The Best Of...
Pet Peeves Volume II: Office Absurdities, Tech Battles, and Gas Station Grumbles
Why do we put up with pointless meetings that could easily be emails? Join the lawyer, the engineer, and the school superintendent as we hilariously dissect our everyday pet peeves. We kick things off with an epic rant about traveling 12 hours for a five-hour meeting that could have been virtual. Laugh with us as we navigate through the absurdities of office life, and perhaps find a few hidden perks—like enjoying a cozy hotel stay with top-notch TV and gourmet meals.
Switching gears, we dive into the tech battles that leave even the best of friends at odds. Ever been frustrated by automatic name assignments in Word or the chaos of mixed smartphone ecosystems? We've got you covered. From proper business name pronunciations to a passionate endorsement of Publix’s carrot cake, this episode is packed with laughs and relatable rants. And don’t miss our take on the modern gas station experience, complete with a surprising shoutout to the "Whatchamacallit" candy bar. Relive the little annoyances that we all share and find some humor in the chaos.
Why do we put up with pointless meetings that could easily be emails? Join the lawyer, the engineer, and the school superintendent as we hilariously dissect our everyday pet peeves. We kick things off with an epic rant about traveling 12 hours for a five-hour meeting that could have been virtual. Laugh with us as we navigate through the absurdities of office life, and perhaps find a few hidden perks—like enjoying a cozy hotel stay with top-notch TV and gourmet meals.
Switching gears, we dive into the tech battles that leave even the best of friends at odds. Ever been frustrated by automatic name assignments in Word or the chaos of mixed smartphone ecosystems? We've got you covered. From proper business name pronunciations to a passionate endorsement of Publix’s carrot cake, this episode is packed with laughs and relatable rants. And don’t miss our take on the modern gas station experience, complete with a surprising shoutout to the "Whatchamacallit" candy bar. Relive the little annoyances that we all share and find some humor in the chaos.
three guys around the table and by three guys.
Speaker 3:We're talking about three friends a lawyer, an engineer and a school superintendent and just like our personalities, our opinions vary and we certainly don't always agree. Whether we're discussing the best of or giving our tips and tricks of, things in everyday life, you're sure to learn something if you stick around.
Speaker 1:Well, we're back at it again. We got all three of us here. I'm getting started off today because we're back on, because of the rave reviews we've had from a previous one.
Speaker 3:We had to do section two of pit peeves. Why do you think you're the one that leads off? Because in the rave reviews everyone said, oh my God, greg is like he's speaking to me, because I am the only one who spoke the truth that podcast, you know I am the voice of the people.
Speaker 1:Yep, I am still just having stomach issues. Me too, because there's still people breathing. Okay, moving on, it's been a great day today at work, so I am ready for this one.
Speaker 2:Fantastic.
Speaker 1:You need to have the bleep button ready, I'll jump on that.
Speaker 2:You're going to have to test that real quick.
Speaker 3:I honestly can't remember which one it is. That's not it. Nope, that's not it. That's not it.
Speaker 1:Nope, that's not it, that's it, that's it, that's it. Okay, so now be prepared.
Speaker 2:Well, so pet peeves can take. You know we could do about a million episodes on this.
Speaker 1:I've had some good comments on the last one.
Speaker 2:And I think that you, you know since what you just said.
Speaker 3:There's a difference. Your wife goes yes, greg, all those pet peeves drive me crazy as well. No, we've. She did not say that.
Speaker 2:She prefers people to breathe. That's true. That's true.
Speaker 1:Now I did tell her who the client was on the toenail deal.
Speaker 3:God, don't bring that up again.
Speaker 1:It's fantastic. She knows who the person is, but did she?
Speaker 3:say yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 1:No, no, she was disgusted by it.
Speaker 2:The only thing better is if they chew them, you know if they chew their toenails, bring that foot right up there. That's so terrible.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I got one. I'm going to go ahead and start today, because this happened today.
Speaker 2:Let's go Wait. Wait before you do. Okay, I'm ready, you ready, Hang on, hang on Real quick.
