It Makes Me Mad!

Cruelty to animals, especially when you're young, is the short path to committing murder. I really can't understand why anyone would want to inflict pain or torture on a dumb animal. Yes, they're dumb but only in the sense that they cannot talk to us with words!

In the news recently, here in London, was the report that a 16 year old girl threw the cat that belonged and lived on HMS Belfast into the Thames.

What the hell for?
What punishment did she receive? She had to write an apology to the crew of HMS Belfast and was given a 9 month supervision order! WTF!?

Read more here: Ship's cat girl told to apologise.

I have to admit to not like these things at all.

Here are the things that make me mad about Forums:

Bullying

I hate bullying of any kind anywhere but Forums can be places that can breed bullying. In my experiences of the Internet, some forums can be quite 'clicky' and anyone new can be considered a prime target for ganging up on. Some forums are not well moderated so these threads can get out of hand long before they are locked and/or deleted.

A sense of anonymity

The whole internet can give people a sense of anonymity and forums are no different. It enables people to hide behind an avatar and behave in a way that they wouldn't dare to in real life. I suppose this comes down to bullying again :( They abuse, bully and start arguments simply because they can and they do not have any respect for any other internet users that may get in their way.

Here are my faults that frustrate people:

- I have a poor view of myself; I have no self confidence and no faith in my own abilities, no matter how much I'm told otherwise.

- I do not join in with discussions or debates especially if they provoke a strong opinion in me. Unfortunately, this gives people the impression I'm standoffish, cold or impolite but that is not my intention.

- I don't react in a conventional manner to any given situation or event. This makes it hard for people to discuss things with me in a rational way basically because I process information in a different way to the norm.

My Intolerances
- I don't tolerate teasing of any kind apart from..ahem...in the bedroom ;)
- I don't react well to promises being made and them not being honoured.
- Being poked, prodded or my hair pulled to attract my attention. I have a name, funnily enough!
- If I give an answer to your question, this is my FINAL answer. Don't keep pushing!

Again, this can all cause continuing problems with my relationships with people. Despite my desperation to be accepted, I'm often not because I'm perceived as standoffish or cold. I'm often misunderstood or a lot of people just can't make me out because I don't express a lot of my feelings or views.

Mind you, this has an advantage in that I often intrigue people. I call myself an acquired taste because people either love me or hate me; there is nothing in between :)

There hasn't been much that gets me annoyed about Squidoo. It has a good community and lensmasters are both supportive and friendly.

However, there are one or two things that do get me frustrated:

I wrote about one of my pet peeves on my blog, Squid Ink on Squid Top. You can read a little bit more about it on there.

1 - What really gets me angry/frustrated/peeved is people who don't read instructions! This can be for Group submissions, Lens comments and/or link Plexos. If you're submitting anything to somewhere, please do read the submission guidelines and if you don't understand something, just ASK! If you submit something that is incorrect, you're wasting my time and your own.

2 - This particular pet peeve makes me more confused rather than anything else and it happens all over the place, not just on Squidoo. It's people who do not interact for whatever reason. This pet peeve is mainly born from those who complain that you do not do much for them but when you do, they don't join in or give any feedback as to your efforts. What more can I do to encourage interaction?

3 - Bullying of ANY kind! Those who think they're better than everyone else because if their status, title, class, etc. Does it really make YOU feel better to put someone else down? What does that say about you? If I see bullying of the verbal, emotional, physical, mental kind, I will always side with the victim.

I'm sure a lot of people are with me on this one.

Those who own Dogs, take them for walkies and don't pick up their Doggy-doo when their beloved pooch has done his business all over a public right-of-way. The danger of transmitting viruses through faeces is, I thought, so obvious but I see it time and time again where people just do not pick it up!

Are they embarrassed?
Are they ashamed to be seen to be picking up poo?
Or, do they just not care about their country or other people's welfare?

The streets around my home are often littered with dog poo and, unfortunately, people just don't seem to be able not to stand in it so instead of having a somewhat neat-ish pile, you often see it traipsed down the pavement another 200 yards or so.

When I walk down the streets I spend most of my time with my head down watching where I walk so I don't tread in poo along with spit, puke and spilt drinks/foods. Yuck!

I would be more embarrassed about not picking it up if a dog that belonged to me did his duties on the pavement!

You own a pet; you alone are liable for his behaviour and such like so, surely, it's the least you can do?

1 - Pop-ups of any kind. Pop-ups are advertising on websites that pop up when you visit a website, click on a link, or after you leave. I hate them all especially those that are not blocked by my pop-up blocker. They're annoying; they encourage me to leave your website never to return; they can sometimes freeze my browser or even close the thing down altogether whilst I frantically try and stop them all opening.

2 - Downloading a file or software only to find that the file is completely empty! What's that all about? Is someone having a laugh?

