January 15, 2020 | Jess Silverberg

People Share The Menial Things That Are So Annoying They Should Be Illegal


Generally speaking, we all try to be good human beings. When someone rubs us the wrong way, we try our best to let it go and keep our rage at bay. However, sometimes people just be so annoying that we can't help but lose our cool. We might even go as far as to wish what they did was illegal so it no longer becomes a problem in the future. Here are the menial things people do that are so annoying they should be illegal, according to people online:

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#1 Useless Meetings

Meetings that should have been an email. Ugh. Or, having to take a three-hour train journey so they can read everyone a PowerPoint presentation in the same room. What the heck, I sat through so many college presentations and also professional presentations. The point of the PowerPoint is to outline some ideas as a guide for everyone. We can all read, so give us more than that!

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#2 Elevator Etiquette

Entering an elevator before people have exited the elevator. Pillory for the day.  I work at the hospital where elevators are literally the only method of transport. It’s astonishing that no one can seem to figure out how it works. I’m pushing a human in a wheelchair out, and you’re trying to scoot to the side and squeeze in between us and the door? JUST LET ME GET OUT FIRST.

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#3 Noise Pollution

Playing music out loud from your phone on the bus. I used to take the Baltimore metro to work and there are multiple signs that say: "It is illegal to play music without headphones." And yet, everyday someone would be listening out loud. It needs to be enforced better. Laws don't matter if they are not enforced properly.

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#4 Get To The Point

Online recipes prefaced with seven paragraphs of blogging. This was my exact problem when trying to make sourdough. There's no good resource and every one contradicts each other. Even trying to get a starter going... like, do I just keep adding flour? What do I do with it? I don't need a massive bowl full of starter at all times. Then, when I do find good recipes they all have walls of text.

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#5 Flight Disturbance

Not using headphones when watching videos in public. I was just on a flight from Sacramento to Detroit and sitting in the Delta comfort seats. The lady in front of me let her child watch a show on full volume because "she doesn't like headphones." I spent five hours being annoyed because the woman was a self-entitled jerk. We asked her multiple times to turn it down and she refused. Flight attendants did nothing. I felt so bad for the old man trying to sleep next to this girl. Some people should be banned from flying.

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#6 Wedge Formation

People stopping for a chat in crowded areas or narrow places. Also, hallway line walkers, where any group of two or more people subconsciously position themselves to obstruct as much of the pathway as possible. It's like they're trying to perform a wedge formation like they're the Rohirrim trying to break through the lines of Mordor.

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#7 Caller ID Spoofing

Caller ID spoofing. There are very few situations where there's a legitimate need to spoof a number but there's a high burden on law enforcement to prove the illegal uses, so abuses are running rampant. To clarify a couple of points, under current US law spoofing is illegal only in cases of fraud. The burden is on law enforcement to prove fraud. The current US law on spoofing was written at a time when fraudulent spoofing was rare, and that law hasn't been updated as times changed.

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#8 False Alarms

Radio commercials that play car horns, sirens or crash sounds. Why?! I'm driving! Driving in LA is a total mess and horns are very important. I had one of these horrible commercials play the horn as I was changing lanes on the crowded highway. It scared the daylights out of me and I yanked my car back into my lane because I thought I missed somebody in my blind spot.

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#9 A Walking Wall

Walking in a group in public hallways or on sidewalks but all side by side so no one can pass you. I’ll happily get out of the way or wait if there’s one person coming the other way, but if there’s four of you and none of you make the effort to make space I’m either gonna stop straight in front of you. Or, if I’m in a particularly bad mood, I'll just keep walking.

#10 Cut Me Off? Cut it Out

People who cut you off and slow down. Sometimes, I get it—someone may have not known they needed to take the exit before they got there. However, when I have no one behind me and you cut between me and another car because you HAVE to be in front... Screw that. What you're actually supposed to do is just miss your exit if you can't get over in time.

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#11 That's Not My Office

I had a coworker who would try to ask me questions through the bathroom door. I came out the second time he did it and told him that when I am in the bathroom, that is my personal time. Anything he needed could wait until I came out. I had a boss once who wanted me to answer phone calls while I was in the bathroom. He did not ever want people to go to voicemail. I agreed but never did.

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#12 Space Hog

In the grocery store: leaving your shopping cart blocking one side of the aisle while you stand next to it, blocking the other side of the aisle, leisurely considering which box of sugar to select, while oblivious to other shoppers waiting to get by. Extra time in the stocks if you roll your eyes when someone says, "Excuse me."

