Mine (and your) Room101 exhibits

[OLTB]

You were clearly too busy thinking outside the box and pushing the envelope, so had no time for helicopter thinking. I hope you all found the paradigm shift that you were clearly in search of.

Never heard of helicopter thinking, maybe that's what you use when you're ideating in the blue sky. Still, I'm sure we could work it out if we leverage our synergies.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…..

I must lie down.

Cheers, OLTB.

[scotia]

You were clearly too busy thinking outside the box and pushing the envelope, so had no time for helicopter thinking. I hope you all found the paradigm shift that you were clearly in search of.

Never heard of helicopter thinking, maybe that's what you use when you're ideating in the blue sky. Still, I'm sure we could work it out if we leverage our synergies.

Alternatively maybe the boss had run the flag up the flagpole to see who would salute it, and he needed a helicopter to get it back down.
I once carried out some work for a newly privatised company which had been encouraged by a bunch of consultants to get smartened up for this brave new world. A competition ensued to see who could produce the most ludicrous manager-speak.

[DiamondEcho]

- Adults riding skateboards, especially the kind with silly clattery little retro wheels that were superceded by larger/faster/quieter wheels from around 1975.

[OLTB]

1. 'Living' statues - I suppose it's more the crowd that gathers and remarks, 'oooh, isn't it clever'. No, it's not clever, someone has painted themselves one colour and is standing or sitting still. A professor of something is clever.

2. People who say Crimbo (for Christmas) or Hollybobs (for holiday).

3. People who close their eyes when they're talking to you.

4. People (mainly young'uns) who say, 'can I get' when ordering something.

5. People who serve you in a shop but are talking either on the phone, or to a colleague, whilst ignoring the person buying the thing that keeps them in that job.

I've looked at my list again and see a common theme of 'other people'.

And here was I thinking I was a people person (that's bound to get on someone's nerves ).

Maybe I should just live in the wilderness where 'other people' wouldn't annoy me.

Cheers, OLTB.

[WorldCupWilly]

On the people theme I'd gladly add:

People who stop on the steps of the tube station/busy street in front of you to read a text/look at Google maps - wtf?
People who walk along the street looking at their mobile phone rather than where they are going - I like to walk towards them so that they have to look up at the last moment and change direction
People who print out their balance before (and sometimes afterwards too ffs!) withdrawing money from a cash machine
People [mainly old] who seem to be reprogramming the Space Shuttle at the cash machine - how hard can it be !!!
People who get on the bus before fumbling in their handbag for their pass/payment card as if this could not have been anticipated - Grrrr

[bungeejumper]

The "cashier's friend" at the supermarket checkout. The one who's always standing in front of you when you're in a hurry, and who you just know has only come into the shop for a chat with her "friend" because she has nothing useful to contribute to society that might require her to be elsewhere.

So while you're waiting your turn at the till, with steam coming out of your ears, these two morons are discussing their rheumatism, their holidays, their grandchildren, their gardens, and how lovely it is to have so little to do in the afternoons. Grrrrr. And the cashier does nothing to try and move her friend along and out the door. You are doomed, stuffed, condemned to this torture until it decides to stop.

The cashier's friend invariably has a sheaf of coupons and money-off offers, half of which will be out of date. And by the time the idiot woman (it is, alas, always a middle-aged woman) has finished laboriously packing her stuff into her overweight bags (because she hasn't brought a trolley), you just know that she won't be able to find her loyalty card, or her credit card, or to remember her PIN number. And then she'll remember that she wants some cashback, but not if it's going to be in £20 notes, and she doesn't like those fivers with that miserable blue woman on them, so it's tenners only or she isn't interested.

And so it goes on. Buttock-clenchingly, blood-vessel-burstingly maddening. Grrrrrr again.

BJ

[gryffron]

"Three things" (Tony Blair - who also started every reply with 'Look'...)

Speaking of Tony reminds me...

Politicians who have been trained to wave their hands about in parallel whilst speaking. I guess they have been told by the PR people that it adds emphasis, but when they do it completely out of sync with what they are saying, it makes them look like some kind of demented Thunderbirds puppet. Tony Blair, Cameron, Ossy, the whole generation of "never done anything but politics" politicians, all did this. I blissfully thought it had dropped out of fashion with the current front benchers, but have recently noted that Sajiv Javid does it worse than anyone ever.

Gryff

[OLTB]

The "cashier's friend" at the supermarket checkout. The one who's always standing in front of you when you're in a hurry, and who you just know has only come into the shop for a chat with her "friend" because she has nothing useful to contribute to society that might require her to be elsewhere.

So while you're waiting your turn at the till, with steam coming out of your ears, these two morons are discussing their rheumatism, their holidays, their grandchildren, their gardens, and how lovely it is to have so little to do in the afternoons. Grrrrr. And the cashier does nothing to try and move her friend along and out the door. You are doomed, stuffed, condemned to this torture until it decides to stop.

The cashier's friend invariably has a sheaf of coupons and money-off offers, half of which will be out of date. And by the time the idiot woman (it is, alas, always a middle-aged woman) has finished laboriously packing her stuff into her overweight bags (because she hasn't brought a trolley), you just know that she won't be able to find her loyalty card, or her credit card, or to remember her PIN number. And then she'll remember that she wants some cashback, but not if it's going to be in £20 notes, and she doesn't like those fivers with that miserable blue woman on them, so it's tenners only or she isn't interested.

And so it goes on. Buttock-clenchingly, blood-vessel-burstingly maddening. Grrrrrr again.

BJ

Oh dear BJ...I think this topic has been useful for you to get the above off your chest and now you need to take a deep breath.

