March 2019 - the next chapter

March 29, 2019March 29, 2019

Go F**k Yourself Friday…the Pet Peeve Edition

These last few weeks have been a bit stressful to the point where things that usually roll off my shoulders really got under my skin. But that means all of you are in luck this week because I am sure you have all experienced these annoyances in our lives that force us to silently scream at someone in our heads even though we’d really love to go postal and make a scene. And on that note, I present to you dear readers, Go F**k Yourself, the Pet Peeve edition!

Go F**k Yourself to the person who never responds to my emails when I request something from them. Yes, I know there are people out there who just don’t read emails or don’t respond to texts that I know they have read because it says “READ” after I sent it. They go through their day ignoring incoming messages and when they look back at their phone or computer a few hours later, they suddenly realize they have amassed about 100 emails and texts. They then spend the rest of the evening playing catch up and that one email that came in from me asking for something OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN somehow gets forgotten about until I am totally up against my deadline and then miraculously, after I send a terse – I NEED IT NOW or you won’t be included message, it suddenly shows up. I know not everyone can be like me and instantly respond to an email or text at a moment’s notice, but if I ask you a question and there’s a deadline attached to it, change the settings on your phone if you don’t want me to see that you’ve read my message or for F**k’s sake, JUST RESPOND!!!!!

Go F**k Yourself to People who Display Bad Buffet Line Etiquette – For the record, I really don’t like buffets – I like to sit down, place an order, enjoy conversation with my friends and family and not deal with other people I don’t know. But when you’re on a buffet line, all bets are off. From the super slow senior who is taking his time deciding between the salmon and the whitefish salad, to the double dipper who grabs a veggie stick, dips it in ranch dressing, takes a bite and then dips it again, to the buffet tray hog who sees the hostess coming his way and cleans her out of pigs in blankets, when you’re on a buffet line, I’ve got a newsflash for you…you’re not the only one there! Move it along Gramps, dip once or put a dollop of dressing on your plate and whatever you do, don’t ransack the cocktail frank tray – you know everyone loves them, except the vegans – so let the rest of us carnivores enjoy the appetizers and take two or three for yourself.

Go F**k Yourself to Urgent Emails from Politicians – I know I’m back to emails, but since I spend so much time online and I just checked my email, I had to call this one out too. I know that politicians have a hard time reaching voters but for some reason, my name has wound up on so many email lists that I can’t keep track of how many people want money from me. It’s urgent! The world is about to fall apart! You must do this now or else we stand to lose everything! Or my personal favorite, the subject line that seems like it’s from my best friend but in actuality, it’s from the Cheri Bustos campaign. Who the hell is Cheri Bustos anyway and how did I even get on her list??? Before I start unsubscribing from all those political e-blasts, here’s my word of advice to politicians – do not send me a message every single day of the week. I know you want my donation but if you keep asking, you will get what Grandma Dora used to say to people who pissed her off: Ice in Winter.

Go F**k Yourself to People Who Cancel Commitments at the Last Minute Due to “Family Emergencies” Now don’t get me wrong – if you truly are experiencing a family emergency, I have no problem accepting the fact that you won’t be able to make it to work today. But if you are on your fifth family emergency of the month, then something tells me you either have a lot of drama going on at home or you need to come up with way better excuses for why you can’t get your a** to your job like everyone else. Better to tell the truth about why you can’t honor a commitment than wait until the last minute to drop a bomb on someone who was totally counting on you.

Go F**k Yourself to People Who Are All Talk and No Action – If anyone knows me, I’m a person who gets s**t done. You give me the goods to be successful on a project and nine times out of 10, I will get results that will blow you away. But on those occasions when I have to work with people who do nothing but bark orders and give me nothing back in return, I find myself counting the days until the project is over. The problem with people who make ridiculous demands but do nothing to support their team, is that in the end, we all know you are an asshole.

