Annoying things people do
People do some annoying things, sometimes without realizing it. As a public service I'll list some of them, so that if you find yourself doing these things you might change your habits.
For example, in Canada I lived in an apartment and the neighbor upstairs would wash the dishes, and every time she turned on the tap it made that annoying squealing sound. If she had opened the tap a little more it wouldn't have made that sound. I'm sure she didn't realize that her neighbors were annoyed by the sound coming through the pipes and it was just a habit to open the tap until it started squealing.
Another common annoyance which maybe 50% of the people don't know they are being annoying is when you are shopping and there's a line of people waiting to go through the cash register. The cashier scans and bags all the items and then, only then, does the shopper open up her purse to get out her checkbook and start writing a check ("What day is today?"). Some people, either consciously or unconsciously do this on purpose, so that they get some attention, even if the attention is negative.
The street we live on is asphalt covering an old cobblestone road. It's very bumpy. I noticed when my wife drives that it's even bumpier than normal. I thought at first it was because I'm not driving and holding the wheel, so it only appears to me to be bumpier. After analyzing it a bit further I realized that she was driving a little slower than I was and was hitting the harmonic frequency of the springs of the car (about 1 Hz) with the bumps of the road. If she had driven a little faster or slower it wouldn't have been bumpy.
Another thing that annoys me, which seems to happen a lot in Brazil, is when I go to a supermarket people leave their shopping carts in such a way as to make it impossible to pass without asking them to move their cart. I think Brazilians like to be interrupted and asked to move their cart since it happens so often to me. I don't see this happening as much in Canada since I think there, when someone has to ask you to move your cart it is a difficult and embarrassing thing for the person to ask. Thus the person who left their cart taking up the whole aisle is also a little embarrassed and they realize they did something wrong and they don't do it again. Culturally, it seems that people here, have no problem here asking others to move their cart so nobody realizes they are doing anything annoying.
For example, in Canada I lived in an apartment and the neighbor upstairs would wash the dishes, and every time she turned on the tap it made that annoying squealing sound. If she had opened the tap a little more it wouldn't have made that sound. I'm sure she didn't realize that her neighbors were annoyed by the sound coming through the pipes and it was just a habit to open the tap until it started squealing.
Another common annoyance which maybe 50% of the people don't know they are being annoying is when you are shopping and there's a line of people waiting to go through the cash register. The cashier scans and bags all the items and then, only then, does the shopper open up her purse to get out her checkbook and start writing a check ("What day is today?"). Some people, either consciously or unconsciously do this on purpose, so that they get some attention, even if the attention is negative.
The street we live on is asphalt covering an old cobblestone road. It's very bumpy. I noticed when my wife drives that it's even bumpier than normal. I thought at first it was because I'm not driving and holding the wheel, so it only appears to me to be bumpier. After analyzing it a bit further I realized that she was driving a little slower than I was and was hitting the harmonic frequency of the springs of the car (about 1 Hz) with the bumps of the road. If she had driven a little faster or slower it wouldn't have been bumpy.
Another thing that annoys me, which seems to happen a lot in Brazil, is when I go to a supermarket people leave their shopping carts in such a way as to make it impossible to pass without asking them to move their cart. I think Brazilians like to be interrupted and asked to move their cart since it happens so often to me. I don't see this happening as much in Canada since I think there, when someone has to ask you to move your cart it is a difficult and embarrassing thing for the person to ask. Thus the person who left their cart taking up the whole aisle is also a little embarrassed and they realize they did something wrong and they don't do it again. Culturally, it seems that people here, have no problem here asking others to move their cart so nobody realizes they are doing anything annoying.
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