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#13 Obstructed Paths

Stopping suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk, or aisle, or hallway... Or at the very top or bottom of a flight of stairs or an escalator. The escalator thing ticks me off more because the stairs are moving me. It's not like I can just stop and wait for them to realize they are causing an obstruction, but somehow I'm still the jerk for "pushing into them," despite me pretty much yelling "excuse me" about a dozen times.

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#14 The Speed Game

People who speed up when you try to pass them... and then they pass YOU again later... only to slow down again, forcing you to continue the game. I consciously, actively maintain a constant speed. Jerk... the reason I caught up with you and then passed you in the first place is that I'm driving faster than you are.

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#15 Keep It Concise

My co-worker giving 40 minutes of back story for what ends up being about five minutes of pertinent conversation. This is easily one of the worst cases of this I have ever come across. Sometimes, long and detailed stories are interesting! It just so happens my co-worker thinks what he, his daughter and his great uncle had for breakfast is pertinent to the story.

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#16 Elderly Driving

Old people that can barely drive. I can't tell you the number of times I've almost been hit by them because they're just so unaware of their surroundings. They're worse than tipsy drivers a lot of time but no one will force them to retake their driver's test past a certain age because it's "politically wrong."

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#17 The Golden Rule

Customers treating employees like trash. It is insane how common it is for customers to scream at people that already have enough on their plates. I think working at McDonald's has really taught me to always treat people how you would like to be treated. Customers were so demeaning to me there, and it made me feel so low. So I am always overly nice to cashiers, waiters, etc.

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#18 Truck Battle

Two semi-trucks in each lane of the highway side-by-side going the exact same speed and refusing to change. I recently witnessed a 12-minute-passing maneuver. As in: I was stuck behind it. On a German autobahn, where trucks are allowed to go a measly 80 kph, and there is no speed limit for cars. It's so, so freaking stupid.

#19 The Pocket Dilemma

Making articles of clothing with fake pockets, whether they be pants or suits. Or even pockets that are too shallow. Don’t entice me with a nice functional pocket and then not deliver. Come on. Whoever designs clothing with fake pockets has a ticket to a special place. Like, what am I really going to do with a fake pocket?

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#20 Bad Parenting

Parents who allow their child to watch something on their iPad loud as heck in public. I was in a movie theater once and some jerk of a kid was allowed to watch his freaking iPad on full blast during the movie. So in the middle of a suspenseful thriller, you got Dora the Explorer in the background. So inconsiderate! Why are idiots allowed to have children?

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#21 Axe Pollution

We have a guy who cycles to work and I think then empties an entire can of Axe body spray on himself. You know when something smells so strong you can "taste" the air when you open your mouth to talk? Yeah, it's like that. I'm not going to get the guy fired over his poor choice in odor. It's obnoxious, but it's not "force the single dad out of a paycheck" obnoxious.

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#22 Ineffective Motivators

Not a daily basis, but public speakers who ask "How are you doing?" to a crowd, then do the "I can't hear you!" thing. If it's before noon, they deserve to be booed off the stage. No one wants to be there, jerk, just move on and try to make us interested. I worked at a place a while back where they had mandatory monthly meetings. For my shift, it was at 5 a.m. The speakers were loud like this and even required people to do the wave... Worst experience of my life.

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#23 Chewing And Moaning

Chewing with your mouth open. My father in law is the loudest chewer I've ever known, and he moans while he chews. MOANS!! It legitimately makes me angry; so much so that I have had to leave the room when my dad is eating because I can hear him chewing from across the kitchen. I can barely stand to be in the same room as him if he's even drinking some water.

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#24 The Baby-In-A-Theater Loophole

Bringing babies or toddlers to movie theaters. My wife and I started going to the drive-in theater when my daughter was born. Bucket seats, my own stereo system, pizza or burgers as a snack and the baby can fuss without bugging anybody else but us. At least we're considerate—babies in public movie theaters shouldn't be allowed.

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#25 The Pizza Position

Holding your phone like you're about to eat it with the loudspeaker while talking in public.
Though, I understand why this would be okay in some cases: sometimes, when your phone is old and dying, either the speaker or the microphone do not work so well. My previous phone would pick up my voice much better from the pizza position rather than the standard phone position. I would never use it on speakerphone in public but that is one of the possibilities of why someone would do it.

