I'd like to think I'm a pretty relaxed person, but lately things have been really, REALLY annoying at work.  It's a mixture of annoying people and a case of "I need a new job.  BADLY."

Things that irk me on a regular basis:

1) People walking outside for exercise at 5:30 a.m.  GO TO BED.  Please, for the love of God, if you have time to be going on stroll through lovely Newington, you have time to be asleep.  Think about the hundreds of people (or at the very least, think about me!) who would forfeit a paycheck, or heck, a kidney, to be asleep.  Is it really essential to be exercising that such an atrocious hour?  Is your body going to balloon and 100 additional pounds will appear if you, Heaven HELP you, go for precious walk at say 8 a.m?  They might say "but Jennifer, we go so early because we have to go to work".  Here's a thought, walk AFTER work.  Simple concept; sleep trumps all activities before the hour of 8 am.  If the opportunity is there, seize it!  (side note: just because you're walking wicked early doesn't mean people can't see you.  Spare us the spandex and neon yellow shirts with fanny packs.)

2) When I go to Starbucks everyday (and who am I kidding, it's sometimes multiple times a day), I think it's the polite and perhaps even a sort of job security to bring coffee back for my bosses.  And everyday, without fail, the idiots I walk by on the way back to my office with the drinks who I didn't get a drink for proceed to walk towards me pretending to grab the cups of coffee and say "you shouldn't have" because they think it's funny.  News flash:  you're not the first one to do that, nor is it funny!  You're right, I shouldn't have bought a coffee for you, that's why I didn't!  At first, I give the fake "haha ohh you got me!" laugh, but after the first person, they get the whole "seriously, knock it off, I didn't buy you coffee.  And don't even look at my coffee, let alone pretend to grab it.  And another thing, your new hair cut makes you look like Barney Rubble from the Flinstones".  One by one, I'll get the 100+ employees to realize that they're not funny and terribly unoriginal.

3) I'd say I have one of the most common names in America.  So why is it that I get called an assortment of things that AREN'T my name?  There's guys that have done contractor's work for us for years that still call me Jenna, Shannon and even ROSE.  I clearly answer the phone "I.S. this is JEN. How can I help you?".  Contractor says "hi Shannon, is [so and so] there?".  Really.  Shannon?  Jeeze Louise.  And to make things worse, my coworker's don't correct the mistake, they just instigate the contractor.  They'll say something along the lines of "I'm sorry who are you looking for?  Oh Jenna, sure hang on one second.  JENNA.  It's for you.  JENNA?  Hang on, I'm getting JENNA for you."  Thanks a lot.  I'm pretty sure we should just change your names to Jerk so I can say "hey Jerk, pick up the phone" and not be rude.

4) When customers call to check the status of an order and then get mad when I tell them the estimated delivery date.  I typically get "I thought it was supposed to come in on Wednesday.  Why are you telling me it's coming in on Thursday"  Okay, for one, if you thought it was supposed to come in on Wednesday, why on God's green Earth are you calling me on MONDAY to see the status of it.  You know when it's tentatively coming in, so why don't you call me on the tentative day?  And secondly, what is whining going to do?  I certainly can't make it get here any faster.  Oh wait, this one's a whiner.  Let me get to freaken Tennessee RIGHT THIS SECOND so I can pick up your piece of garbage dishwasher and get it into our precious life right now just because you whined.  Talk about incentive!  If anything, I'm going to delay (this is what we call "forgetting" and/or "fax machine error") communicating to your contractor once your order is in if you're going to whine.

5) The phrase "What do you mean [enter phrase I just said]?"  Gee, what I really meant by "I can't get someone out to your house this afternoon" was "someone's on their way since you asked me what I meant!"  It is what it is.  I'm fairly certain I know how to speak proper English (for the most part...)  I can see if I were working with a group of deaf aliens and they asked me "what do you mean".  But I'm pretty sure I speak the same language you do.  If you ask "what do you mean", it's not going to make me change my mind.  (see previous comments on incentive.  Don't be obnoxious and I'll try to help you out).

6) Whenever I have to go out to the sales floor, I manage to bump into the customer who needs something that we're out of.  To make the customer happy, I look in the computer to see if we have any on hand.  With my luck, we never do.  The customer will then proceed to ask me if we have any in back.  Well sir, since you asked, I'm going to let you in on a secret.  Grab your ear muffs, fuzzy sweater and a cup of hot chocolate.  I'm going to bring you to the magical land where we keep the item YOU need but isn't out on the sales floor.  There's butterflies and unicorns and we can skip back there while holding hands and sing joyous songs.  It'll be perfect, I'm so glad you asked about the back!

7) What is with people leaving stuff on my desk?  It's no secret I'm slightly OCD (not joking, this was diagnosed...), so why do people feel the need to leave half-consumed cans of Red Bull, notebooks, reports, manuals, apple cores, dead mice (okay that's a whole different story, our printer broke because a mouse died in it!  I thought it would be funny if it came out where the paper comes out, but no such luck).  It's a simple idea:  if you put something there, get rid of it when you leave.  I'm pretty sure I learned that in kindergarten.  And while I'm thinking of it, why were you in my office in the first place?  Jeeeeze!

8) Not to toot my own horn (that phrase kinda bothers me since "toot" is a word associated with bodily functions, but I don't know another one to describe being full of one's self without actually saying it), but I'm pretty efficient with getting my work done.  I can get eight hours of work done in about two, so I need to keep myself occupied for the rest of the day.  This usually involves pointless tasks around the office including painting.  That's not what bothers me.  What bothers me is the million people who walk by and say something along the line of "oh what are you up to?" or the highly intelligent "painting?" comment.  Well heck, what gave it away? Was it the PAINT roller?  How about the PAINT brush.  Could it have the can of PAINT or the PAINTER'S tape?  Congratulations, you've just stepped up to neanderthal status.  I'm proud of you.

I guess that's enough for now.  I might be sad if you write a blog similar to this and add "reading Jen's blog" to your list.