March 23, 2019May 2, 2019

Go F**K Yourself Friday…the Special Guest Edition

First, let me just say that I am aware that it’s Saturday. Truth be told – I have been pretty busy these past few weeks and sadly, I was unable to make my self imposed Friday deadline for the column. However, I am truly lucky to have friends who are even better writers than I am and one of them submitted this fantastic work of comic genius that I’m sharing with all of you as you get ready to start your weekend.

Today’s Go F**k Yourself Friday column has been submitted by Loyal reader Angry McAngerson

You know what I hate? Well, besides EVERYTHING, I have simmering contempt for people unqualified for their jobs but who we have to encounter/ work with anyway. As if life isn’t annoying enough.

Like the woman at Fedex Kinkos who manages not just the copy machines, laminators, hole punchers and the package counter but also takes Passport photos. No wonder I looked like Fred Flintsone after a Night at the Roxbury. I know it’s unrealistic to have hair and make-up at the counter, but when the artistes at the DMV do it better, you ought to re-evaluate your skill set. Stick to changing toner and keep your ink-stained hands off my unflattering portrait, which will now follow me for 10 years in my passport.

Also, the millennial who knows every shared doc, box, spreadsheet and track changed but not how to do his/ her job. Enough with the action items, deliverables and calendar updates. I don’t need a Google Playroom or Hang Out chat to understand you can’t do your job: I’ve known that from the start. And I’m sending you an Outlook reminder saying so.

Or the cute-as-a-bug bartender who is better at drinking cocktails than making them. Looking adorable does not excuse you from making our drinks. Especially when it’s simple as a scotch on the rocks. It’s easy: see that bottle with the giant letters spelling Scotch? There! That’s it. Whew, you’re good. Now raise and pour. And, btw: a “rock” is an ice cube, not what Carrie Bradshaw didn’t want to wear on her finger after Aidan proposed.

I love a good hotel concierge. Emphasis on “good” because they’re mostly terrible. Scrolling Google does not a concierge make, sorry! And don’t even start with this Siri crap. A computer should not know a good restaurant – you should!

I once worked with a woman who was so good at failing up, it would take six months to figure out she was incompetent … but by then she was on to the next position. All the while, she would try to cozy up to you as her new “bestie,” and with the sincerity of a Lori Loughlin application to college, would say “You know what you can do for me?” What, your job??? I was mortified to learn her upward trajectory has continued unabated, and she’s now second in command of a giant PR department. She is proof positive in the peter principle: everyone rises to their own level of incompetence. Except in her case, there’s no ceiling.

We all appreciate electricity but ConEd should concentrate more on producing volts and less on hiring dolts. Especially in the customer service department. (Un)helpful Mike was happy to assist with my call, except couldn’t verify my identification because my birthdate was wrong. It couldn’t possibly be that he had incorrect information, it had to be that I have been wrong all this time. The problem with stupid-heads in positions of power, though, is this: with one touch of a button he could shut off my power, so I bit my tongue and said “you know, you might be right: it must be the giant stroke I suffered just as I was prompted to say my birthdate. What was my name again?”

And on that note, we’ll be back next Friday with another edition of Go F**k Yourself Friday!

March 15, 2019May 2, 2019

Go F**k Yourself Friday…the College Prep Edition

I’m sure you probably have heard about the college admissions cheating scandal that has singlehandedly destroyed the reputations of actors, CEO’s, coaches, test prep administrators and students whose parents wanted to guarantee that their kids would get into the college of their dreams. As someone who has watched her own kids get rejected from teams and programs they had their heart set on, I figured it was high time to give us all a reality check on life. So without further ado, I present Go F**k Yourself Friday, the College Prep Edition…

Go F**k Yourself Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman – Seriously, ladies. You always played the nice characters on some of my favorite shows like “Full House” and “Desperate Housewives.” No one would ever suspect that Becky or Lynette would stoop so low as to pay someone off to get their spoiled brat into college, but you two did it. Sure, my friends and I can somewhat relate, having shelled out a boat load of cash for test prep classes for our kids, but I’m not about to back up a Brinks truck full of money and hand over a few hundred thousand to a guy who will get someone to dress up like my kid and take the SAT, or grease the palms of a college coach and pass them off as a member of Crew team when they probably haven’t rowed a boat in their life. Life isn’t about faking it until you make it. It’s about falling flat on your ass and starting all over again.