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#26 Gym Hogs

People at the gym who bring like eight different pieces of exercise equipment into an area or squat rack and hog it all for an hour until they're finished. If you ask for a piece, they're like, "Oh no, I'm using that for my ultra-super-duper set." SO frustrating. I had someone hogging the squat rack while they talked on the phone a few weeks ago. He wasn't doing his exercises while on the phone and when I went up to them asking to use it they shooed me away and said they will be using it shortly.

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#27 Cart-astrophe

People leaving shopping carts on the parking lot instead of returning them. In Europe, most carts have coin slots you need to put a coin into in order to unchain it from the corral, and you get your coin back once you are done and return the cart and slip the chain lock back in the slot. Nobody's abandoning 1€ by leaving carts all over the place. Such a simple solution.

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#28 The Starbucks Epidemic

Spelling my name wrong in emails. My name is in my email address. My name is in my signature. In my last email to you, I put my name in. Just copy and paste my name rather than making up your own spelling for it. My name has an unusual spelling, and people often ask "Oh, is this how you spell your name?" Even if I've written it myself! Like "Oh no, I guess I forgot how to spell my name for a moment?"

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#29 Checkout Abuse

Spending five minutes at checkout searching for a few $0.25 off coupons that you "swore were in there." In general, taking an unnecessarily long time messing around at grocery tills should be a crime. It’s especially infuriating when it’s the express line, which is specifically freaking designed to move quickly.

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#30 Just Use Earbuds

Portable speakers in a public space. Nobody wants to hear your terrible music, use some earbuds. In Brazil, they have guys who drive around with loudspeakers announcing political views and religion like, every other day. Keep driving dude and stop disturbing my peace. Nobody wants to hear your annoying noise pollution.

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#31 A Near Miss

Letting someone go ahead of you at a four-way stop when you have the right of way. I don’t care if you’re trying to be nice. You’re going to cause an accident. My ex once waved somebody on FROM THE PASSENGER SEAT WHILE I WAS DRIVING. If I hadn’t of seen her I would’ve T-boned the dude. As it happened, it was a narrow miss. That was the one fight I just wouldn’t concede to her cause she was clearly in the wrong.

#32 About The Left Lane

Driving exactly the speed limit in the left lane in the US. I knew a girl a few years ago who was ticketed for driving in the left lane. She was totally bewildered that she wasn’t "supposed" to be there unless she was passing. It was like some totally new concept to her and she had been driving for years. Different lanes have different purposes.

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#33 Rubbernecking An Accident

My pet peeve is the driver who sees that a cop has pulled someone over on the side of the highway. We're quite a way back, sitting comfortably doing 65 to 70 in the middle lane (or driving 75 to 80 in the passing lane) and they decide to slam on their brakes down to 50 mph suddenly, instead of gradually decreasing speed. We almost rear-ended someone because of that.

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#34 Litterbug On Wheels

Littering, ESPECIALLY from your car window. Like, if you happen to drop something while walking, at least you can go back and pick it up. But that giant paper bag full of happy meals you threw onto the highway? Screw you. My mom used to keep a small tape recorder in her car and she would record all the details of when, where, and who and then go home and report them later. I do it now too, except minus the recorder. One picture usually captures all the info you need.

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#35 Put It Away

Something that grinds my gears is when people are sitting on their phones at red lights and they're the first car. At least every couple of days I have to beep at someone after they are sitting there for 3-5 seconds when the light turns green. This is technically illegal, I'm just venting. One time, I beeped at a woman for doing this and she just started flailing her arms. I kind of felt bad for whoever has to deal with her on a daily basis.

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#36 Disturbed Streaming

Advertising on streaming services. Cable broadcast has laws prohibiting things like raising the volume on advertisements compared to regular programming. Streaming apparently does not. Streaming ads are not embedded in the streamed show, thus they can require greater network capacity and resolution causing the process to stall. Lastly, it should be wildly illegal to show an advertisement before the content if the content fails to load. FXNow is particularly egregious about showing ads and then their player cannot load a show, so you have to rewatch the ad about five times to get their player to actually work.

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#37 Sleepless Nights

Loud parties from neighbors. I don't know how it is managed in the US, but here in Mexico, there's way too much tolerance towards that kind of thing. You can't really do anything about it. I've had to rent a hotel room to run away from the terrible noise and get some sleep. I work very early in the morning and the lack of sleep from the noise has caused me a lot of health issues.