Speaker 3:Somebody breathed. That's your deal.
Speaker 1:No, I've already passed that one today. Okay, good, good, we had a meeting at the office today. Completely useless, should have been an email. Complete waste of time. So one of my pet peeves is don't make me come to a meeting that you can send me a four-line email and that tells me everything I need to know and me waste 30 minutes to an hour. I don't need to hear you speak.
Speaker 2:Does this happen often in your line of work? Both of you.
Speaker 3:People like to hear themselves talk sometimes. I'm probably going to get in trouble with this one, but allow me this Do you guys not remember, I don't know, six months ago, when I was sitting here irate before a podcast, because I was sent an email that I had to, or needed to, be in a meeting? It was a five-hour meeting in Birmingham, alabama. I am six hours away. I was going to drive six hours down and six hours back for a five-hour meeting. The problem is the meeting started at 8 am Central Time. Of course we're on Easter, no big deal, so I would have to drive down and waste half a day going down, stay overnight, have a meal, be in a meeting for five. I'm sure it was a great meeting. It really was.
Speaker 1:You know where would you have had the meal at, because that may change my mind on whether you should have attended the meeting or not. Chances are.
Speaker 3:It would have been, let's see, in Birmingham If it was set up by the people in the meeting. It probably would have been someplace like Applebee's, paul Fleming's or something like that, which is good right.
Speaker 1:It's good.
Speaker 3:I don't know what that is. The owner of PF Chang's created his own steakhouse. It's very good, or you know what, guys? We'd probably have gone to Surland myself and had ribs and picked up grape and go right back Anyhow, six hours down, half a day. Yep, I would have had that expense that you could have just given to the company.
Speaker 2:They would have reimbursed you. It was a company expense.
Speaker 3:Hotel room.
Speaker 2:So far I'm not seeing the problem.
Speaker 3:Hotel room meeting meeting the next morning. I've gotten up. I would have had a meeting until one o'clock, yeah, and then I've driven six hours home.
Speaker 2:So if you got the hotel room though, you could check in. You could turn on the tv, find me tv on there, watch the andy griffith show and mash. It would have been a perfect heroes. It would have been a perfect night. What so? What are you talking?
Speaker 3:This is a great, I want to do this. So my problem was I'm going. Okay, let me think about this from a financial perspective. Me TV. It is 12 hours of driving with fuel at three 50 a gallon. Three, 75 a gallon that's my time behind the windshield. That is a gallon. That's my time. Behind the windshield. That is a meal. Yep Right, that is a meeting that's lasting five hours. So guess who didn't go to the meeting? Because it didn't make financial sense. Well, guess what? Hold on, I get it, I don't know what the issue is yet.
Speaker 3:So I called to the meeting coordinator and said can I take this call? Virtually the one thing that COVID taught us is yes, I agree with this. Wash your hands, you filthy animals and Virtual works Correct. And the answer was no, we need you in person. Okay, so I didn't go to that meeting. Lo and behold.
Speaker 1:So you disobeyed a directive From corporate.
Speaker 3:Lo and behold, in March, march, they send out. For those of you who have not been able to attend one of these meetings in person, we're now having a meeting on thursday morning from eight till noon, virtually discussing the same exact thing. They wanted me to drive to birmingham for boys. Yes, the meeting could have been done virtually and they finally admitted it after Putting me through all this ridicule. I'm just saying I saved the company money.
Speaker 1:Still attended the meeting, but it was nonsense. It was a meeting that could have been virtually.
Speaker 3:Now, that's a different story. Do you want my opinion on the meeting, because that's very different as well.
Speaker 2:We've got a lot of listeners in Birmingham. I think you better be careful. This may not be a good we may need to move on.
Speaker 1:Mark, do you have any meetings?
Speaker 3:that should have been even the answer is the meeting was well worth my time. It was great I should have been there in person. I regret not being there. Okay, moving on.
Speaker 2:I'm going to move away from work just for one second and talk about the grocery store, because you know.
Speaker 3:I hate the grocery store. Most people do Love it.
Speaker 2:I happen to enjoy it Okay, up to a certain point.
Speaker 1:That's your own fault, that's true. Oh, by the way, before you start, I will never go to Walmart again when Target opens. Oh yeah, ever. Are you kidding?
Speaker 2:This is the greatest thing ever Before you start, I will never go to Walmart again when.
Speaker 1:Target opens, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Ever Are you kidding? This is the greatest thing ever.
Speaker 3:There is no possibility.
Speaker 1:I'll go to Walmart ever again.
Speaker 3:Number one. I don't understand that. We'll come back to this. I don't understand this comment. I really, truly don't. But we'll move on, then we'll come back.
Speaker 1:I don't understand it.
Speaker 3:All right. You don't. We'll do a podcast after this one about Target versus Walmart, All right moving on.
Speaker 2:It ain't going to be much of a podcast. It'll be short and sweet.
Speaker 3:Target rules next question. I agree, but we have to discuss this first.
Speaker 2:Moving on. All right, go ahead and thank you to our sponsor today Walmart Walmartcom.
Speaker 3:Hello, hello, it's called Walmart's, thank you.
Speaker 2:I lose my patience and faith. I lose my patience In faith and humanity when I'm going down a grocery aisle with my cart and someone in front of me has parked their cart in the center of the aisle so I cannot go left and I cannot go right to go around this person and they park it there with a cart full of groceries and they walk away to go get something off of the shelf 10 feet down, as opposed to just taking your cart down. Pull it over to the left or pull it over to the right and allow me to get through.
Speaker 3:He doesn't know the policy. What you're supposed to do is pick whatever you like off the shelf, put it in their cart and move on.
Speaker 2:Well, actually the thing that I do is is generally just bash my cart into theirs and say oh, I am so sorry, I didn't see your cart there.
Speaker 1:Does that make you feel better? I've bashed carts before, but I don't say I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Oh, usually I'll do it in a foreign language to make it really like I'll pull out some German. In short, you can see For don't do choice of cough.
Speaker 3:That's a pet peeve.
Speaker 1:One of the funniest things that kind of goes along with. It happened to me and you when we were in Destin.
Speaker 3:You remember when COVID was going on? I was never in Destin, you remember?
Speaker 1:when COVID was going on.
Speaker 3:And they had the arrows.
Speaker 1:Look past stupid.
Speaker 3:Don't tell me which way to walk in a grocery store.
Speaker 1:And of course I went whatever way I wanted to and this Karen in the store, she kept going how'd you?
Speaker 3:know her name.
Speaker 1:You're going the wrong way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know how you knew her name.
Speaker 1:It's around and so then, Chris and I start running around the entire store saying you're going the wrong way, we were not.
Speaker 2:No, no, that was when uh, I remember when Walmart here um, when all that was going on and they made you stop outside.
Speaker 1:To go in.
Speaker 2:Six feet in between each of you, and they would let you in one person at a time.
Speaker 1:Had that workout. Do you remember that? Had that workout.
Speaker 2:I mean what? Okay, and I understand. And no one knew what COVID was going to do, and all that. I get all that Fauci support. Having said that, what difference does it make if they monitor your entrance into the store?
Speaker 3:But as soon as you're in there, if I want to go right next to someone and stand right in the aisle, I can. It's a free-for-all. We're not going to turn this into a COVID deal. Let's go back to where we started Pet peeves. Let's talk about pet peeves, okay.
Speaker 1:I feel better already.
Speaker 3:So I briefly filled you guys in. I have some pet peeves Shocking. Most of them are related to driving, but the ones I'm dealing with right now. I'm in a docu-share process with a lot of different people right. So I'm creating documents, sending them out to random people, having them update them send me back with data, right.
Speaker 3:Data they can access from different places. Number one my computer is already set up. When I create a document, you know what's pretty awesome about it. It says document created by. Don't be cute and go in and change who created that document, trying to make it look like you did the work. I don't like when people take credit for work they didn't do. But here's the thing your computer does it automatically. If you're assigned into Word, it automatically assigns your name to the document.
