List of Christmas pet peeves

[SmivMoc]

1. "Blargle bitch sobcrywaaaambulance! YOU RUINED MY CHRISTMAS!"

"Cool! Two more and I get a bonus!"

[mathnerd]

A pet peeve from when I worked for Major Bank. When I started with them, I worked in loans and lines and eventually moved to deposit operations. Now, I never actually worked directly with customers, but branch employees could call us and we could hear the customers in the background.

Anyway, I cannot tell you how many times we'd get calls because an advance on a line of credit was declined or a savings/checking account was dormant. Now, dormant DDA's are easy to take care of. Verify a few things, a couple keystrokes, have the customer make some sort of monetary transaction and it's all good. The lines of credit are a different story.

Some of the major reasons for a decline:

1) Customer was more than 10 days late with their last payment. No, we're not going to lend you even more money if you can't pay us what you already owe.

2) The line is maxed out. Sure, it's possible for us to raise your limit, but we gotta get an application from you some time before you want to use the additional funds.

3) We've closed the account. There's a number of reasons we would have done this, and none of them are because you're such a great customer. You've either let it sit inactive for years, you've misused your other accounts with us or you've trashed your credit with outside accounts. Yes, we do occasionally check up on the credit histories of customers with unsecured lines...if you've tanked your credit, we can and do close your account with us. Yes it's legal. No, it's not our fault you didn't read the terms and conditions when you opened the account or the many updates we've sent you over the years or the letter we sent you when we closed the account. Get over it.

The thing is, if you're planning on spending a lot of money on a certain day, wouldn't it be a wise idea to make sure that the money is actually usable sometime BEFORE the day you want to spend it? Especially if that day is the biggest shopping day of the year AND it falls on a Friday, so even if you do come into the bank, we can't do a darned thing about it until we run overnight processing, which runs, you know, overnight?

I apparently ruined many thousands of Christmases because these people couldn't get their finances in order before they planed on spending any money.

[wolfie]

3. The asshole with the dog across the street. This guy, had a rather nasty German Shepherd...that did *not* like people. This damn dog would go nuts if someone was even walking past the house. So you can imagine how I wasn't surprised when after I dropped the paper on the porch...the dog smashed its way through the screen door, and sunk its teeth into my leg

Actually, it sounds like that dog did like people - in the same way that I like ham and cheese sandwiches.

I hope you took the matter to animal control, had that house assigned a "do not deliver" status, and preferably warned the post office about the dog.

[Monterey Jack]

God, I hate dogs that bark hysterically at you when you're just walking past their house on the sidewalk. Especially if they make a show of lunging in your direction. I like dogs, but when one is barking and lunging towards me, I always have to repress an urge to look down and grab the sturdiest stick I can find to defend myself.

[Estil]

I get that down this one street when I do certain errands (I don't drive so I must walk)...I always figured though the dogs smelled I was a cat owner and I guess were angry at me for being a traitor to their species!

[fireheart]

OK, it is currently summer down here (compared to you folks up north of the equator) so it's warm. Therefore, my own pet peeves relating to that are as follows:

-Selling products with snowflakes on them. It's 40 DEGREES CELSIUS. Similar vein...anything that's obviously "winter themed" for Christmas. Unless you are going to make/have a white Christmas, you do not need to buy a snowflake-shaped Christmas ornament.

-Tinsel. On cars. In the BRIGHT SUN. Very distracting. I don't mind the Rudolph antlers and the red nose that some people stick on their cars at this time of year, but the tinsel is very distracting and also will most likely not hold up well against the elements should it start raining. (The rudolph antlers and the red noses are designed for cars FYI)

-I've already posted about this in my sightings thread, but really really bad arrangements of Christmas carols. Double points if the arrangement happens to be a "perky upbeat" country/western/bluegrass-esque arrangement of a traditionally "slow" carol.

[downforit2008]

I'm sure I pretty much ruined some bitch's Christmas after I clocked out from W-Mart after a long shift last December, and when I was picking up a few things before heading home(we got a 20 percent discount on all items that day for employees!), I was listening to some 80's rock on my MP3 player and I guess that woman must have picked up the sounds of music from a couple of feet away while I was standing in line behind her.

