People Who Are Terrible at Doors

You know what they say about doors.  Windows to the soul.  Opening to the house.  Entrance to the room.  Band from the 70's with Jim Morrison.  Doors are great - they provide privacy, keep in warmth or cold, they slam really satisfyingly when you are leaving the room during an argument. 

There are also a shocking number of people in the world who suck at using them.

Pull or Push.  It's Hard.

We've all been there.  You approach a door with confidence and aplomb, you reach out your hand triumphantly, you grip the handle, give a yank, and...nothing.  You were mid-stride, and now if you haven't already crashed into the door, you look like an idiot anyway.  Red-faced, you push instead, pray not too many people saw you, and go about your day.

Truly one of life's greatest struggles.

UNLESS.  Unless you are one of the failures who for some reason is so, so sure that you were correct the first time.  Your confidence was just in such ship-shape today that you know there's just no way you were not supposed to pull on that door.  You continue to pull, and pull, despite a crowd queuing up behind you, and you remain so sure that you're correct, all the while ignoring the fact that you are ruining countless lives at this moment.  Sometimes a helpful bystander tries to speak up.  "Uh - it's...push."  If you hear them, you usually give a look somewhere between, "Oh God, this is humiliating" and "Fuck you dude, I TOTALLY knew that."  If you don't hear it, you continue to make everyone's lives terrible with your stupidity and ego.

Oh, Did You Also Want to Go Through This Door?


When a bunch of people need to go through the same door, all in a row, there are certain codes of etiquette you follow.  Sure, there's the old standard of holding open a door for someone, whether it's allowing them to go through first, or holding it open behind you - but if someone is right there, so close there's no need to hold it open, most people give the door a little push to open it wider.  Those are nice people.

You know who are not nice people?  The douchebags behind them who slip through the door without touching it at all.  They take advantage of the kindness in front of them, and fail to pass it on.  Because I'm a lucky gal, I often find myself right behind these people.  They whisk through the door with ease, oblivious or uncaring that anyone is behind them, and then it slams in my face.  Let's review, since this can be hard to picture.

 Glass on your face actually doesn't feel great, contrary to popular belief.

 

Nice person enters a door, pushes it open behind them.
Terrible person slips through, failing to push or hold it open
Door slams shut behind them
I want to murder them

This one is extra offensive because it requires a real level of asshole not to understand that people are behind you during the morning rush.  When a door slams shut in my face, and I have to pull it open, everyone behind ME is now off their game, and we all want to kill you.  Happy now?

Hmmm....I've Walked Through a Door...What Now?

This is most often a tourist offense.  When you're lucky enough to work in a building famous enough for people to come visit it as a tourist attraction like me, you run into these people a lot.  They open a door, and you'd think they'd just stepped into technicolor Oz.  Open mouthed, they stop walking, look up and all around, hands reaching for camera, while you, the poor sucker behind them, are just trying to get to your office.

"Do you think we're blocking anyone?"  "Nah, I don't think that many people live here in New York City."

I'm not hating on tourists - I get it, cool buildings are neat to look at - but have the common decency to take a few more steps in before stopping short in your TRACKS to take photos!  Good lord, it's not that difficult!  And God help you if this happens at the top or bottom of an escalator - if I'm behind you, I will shove you out of my way with no remorse.  You are actually endangering the lives of people behind you, because we are on a conveyor belt of stairs that won't stop, even if you do.


Doors have been around for thousands of years.  It's actually kind of remarkable that there are people who still haven't figured out how they work and how to use them like decent human beings.  I hate everyone.

Adults Who Make Third Grade Grammar Mistakes on a Regular Basis

Before you jump down my throat for being a grammar Nazi, I ask you to note two things: number one, didn’t you read my post about comparing people to Nazis? Asshole. Number two, please look at the title again, carefully. Then read on.

From Kim Karshadian's Twitter:

@KimKardashian Kim Kardashian Good workout today! Did everyone get there's in?

Look how my boobs stay up on they're own!

Okay, I know Kim Kardashian doesn’t exactly set the gold standard for intelligence, but this is a frighteningly common mistake amongst our population. There. Their. They’re.

A place with unlimited Chinese food? I want to go to there.

Their family adopted a boy from Korea named Annyong.

Alison’s farts? They’re the worst smelling things in the world!

There. Their. They’re. Everyone did not get there’s in, Kim. People may have gotten theirs in. Like I wanna get my slap in your face. Speaking of your...



Possessive. Not possessive. That’s all you need to know.

These are your hammer pants.

You’re the only person I know who still has hammer pants.

If you can’t replace it with “you are,” it’s your. That’s all you need to remember, people. Why is that so hard?

Speaking of possession...


What can I say, I belong to the little green wedge. It's not. That. Difficult.


The honeybadger killed the prey with its sharp teeth.

Honeybadger don't care if it's dangerous out there.

If you can't replace it with "it is," then you need to write its. Got it?


Now back to the title of this post: the key words here are THIRD GRADE GRAMMAR and REGULAR BASIS. I rarely smite people for incorrect use of a semi colon or whom vs. who - these are things a lot of people don’t learn until they’re a little older, and I understand that kind of stuff is easy to let slip. But when you correct anyone on “you’re/your” or “their/there/they’re,” they almost always KNOW what they did was wrong afterwards. Because everyone learned that shit when they were seven years old! There’s NO excuse.

At the same time, I’m not unreasonable - I understand the occasional flub, especially in a quick text message or instant message, gchat conversation, whatever. It happens. As some of my friends know, that doesn’t stop me from correcting you when it happens, but it doesn’t make me groan with shame and disrespect.

I also get called a bitch sometimes. But this bitch has a badge, suckas!

This brings me to the “regular basis” piece - there are people - people I have worked with - who had master’s degrees - that made these mistakes so fucking often that I was embarrassed to be employed by the same institution that hired them. That’s when I truly start to question your intelligence, because if you’re screwing these simple basic words up so often that it becomes an office joke, you need to look at your life and your choices. No, I don’t believe anyone truly made the choice to misspell everything or use their/they’re/there inappropriately, but they did make the choice not to read over their email again. They did make the choice not to have a trusted friend with a sharp eye read over their email before they sent it out to several colleagues. And that’s where the annoyance comes in - if you know you write like shit, you better have some plan in place to correct it, because you don’t want to be seen as the village idiot. Unless you don’t think you write like shit. In that case I don’t know what to do with you. Go walk into traffic.

Are you happy now? Idiot.

I could go on about this general issue for 10 more pages - discussing how “acrossed” (across’d? acrost? How do people assume that is spelled?) is Not. A. Word. Or how “alls we have to do” makes me want to punch a baby. Alot is never, never, never a single word (auto correct wouldn’t even let me type it without a fight!). Apostrophes are so misused it's almost useless to discuss. I could also write an entirely separate entry about spelling errors, although I tend to be a bit more forgiving with those, having several highly intelligent friends who are notoriously shitty spellers.

I could also make an entirely separate entry about how anyone under the age of 20 is seemingly incapable of communicating effectively and clearly - thanks to lax school standards, email, text messaging, tweeting, etc., spelling out full sentences seems to have gone down the drain. As someone whose job used to involve many many emails from 18 years olds*, I can tell you the "urs," "thx," and "plz" are now considered appropriate by today's children. Holy shit do I fear for the future.

But nay, for now I will only focus on the little things. Because when you can't handle the simple stuff - the stuff you were supposed to know by fourth grade - you need to grab a childrens' grammar book, hunker down, and study. No matter how technology changes, I think writing will still be around for awhile. Learn how to do it.





*That makes me sound like I was a professional molester or something. I worked with college students, you dirty minded bastard!