Speaker 2:What is this 2001?
Speaker 3:Word. I mean, aren't you?
Speaker 2:a Google Doc guy.
Speaker 3:Dude, I'm on MS-DOS. What are you talking about? He's a Word, perfect man. Windows 95.
Speaker 2:But you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 3:When you go into Word or Excel, when I create a document, when I create it, it automatically assigns my name to it. Don't think you're being cute and go in behind me and change who the creator of that document is trying to make it look like you did the work. Nonsense, mark, hit that button. I want to cuss real quick, okay.
Speaker 2:Hold on a second.
Speaker 1:That's bull**** Anyhow, so don't do that.
Speaker 3:Number two in Excel, maybe something I don't have set up right, but for all the years I've used Excel when I create a spreadsheet and I am the king of spreadsheets, I do so many spreadsheets for my job. It is ridiculous Pivot tables, all that. I'm always in that stuff. When I create and save a document, always save it in cell A1. That's at the top left of the document. That's where you will start viewing it. That's how you will see it. Do not save my document after you've modified it halfway down in cell D44. Because then I'm not seeing the whole document when I look at it in an editor mode right, truly, this is appropriate.
Speaker 2:Look, I'm out.
Speaker 3:Went right over my head. Three buddies sit around a table Google Forms. Three buddies around a table A superintendent, a lawyer and an engineer. Let me emphasize the engineer part.
Speaker 2:Google Sheets man.
Speaker 3:So save your stuff as you found it in the cell you found it in, and don't change my formatting and stand in the place where you were Don't change my formatting. If I formatted it one way and you change it, fantastic, change it back to me before you send it back all right.
Speaker 2:So, greg, you got one, I'm ready to jump on.
Speaker 3:That's as bad as toenails.
Speaker 2:That's, that's pretty bad all right okay, I'm, I got one when you send a text message to a group oh, Uh-oh, I feel personal here. And maybe the group has six people right and five of them have iPhones.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And one of them doesn't Green. And your whole thing is green instead of blue. I lose it at that point.
Speaker 1:I don't have a problem.
Speaker 3:I don't.
Speaker 2:My buddy Rick Mellon in Florida if you're listening to this.
Speaker 1:Is he not an iPhone guy?
Speaker 2:You, sir, need to get an iPhone.
Speaker 1:Is he an Android man? He is an.
Speaker 2:Android man Pass Yep.
Speaker 1:I'm tired of seeing the green.
Speaker 3:So here's the problem.
Speaker 2:Pass.
Speaker 3:Listen, it only makes a difference if you're operating off of Wi-Fi, only because you cannot send an iMessage to a group. If someone has an Android from Wi-Fi, only Because it's considered a text message and not an iMessage. You cannot send that and that's the problem.
Speaker 1:So basically, mark is pro-monopoly, mark is all about red pill, blue pill.
Speaker 3:He wants the pill everybody else takes. But I'm right there with him, I can't argue.
Speaker 1:Look, I'm an iPhone man, we're an iFamily, it is.
Speaker 3:I I.
Speaker 1:I.
Speaker 3:Let me say this to you the devil says buy the iPhone. Anyone who doesn't have an iPhone has a serious problem. The devil has spoken.
Speaker 2:He pops in sometimes. Sometimes it is.
Speaker 3:Hey look, ric Flair Dusty.
Speaker 1:Rhodes. Is this kind of the anniversary Of when Dusty Rhodes died?
Speaker 2:It is Nine years ago today, oh.
Speaker 3:But what else Happened today? I sent you, boys, a text earlier. Tony Soprano had onion rings. That was yesterday. That was yesterday.
Speaker 2:Same thing, it's the same day. Close 12 hours. Dusty Rhodes and Tony Soprano Two different cats.
Speaker 3:Dude, Tony Soprano had onion rings at Holston's and they were pretty good.
Speaker 2:You got another pet peeve that you want to blast about.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to figure out one that you wouldn't have to hit the beat button on.
