how to pivot when those priorities shift, and when to stand your ground and make your limitations clear. It’s definitely stressful, but unless you only have to appease one person, it’s something you’ve gotta deal with. I’ve found the phrase “As soon as I finish…” to be pretty darn helpful.

Home depot can ship a fridge ordered in my store to your store for pick up in said store. Lets make that happen. The GE cafe french door 4199.00 I am all set for your credit card.

Oh, that $1200 Mini I ordered? Supposed to be signed for?
Showed up on the coldest day in February (about -7°) and they left it on the front stoop at noon time. No sig. Luckily my sister was at the house and saw the FedEx van drive off. She went out and rescued it. Otherwise, it might have still been there when I got home at 530pm. Or not.
Yeah, I hate Apple.

Willy, you can keep the fridge.

Geech, those are awfully pricey. I looked it up and it seems there are various matching appliances, like the $2,799.00 wine cooler. They sure look nice, though, but I’m going to pass.

For what it’s worth, though, I am in the market for a GE electric stovetop.

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So, I’m not sure so much if this qualifies as “hate”, but we hired a new writer/proof reader and he provided a scan of a PDF with handwritten edits back to me on an 8 page document. The edits were fairly minor so I’m letting it slide, but I told him next time to just provide markup directly on the PDF through Acrobat. The saddest part is there were two long URLs that needed to be added to the document that are filled with general URL “gibberish” that he hand wrote.

Clearly a glutton for punishment. I told him to email me the two URLs since it was more work for him and me to re-type them.

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Definitely a “hate”. I once had a proof faxed to me, with handwritten changes overwritten on top of the body copy. I had her e-mail to me again listing page number, column number, what paragraph, what line, what changes. Naturally she was not very pleased, but complied though. I was able to maintain my paper trail.

… door-to-door people trying to sell me things. I also hate COVID-19. But it’s not without its merits.

Come to think of it, I also hate people who cannot tell its/it’s, there/there’re/they’re/their etc. apart.

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There are people who use “There’re” ?

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Goes without saying, I have not had door-to-door persuasion for quite a while.

Yeah, I also hate people who can’t differentiate a while from awhile.

Don’t get me started. I could belly-ache for Britain on this and the general and widespread misuse of the possessive apostrophe.

So imagine how irked I was to have just re-read a post I wrote earlier this morning, now well out of the editable period, and find an ‘its’ where an ‘it’s’ should be. ‘hoist by his own petard’

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forums don’t count :wink:
(though I try to use words correctly…)

However, I do find “ain’t no” endearing …

The rule about possessive pronouns not getting possessive apostrophes trips me up too. I suppose it’s to keep its from being confused with its contraction (like those in these sentences). It’s not that I don’t understand the rule; it’s just that in my head, a possessive registers, and I automatically insert an apostrophe without giving it any thought.

With me, I think the possessive nature of words takes precedence over any distinction between noun and pronoun, which leads me to make the same mistake over and over. I’m glad I’m not alone.

As for there, their, theirs, there’s, and they’re and there’re (two contractions I never used and that shouldn’t exist due to their sheer ugliness), I’ll sometimes mix them up too. And speaking of too, there’s to, two and too, which, for some reason, I never mix up.

There really should be a separate punctuation mark for possessives. Using the same mark for both contractions and possessives causes too much confusion.

Next, we could discuss the merits of the Oxford serial comma, or is that just an American debate? I’m unsure how anyone learns English. At least we don’t have all that gender nonsense muddying up the words like most other European languages.

Correction:

:grin:

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Language is such a fascinating and yet infuriating discipline.

All this talk of there’re reminds me of one of my favorite phrases I’ve heard here in Texas.

Y’all’d’ve

Or “You All Would Have” as in Y’all’d’ve lost it if someone said y’all’d’ve in conversation. And it does legitimately get used. All y’all’s brains would have exploded.

Probably best not. My head will explode! I always hated them, but more and more they are entering common usage, so I may just have to capitulate at some point – probably over my cold dead body!

Therein lies another problem: subject-verb agreement.

In this instance, it might be debatable depending on whether the emphasis is on the (singular) group or the separate subjects within the series. It could also depend on whether the first item in the series is singular or plural or the awkwardness of the there’re contraction.

Here’s an explanation of that ambiguity: