pet peave

[JR]

You just knew Scott Adams would have a take on this!

[Two Much]

I thought about for days, and tried to think if I had a pet peeve, and concluded that I don't have one...
then I read thegman's post and thought yes!; that's a good one, I agree with that.

Then I thought of the telemarketers and how they call and ask for my husband by his first name like
they know him, I then ask -- whose calling and they say "Joe" ( they never identify where thier from)
I then say, something like, "Oh Joe, this is Joann, how's the family? I'm so looking forward to meeting
you next Saturday at Bill's 50th birthday party!"

They are caught off guard and say, something like,
"you don't know who your talking to?" I assure them that I do, and hang up...Like really, you think I'm
going to put my husband on the phone, and you think he's going to commit to giving you a bunch
of our money to invest, and you can't even be above board with me.

Now if they call and say their
from such and such company, I tell them -- thanks for the call, but we already have a financial manager.

I feel for telemarketers, everyone has to make a living, but be above board about it. Even though it's tough
cause men have less willpower then women, they shouldn't try and get past them. Ok, here we go,
"what! men have less willpower than women!"
Before, you guys say anything, remember the movie Boilermaker -- " Never pitch the Bytch!"

[Tom Slick]

My pet peeve is people with pet peeves.

j/k

[JoeyGee]

There are companies that make huge money making up their own terms for simple things and convincing people they know something. Our company has bought into the "Project Management Institute". I got PM-1 certified under our previous process and checked out one of their courses on project communications. They grossly confused a simple concept with all kinds of new terminology and then gave you a test that only tested whether you knew their terms. I was constantly thinking "if you want to know what the customer wants and when ask them". That was never an option. Garbage. I don't really use my certification and plan to keep doing the same thing for a few more years then retiring so I will just let it lapse. But I hate to see us wasting money on nonsense. The courses are expensive and time consuming and the value is very low. Maybe negative. If you spend all your time on their silly terminology and processes, you may fail to think about what you really need to consider and mess things up.

Yes, this x100. When I worked for a large company, I lost count of how many new business practices were going to revolutionize (er, I mean, "shift the paradigm") the way the company did business--down to the core, of course. Lean principles, PMI, Six Sigma, etc, etc, etc. Every 3 years or so there would be a new one. When they kicked it off, they would ALWAYS say, "Yes, we have tried other methods, but this one is so effective, so deep and we are so committed ("bought in") this is going to drive the company forward". Everyone knew when you start with that phrase that, yep, this will be gone soon.

Basically, top executives get flown somewhere, get wined and dined and shown how awesome this new process is. Then they spend millions on it and it goes nowhere. Then they the cycle repeats.

[capncarl]

To elaborate a little more on big businesses getting sucked into the new concepts, what ever you want to call them. I call them tap-um-dry concepts where, like Joe said a business falls head over heels in love with some with something and then falls head over heels with the next flavor. The people that start these business concepts are just like car salesmen pushing their "product", tapping the customer till his pocketbook is dry! What scares me is our government falls for this as well. My last stint with the Marine Corps exposed me to the same stuff that I had been wrestling with for the past 20 yrs. in the real world. Six Sigma, Black Belt and on and on. When they came to me to join their training, knowing that I had already completed most of what they were teaching some years ago, I would tell them where to put their black belt, and most of the people that jumped on these concepts band wagons were usually the suck-ups and weren't doing anything anyway.
capncarl

[leehljp]

Yes, this x100. When I worked for a large company, I lost count of how many new business practices were going to revolutionize (er, I mean, "shift the paradigm") the way the company did business--down to the core, of course. Lean principles, PMI, Six Sigma, etc, etc, etc. Every 3 years or so there would be a new one. When they kicked it off, they would ALWAYS say, "Yes, we have tried other methods, but this one is so effective, so deep and we are so committed ("bought in") this is going to drive the company forward". Everyone knew when you start with that phrase that, yep, this will be gone soon.

Basically, top executives get flown somewhere, get wined and dined and shown how awesome this new process is. Then they spend millions on it and it goes nowhere. Then they the cycle repeats.

In a similar vein:
This is NOT to intended to be a "religious" discussion, but rather its "operation." I see the same thing in many of our churches. Every few years a new slogan or directive will come along and everyone jumps on the bandwagon. With the slogan comes terminology changes which are slapped on top of what they are already doing without any "changes". I lived during a major paradigm shift overseas that worked and is working BIG TIME (overseas in several countries). Back home the paradigm shift slogan and terminology were "reinvented" and slapped on top of decades old on-going church practices (basically re-nameing old practices) with the result of people saying it doesn't work.

Upon returning from Japan, I was asked to help in re-vitalizing our area churches. People want this, but they don't want to change or let go of old things that are not working. Their focus is flat out on the wrong thing, and they want changes without changing!

Thanks for letting me rant!

[leehljp]

To elaborate a little more on big businesses getting sucked into the new concepts, what ever you want to call them. I call them tap-um-dry concepts where, like Joe said a business falls head over heels in love with some with something and then falls head over heels with the next flavor.
capncarl

LOL - taking this literally: I used to love beef jerky. In the past 5 years I have watched normal smoked salty beef jerky go out of style. I travel quite a bit and often stop at different truck stops that have tons of beef jerky. 99% are different versions of something with "sweet meat" or odd ball meats or teriyaki flavored, etc. What ever happened to salty smoked beef jerky without "sugars"?

I go to Springfield MO 3 or 4 times a year to visit a daughter, to Dallas 2 to 3 times, to Atlanta 2 or 3 times, to New Orleans once or twice a year. Lots of jerky in many kinds of stores. Some store are beef jerky only stores. Nearly 100 varieties but even among them only 1 or 2 without sugared flavor.

I cannot imagine that the whole of the public loves this "sweet" jerky in such proportions. And this is not limited to just one or two companies. My daughter found a brand that is made in Memphis that is not sweet, but it is hard to find within 500 miles of here!

[capncarl]

Another of my pet peave is all these people raving and ranting about organic and all natural. If most of them had any idea what they were talking about it would be ok but most don't have a clue. I had a good friend that wouldn't drink any bottled water except glacier water and talked about how natural it was, didn't want to put any foreign material in her body! Yea it was all natural, we just toured a number of Alaska glaciers and saw first hand what a glacier was. What a nasty mud slop! A million year old ice sandwich of bird and bear poop with every years collection of volcanic ash, dust storm and everything else that a cloud dropped. Good tasting water though!

Hank Lee, after reading the contents on a jerky package you have to wonder why they have to put all of those additives in dried meat that never had anything but salt and smoke from a fire in it?

[capncarl]

Yet another pet peave of mine is weather forecasters using 10th of inches. How many people that might possibly be listening to this forecast uses 10th of inches. No one but myself even has any ruler marked in 10ths. Also noticed that How It's Made uses 10ths today when they showed a sod cutter leaving 2 10ths of soil on the roots! Really? While the world is moving on with the metric system they are moving backwards from our fractional system.