Speaker 3:Can I sum it up for him Breathing, you know, I'll give you one real quick. And it's just a generality when people mispronounce business names it's not Kroger's, it's not JCPenney's.
Speaker 1:It's not K Roger's, it's not Walmart's, it's not.
Speaker 3:It's really not. If you notice, it's a person's name, have respect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, walmart is somebody's name.
Speaker 3:Yeah, roy Walmart, he lived in there in Arkansas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he had a cousin named Jimmy. Yes, jimmy Walmart's cousin, that's right.
Speaker 3:And by the way, the guy's name was Barney Kroger, just for the record. Yeah, out of Cincinnati Ohio, ke Roger.
Speaker 2:But here's the thing Don't call for this. John Q Publix, you know, boing Publix, baby Publix, please sponsor us.
Speaker 1:You are the greatest supermarket chain Better than all of them.
Speaker 2:In the history of the world.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Not just America, the world Publix. We love you. But you know somebody that has been with Kroger for a long time. Yeah, and I used to work at Kroger. Publix is the greatest thing of all time.
Speaker 3:I gotta admit they're carrot cake Out of this world.
Speaker 1:You said they're key cake out of this world. I thought you said they're key lime pies.
Speaker 2:No, no, no they're key lime pies and they're guava pastries.
Speaker 3:Oh, come on now, that is heavenly. Come on now, my mother, I get her the key lime pie.
Speaker 2:I get the carrot cake. You would love the carrot cake. The fried chicken in the deli is ludicrous.
Speaker 1:I thought we were talking about pet peeves. So you don't have a Publix in Frankfurt to get the fried pet peeves.
Speaker 3:Ludicrous works in the deli. I didn't know that. What Luda?
Speaker 2:It happens Anyway.
Speaker 1:What happened? I don't know Crazy.
Speaker 2:Someone died, I don't know what Crazy.
Speaker 1:This is a pet peeve.
Speaker 3:Someone died.
Speaker 2:I don't know what that was.
Speaker 1:Yay, my day just got better.
Speaker 3:All right, pet peeves moving on. You guys didn't like my last ones. They seem a little personal. You know it's a stressful time right now. They seem a little bit personal.
Speaker 2:They seem a little, you know very narrow, and that's okay. It's cool man, that's cool. It's cool man.
Speaker 3:Okay, I got one All right, I got one.
Speaker 2:This is kind of a historical one. Kind of. Mtv I love it MTV. They do not play videos anymore.
Speaker 1:You've really jumped the shark, do you know? We went to Drake's the other day and they had a channel that played music videos the whole time on, and Janie made that exact comment. She said I didn't even know they made music videos anymore. Do you know?
Speaker 3:a video killed the radio star. That's what they say. That's what the Buggles said.
Speaker 2:That's a problem for me. Me, I loved videos as a kid man when MTV first came out. What year did it come out? 80?, 81?
Speaker 1:So you were like 41, 42, somewhere along those lines.
Speaker 3:I can tell you this I would stay home on snow days and I would watch a lot of videos. I'm going to get us back into reality here real quick. No, no, no, no. This is terrible.
Speaker 1:I used to go to the movies a lot. Now we've not been to the movies a lot lately.
Speaker 3:I didn't have enough money to go to the movies did you.
Speaker 2:You of the three residents. It wasn't when I was growing up. Okay, I'm in.
Speaker 3:Little Hood.
Speaker 1:A couple of things I don't like about movies. People are not afraid to crunch their popcorn as loud as possible in movies, yeah or opening packages of like candy and stuff that takes like four minutes to open, or talking during the movie, just all of those things. I want to punch them in the face just sit there and enjoy the cinematic experience I will never forget.
Speaker 1:Janie and I went much passion of the christ in the theater and this lady behind us was chomping down on some popcorn and I thought Janie was going to turn around and smack her in the face.
Speaker 2:Is that like Jerry Seinfeld making out during Schindler's List?
Speaker 1:For the record.