3 - Spam. Hate the stuff; who doesn't? It clogs up my email client and it takes time to clear it all out. If it gets too bad I even have to abandon an email address entirely. It never advertises anything of interest anyway.

4 - Forms that do not work after you've spent all morning filling them in.

5 - Viruses/spyware etc. I recommend downloading and installing Free AVG. Brilliant anti-virus software that catches everything :)

As a child I was raised to always think of others before myself. Even now, I find it hard to be rude to others for whatever reason.

I try and always consider other's well-being before my own. For example, allowing others to sit whilst I stand, opening doors for other people, allowing others to pass through somewhere before I do, not pushing in front of others etc.

1 - People who walk straight into you and don't apologise but the minute you do the same thing to them because you are fed up/exhausted from moving out of the way all the time, they get all shirty with you!

2 - People who use you as an EXIT.

3 - People who do not make allowances for those who are disabled. My partner is physically disabled (one leg is longer than the other as the hip joint is completely destroyed and he is in constant pain) yet he often gets knocked into by cyclists and/or pedestrians who do not make allowances for him. He is unable to move out of the way quick enough. One knock or body twist can leave him in extra pain for the rest of the week, and that's no exaggeration. Or, even worse, he could fall and break a hip.

4 - People who call you stupid for no reason at all because it's more likely them that has the problem! This happened to me recently on a bus in London. I was standing up by the exit doors. Never in the way, always allowing people plenty of room to get off. A woman sitting behind me decided she was going to move across to sit with her daughter, grabbing hold of my hair in the process. She apologised and I said it was okay. However, I think it set off a bee in her bonnet because when she exited the bus after moving aside to allow a woman and her buggy to get off, she decided that I was in the way and called me a stupid woman!

Pfft! Why the hell didn't she say to me, excuse me, then? I don't deliberately get in the way of people. I move if I think I am likely to be in the way, usually to the detriment of myself. But, no, she seemed to think it was all my fault and called me stupid. What is the most annoying thing about this situation is, is that the woman with the buggy didn't think I was a problem. No one else had a problem with me being in the way. But, she got off and called me names for no reason at all. So, I had no chance of defending myself or asking her why she had to be so rude when all she had to do was say, excuse me. I would have moved, no questions asked!

In fact, thinking about it, if I hadn't been there, would she have then pushed past the woman with the buggy anyway? Would she have been rude to that poor woman? So, because she couldn't do that and had to wait to get off, she then took it out on me?

So it upsets me when I'm not given the same level of courtesy from others or thanked for my efforts.

A) Someone gives a service to you or the Internet in General. They do it out of the goodness of their hearts. They're not receiving any form of monetary payment for it. They only receive the pleasure of helping out others and maybe some additional traffic to their own Squidoo lenses or websites in payment for this service they provide.

What makes me mad! is the ingratitude of others with regards to this service that is provided! Ill feeling is published on forums or in the public eye about how they think it is unfair as to how this service is provided, how it is given and as to who it is given to.

I'm sorry but if you don't like it, just don't say anything at all! Or, why not create your own service that does a similar thing? These people are giving something to you for nothing! You don't have to do anything for it so just be pleased for those who receive any benefit from it.

B) You help people. You give them help or advice to a problem they may have. What do you get in return? No support for anything you may need help on or you receive a threat that if you use a service that they don't approve of, they will no longer have anything to do with you!

There are people out there that don't earn much money. They work from home due to ill health and are constantly seeking ways to earn money in order to provide for themselves and their family. So, if they come up with an idea or make an attempt to use a service that promises them the possibility of earning an income, please don't scupper that by making threats!

/rant

Okay, some of this is to do with me as a person, too.

We've all heard the phrase: "Buyer Beware".

However, I can't be entirely to blame, surely?

1 - I don't have much money and never had so when I do have it, I have to be really careful about what I spend it on. So, when I'm looking for help on the internet, I get really annoyed and disheartened at the amount of times that people (me) are duped into buying expensive products that are really hardly worth anything at all. These can include the same product being marketed as something new or different. Or, products (books) that aren't worth the paper they're printed on. You could spend a good amount of time reading a load of drivel about how this book is going to change your life, earn you money, drive loads of traffic to your site etc, etc. but in all honesty gives you:

a) information that you have already heard about 100's and 1000's of times before.
b) information that you really can't use because it's out of your price range or doesn't fit in with your needs. Research your market, anyone?
c) one sentence or even a paragraph of information right at the end that wasn't worth the money you paid for it but it's marketed as being worth hundreds of dollars/pounds/euros.

Not so much being taken advantage of but annoying all the same:

2 - Sales pages. I'm sorry but I HATE these things! They don't work (well not with me, anyway) no matter how many times you are told that they do. As soon as I see one, I click away!