Now, here's the cash machine and where's my bank card and I must just top up my phone while I'm getting some cash out and pay that bill as well.

Cheers, OLTB.

[OLTB]

Mindfulness

Cheers, OLTB.

[Watis]

And don't forget the politician's trick of inserting 'eh' into whatever they are saying:

It is done in a way that is, eh, intended to give a sense of, eh, gravitas to what they are saying, to make it seem that they have put more, eh, deliberation into what they are saying.

Watis

[tea42]

You were clearly too busy thinking outside the box and pushing the envelope, so had no time for helicopter thinking. I hope you all found the paradigm shift that you were clearly in search of.

Time for a game of bullshit bingo!

House!

[swill453]

PIN number

This!



Scott.

[jfgw]

...with another armed guard to escort my wife and I to our table.

The use of "my wife and I" instead of "my wife and me".

If you are not sure which to use, try the sentence with just "I" or "me".

"...with another armed guard to escort I to our table" is wrong; likewise, "...with another armed guard to escort my wife and I to our table" is also wrong.

"...with another armed guard to escort me to our table" is correct, likewise, "...with another armed guard to escort my wife and me to our table." is correct.

More examples:

"I ordered the rhubarb and chilli pie for dessert" is correct, so "my wife and I ordered the rhubarb and chilli pie for desert" is also correct.
"The waitress brought me the pie" is correct, so "The waitress brought my wife and me the pie" is also correct.
"I ate the pie" is correct, so "my wife and I ate the pie" is also correct.
"The pie gave me diarrhoea" is correct, so "the pie gave my wife and me diarrhoea" is also correct.


Julian F. G. W.

[melonfool]

...with another armed guard to escort my wife and I to our table.

The use of "my wife and I" instead of "my wife and me".

If you are not sure which to use, try the sentence with just "I" or "me".

"...with another armed guard to escort I to our table" is wrong; likewise, "...with another armed guard to escort my wife and I to our table" is also wrong.

"...with another armed guard to escort me to our table" is correct, likewise, "...with another armed guard to escort my wife and me to our table." is correct.

More examples:

"I ordered the rhubarb and chilli pie for dessert" is correct, so "my wife and I ordered the rhubarb and chilli pie for desert" is also correct.
"The waitress brought me the pie" is correct, so "The waitress brought my wife and me the pie" is also correct.
"I ate the pie" is correct, so "my wife and I ate the pie" is also correct.
"The pie gave me diarrhoea" is correct, so "the pie gave my wife and me diarrhoea" is also correct.


Julian F. G. W.

The moral is - don't get married, or don't eat pie?

Mel

[AleisterCrowley]

People who take up two seats on a busy train.Often by plonking their bags on the second seat and pretending to be asleep. Sometimes shamelessly daring people to ask them to move their bags. I always ask...

People who use self service checkouts and dump all their stuff directly on the scales, then spend ages loading it all into their own bags. There is a 'use own bag' option available.

Round the table introductions in meetings, where everyone prefaces their name and role with 'Ermm..', like they've forgotten.

Baggy grey tracksuit bottoms and clunky trainers as 'casual wear'. Also, bright red and orange trainers.

Mentioned before, but that weird eyebrow stuff some women do now

Food and drink prices when there's a captive market (festivals, stations, work canteens-sorry 'cafés...)

Being ill.

Utility company phone messages which announce ' we are experiencing a particularly high volume of calls at the moment' - every time: day night, weekends whenever

[UncleEbenezer]

People who use self service checkouts and dump all their stuff directly on the scales, then spend ages loading it all into their own bags. There is a 'use own bag' option available.

Um, you lost me there. What are you expecting that people aren't doing?

[AleisterCrowley]

I'm expecting them to put their own bags on the 'scales' (bagging area) and load them as they scan.

[UncleEbenezer]

I'm expecting them to put their own bags on the 'scales' (bagging area) and load them as they scan.

Have you ever actually tried that? It takes forever when it insists on calling the supervisor every other item, and then gets into a state where even they can't deal with it and politely suggest taking the bag off. Even if it didn't, it takes *a lot* longer to pack a bag item-by-item than all at once.

[melonfool]

Yeah, that almost never works. I walked out of M&S in a strop one morning because it kept calling the supervisor and she said it was because I had put my own bag on the scales, I said you're supposed to, she said but it doesn't work. I walked out muttering that I didn't need whatever it was *that* much!

Mel

[Gengulphus]

I'm expecting them to put their own bags on the 'scales' (bagging area) and load them as they scan.

Ideally, that would probably be a bit faster, but in reality I've found that:

* The machines tend to object to one's own bag (or at least to mine) and call the supervisor over to check that it's OK (my guess is that this is deliberate when a bag is a bit heavy, to deal with those who 'inadvertently' have let something fall into the bag). That often takes long enough to more than wipe out any time savings.

* Packing order can be awkward if one has something like eggs that one wants both at the top of one's basket and at the top of one's bag - transferring things from one place to another works most quickly and easily if one can simply transfer them one at a time, roughly reversing the order. So doing two transfers basket -> packing area -> bag does the job rather more smoothly than a single basket -> bag transfer.

When I originally started using the self-service tills, I did try using the 'weigh own bag' option, but I stopped because I found that too often, it wasted time rather than saving it.

What I would cheerfully put into room 101 is those people who 'hover' very close behind me at a self-service till, presumably thinking it will hurry me up. That's both irritating for me because of the invasion of 'personal space', and counterproductive for them because it makes me take even more care than usual about things like shielding my PIN and not moving the wrong way, bumping into them.

Gengulphus