Speaker 3:Passion of the Christ. When that came out, I went and watched that movie by myself at a matinee. Were you chomping on some popcorn and I will tell you how that woman could eat during that movie. I have no idea In no way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it wasn't light fare no.
Speaker 1:Seriously, it was just chomping down.
Speaker 3:I thought Janie was going to kill her. You know, okay, I'm going to one-up you real quick. You know what I love. Don't go in there, it's dangerous.
Speaker 2:He's behind the door. I hate that shit Talk.
Speaker 1:Terrible. There's a movie on.
Speaker 2:What do?
Speaker 3:you think is going to happen.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:He's not really dead, is he?
Speaker 2:We all agree that my hearing is not great okay exactly I can't hear what. So when when I'm I the last time the carrie and I went to a movie, she's looking over at me. I'm getting credit for that.
Speaker 1:That was.
Speaker 2:It was black and white.
Speaker 1:Look, they had the guy turning the reel.
Speaker 2:I'm giving you applause on that that was good Carrie every three minutes was like what did he say? What did he say? I just wanted to say I don't know.
Speaker 1:Now are you deaf enough that you need the captions on Like? Janie prefers the captions on Like on Netflix. You know how you can turn the captions. Prefers it?
Speaker 3:I do that on Peaky Blinders I can't watch that show.
Speaker 2:because of that, you've got to turn it off.
Speaker 1:I don't watch TV to read.
Speaker 2:I'm not to that full point yet, but Real close. But don't talk during movies. No, no and again go ahead, Chris, what do you got?
Speaker 3:I've got a great pet peeve that affects us all, though. I don't go to movies, man, and I'll tell you what I used to love movies, me too.
Speaker 2:But there's been.
Speaker 1:No good ones out.
Speaker 2:No, I don't know any of the movies now.
Speaker 1:The last one I went to Is the new Top Gun.
Speaker 2:Oh god, I haven't even been to Dude, I've not been to a movie.
Speaker 3:Since, like Green Mile In, like 2000 or something like that, really I don't like movie theaters. I don't fit well in the seats, and if they do have those nice reclining seats I fall asleep.
Speaker 1:I fell asleep during talk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, man, don't give me a recliner, that's dumb. I'm going to fall asleep.
Speaker 1:The one at the Lex. They recline and they've got heat in them or massage in them or something like that.
Speaker 3:Really what?
Speaker 1:are you?
Speaker 3:paying. All right, I'm totally okay with it. I got a pet peeve that's affected every one of us in the last month that you've not thought about.
Speaker 1:Yep People breathing.
Speaker 2:We're waiting patiently.
Speaker 3:The day of going to a gas station and not using a credit card is gone. How many times do you pull up to a pump and say see cashier, or it won't take your card and you move to another pump? I've done that a ton. I do it all the time. If it doesn't take my car to that pump, I'm moving on and I've left gas stations and driven another five miles on fumes to do it because I refuse to go in and pay for my fuel.
Speaker 1:You know how you can tap to pay. Sometimes it won't do that, so then I just go to a different pump. Right, right, right, but you will not go inside.
Speaker 3:You will drive 10 miles on fuse but you will not walk inside. But you'll go in there and go to the bathroom, but you won't walk in there to pay for your fuel.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not walking in to pay for fuel and then coming back and pumping it and then walking back in. No, sir, not happening, not happening, 0%.
Speaker 3:So tell me if you're going to get a gas station, make sure your pumps work, because I'm paying it to pump or you're not getting my business.
Speaker 2:Not. Seems reasonable. Yep, seems reasonable. I'm right there.
Speaker 3:All right, covid See that's one that affected everybody. Yeah, all right. Yeah, well, I think, 23 minutes in.
Speaker 2:I think that again, we're going to have to do volume three soon, that's. I think that's you know what we could do.
Speaker 3:I mean honestly, if we're thinking about it in the stories like that that have affected all of us Well the fact that your son-in-law acts like it's him. It's always him, he's the problem. What about a Whatchamacallit? Greatest candy bar I've never had until?
Speaker 1:today, whatchamacallit Solid. I remembered to bring a gift.