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#38 Patience Is A Virtue

A couple of guys at my job always cut in line when we are waiting to clock out on Fridays and there’s a longer line than usual. Are you seriously that desperate to go home that you can’t freaking wait in line like the rest of us? I didn’t know we were still in kindergarten. Also, tourists pushing to go first. I'm so sorry that you want to ride this very traditional (ahem, old and slow) means of transportation, but I really have to get to work now and I've been standing in line for 15 minutes.

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#39 That One Shadowcat

Before the train door opens at a crowded station, there's always that one person who squeezes in front of everyone so they can be right in front of the door even before the train pulls into the station. Well, unless you're Shadowcat, you're going to have to wait for the doors to first open, and even then you're gonna save a good 5 seconds at most.

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#40 Practice Good Parking

Poor parking. Seriously. If you can't, practice till you can. If there is a good reason, sure like an emergency, but for normal parking, I would love to see this made illegal. There’s a person in my parking complex who parks crookedly every single day. They’ll be “in their spot” but at an angle that their back bumper is almost blocking the spot next to them. I’ve considered printing out fliers for driving schools and putting it on their windshield.

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#41 Sudden Stops

Stopping within 10 feet in the entrance to a building or store. By this, I don't mean dropping someone off in a car in front of a building. This is walking through an entrance and stopping in one's tracks to fix one's hair, get out a shopping list, or stare blankly not knowing where one is going. Be considerate and do it out of the way of others.

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#42 Unexpected Niagara Falls

Water knobs that don't let you control both the temperature and strength of the water coming out. Maybe I like lobster hot showers, and maybe I don't need 50 gallons a minute to take a shower. But no, I get one knob that provides lukewarm water and it goes from off to Niagra Falls in a quarter of a twist.

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#43 Inconsiderate Cycling

Cyclists who speed through a crosswalk even though they have a red light, the walk sign is on, and there are pedestrians in the crosswalk.  I would see them wearing their "same road, same rules" shirts, which would be fine if they acted as a vehicle at all times, not switching to the "pedestrian mode" when convenient for them.

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#44 On Zipper Merges

I'm very opinionated about this. If everybody zipper merges, then you don't give them the opportunity to be jerks. We have the opposite problem in Canada though. There's one road in particular where its two lanes going into an intersection, which then merges to one shortly after. Everybody who drives the road regularly tries to be nice and line up before the intersection. But the reason it merges after and not before is that it's faster for everybody if you get as many people through the light as possible and worry about merging afterward.

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#45 Wrong Place, Preacher

Those people who show up to sporting events, concerts, etc. with megaphones and signs to tell everyone they’re going to be judged unless they turn to Jesus or something. It makes me way more angry than it should. Even my Christian dad wants to punch them in the face when we see them at every baseball and football game we go to. Have they ever actually converted someone at these events?

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#46 Fake News!

Fake news! Or just news twisting people's words. It should be illegal for news outlets to peddle blatantly and objectively false information to the public as if it were factually true. It’s malicious deception, and in some cases, can seriously harm members of the public who believe it. I understand it's a complicated thing to regulate, but things are getting out of hand.

[Deleted]

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#47 Two Sides

Taking more time to come ask me a question than a 10 second Google search would have answered for you. On the other hand, I've found that asking your parents or grandparents questions that you could easily Google helps make their day and lets you maintain your relationship with simple phone calls every now and then.

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#48 Backpack Problems

Wearing your backpack on your back instead of taking it off on a crowded bus or during peak commuter hours on the metro. Like serious, just hold it in front of you instead of letting it bump into every person trying to get by you and every person standing near you. In reality, your backpack is a huge safety hazard.

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#49 Tactlessly Observant

Making vocal observations about someone's obvious physical characteristics.

"Your hair is so long." Well duh, Karen. You don't become a joke around the office by accidentally dunking your short hair in the toilet.

"You're so short, Sarah." Yep. Perfect height to karate chop you in your gut, Cheryl.

"How's the weather up there, Bill?" It's okay to spit on her and blame it on the clouds, buddy.

[Deleted]

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#50 Those Annoying Jingles

Commercials that annoy you into buying their product. You know, the commercials that use annoying jingles, obnoxious and unrealistically enthusiastic actors, and have an extreme lack of actually promoting their product.

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