Stupid Woman: You should be playing CHRISTMAS songs. Not THIS stuff! *taps me on the shoulder roughly*

I turned and stared her down with an icy look, and replied, "Who the hell are you anyway? My mother? My WIFE? I can play whatever the hell I want and I don't need your permission! Are you the CHRISTMAS POLICE or something?"

I doubt she recognized me as an employee! But she slunk out of line grumbling, "Snarl, BLARGLE BLARGLE. No Christmas spirit! Growl! BLARGLE!" The cashier was laughing at this, and so were the other 4 customers in line.

Cool customer: Christmas Police??? Ha ha! Guess she forgot to write you a ticket! She has no right to try and censor your music anyway!

That cool customer DID recognize me as an employee. The next several times, he would come up to me while I was on the clock and tease me, "Did the Christmas police get ya yet?" Nice guy too!

[downforit2008]

Isn't the point of an advent calendar to lift up one little flap each day until Christmas? Who would want one on Christmas Eve? They'd get to flip two little flaps and that's it!

I never did like those stupid advent calendars. If you're a chocolate fan, can you REALLY limit yourself to just one piece of chocolate a day for a whole month???

Unless you were to buy more than ONE advent calendar...Hmmmm...

[fireheart]

I never did like those stupid advent calendars. If you're a chocolate fan, can you REALLY limit yourself to just one piece of chocolate a day for a whole month???

Unless you were to buy more than ONE advent calendar...Hmmmm...

There's a few "advent" calendars down here that are themed around makeup or stationery. The stationery one seemed like a waste to me, but I always get the makeup one. For around $20 I get a full makeup kit that lasts me a year

[dawnfire]

There's a few "advent" calendars down here that are themed around makeup or stationery. The stationery one seemed like a waste to me, but I always get the makeup one. For around $20 I get a full makeup kit that lasts me a year

a bit more practical than melted chocolate (remember it's summer here). I like the German ones with gingerbread.

[Faetouched]

Just not a good Christmas if you work in retail/ food service and don't hear this phrase at least once.

Though to be honest, as much as I love hearing it I find it odd that not being open on Christmas and not being able to deliver pizzas ruined your holiday.

Yeah, we get calls on December 26th like this. At least 10. Im sure Im not the only one here.

Who the heck orders pizzas on Christmas?!

I don't get why people want to go shopping/to the movies/order out food on Christmas, or any major holiday. You know those same ones who constantly complain about how stores don't respect the holidays anymore and shouldn't even be open are going to be the ones trying to get you to take an expired coupon on one of the very days they gripe at you for being open! Ugh. People.

[Lace Neil Singer]

They're normally the same people who come in on a Sunday and bitch about stores being open on Sunday. Well, guess what? If you and people like you didn't want to shop on Sunday, they wouldn't be open!

[wolfie]

Exactly. Corporate is the opposite of Cooter - they may be dumb, but they ain't crazy. If they go over the stats for Thanksgiving and see that due to low sales, profits were substantially less than labour costs (and even "skeleton" labour costs of the minimum number of peons needed to keep the store open), you can be damn sure they'd be closed on Thanksgiving next year.

[Racket_Man]

Who the heck orders pizzas on Christmas?!

YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED. Not all persons celebrate Christmas in the stereotypical Norman Rockwell fashion. There are persons, who for what ever reason, are alone or the like during the holidays.

And remember not all people in whatever locale even celebrate Christmas. I know that I can get some great Chinese food (if I were so inclined) on Christmas Day.

When I worked at the gas station, you know what the biggest selling item was that day???? (hint it was NOT beer or booze or chips or soda)

Frozen pizza

[Lace Neil Singer]

Fair enough that someone wants an alternative to turkey and all the trimmings; however, calling up a pizza takeaway place to demand a delivery on Christmas Day and then turning nasty when told that the place is closed is not fair enough. Either buy a frozen pizza the day before or make it on the day; it's not hard.