Go F**k Yourself to Luxury Community Service Teen Tours Your kid hasn’t volunteered for anything the entire time they’ve been in high school and those college application deadlines are looming and you need to come up with something fast. After searching online, you find a teen tour offering trips to the South of France where your daughter can help assemble boats for sea captains in need. Once you’ve booked the trip, you decide to rent a yacht where you pick up your kid halfway through their community service adventure so you can spend the rest of the summer shopping and sailing your way through Europe.

Go F**k Yourself to the SAT, ACT, SAT 1, 2, 49 and Beyond – When are schools going to finally throw out those ridiculous standardized exams that measure whether our kids should be candidates for Mensa just so they can attend a competitive college? Every time a kid gets a decent score, those testing companies move the goal posts. Unless you crack a 1400 on your SAT or score a 34 on your ACT, don’t even bother applying to one of those brand name schools that every parent from Scarsdale to Westport wants their kid to attend.

Go F**k Yourself Parents that Don’t Have to Fill Out FAFSA Forms – Kudos to you if you have saved up enough money in your kids’ 529 plan to pay for college or get a million dollar bonus every year because you work at a hedge fund that’s heavily invested in pharma companies, but for the rest of us who needed that quarter of a million dollars to live this past decade, go F**k Yourself! I seriously am envious of anyone who has never had to spend hours completing a FAFSA application. From forgetting my password every single time, to constantly receiving alerts from my daughter’s school that we need to file more IRS forms or check five more boxes or solve the pythagorean theorem while hopping on one leg, I seriously would rather have root canal than fill out that dreaded FAFSA application every year.

Go F**k Yourself to the Marketing Teams at Colleges My Kid Will Never Get Into – I have to admit, I was a bit giddy when my son received letters from Princeton, University of Chicago and even Columbia inviting him to check out their schools, but let’s be real. He’s a smart kid but they know as well as we do that he’s not getting in. They just want to get their application numbers up so they can share that 39,000 people applied to their schools and they only accepted 12. I’m not falling for it Princeton even though I might just frame your letter for kicks.

March 8, 2019March 8, 2019

Go F**k Yourself Friday…the Jug Handle Edition

After spending a weekend in Florida and then coming back to NYC to frigid temps and faulty GPS, I decided to devote this week’s column to the things that drive me nuts when I’m driving anywhere that’s outside of my neighborhood. For those of you who can feel my pain, this one’s for you.

Go F**k Yourself to the person who designed “roundabouts” – If you’ve never driven around a roundabout, here’s my beef. Your GPS might tell you to make the third right turn after the roundabout but if it’s late at night and someone just rang your phone and your struggling to see where you’re going, you will miss that exit and find yourself being re-routed – over and over again. I have officially decided that if I ever do retire to Florida, I will not live near any roundabout. I guess that means I’m never moving to Florida.

Go F**k Yourself to the person who designed Jug Handles in New Jersey – if you hate roundabouts, you’ll probably hate jug handles even more and here’s why. You already missed your exit while on a long road that’s filled with strip malls and all you want to do is make a U Turn but you can’t do that for miles. That is, until you hit the jug handle – which always comes up out of nowhere and if you miss it, you’ll be forced to keep driving for another five miles until the next one pops up. Come on New Jersey! Just let me make a U Turn. Why does it have to be so difficult?

Go F**k Yourself to Whoever Hung the Highway Signs in New Jersey – I know I seem to be taking aim at the Garden State this week but if you have ever tried to drive on the Jersey Turnpike, the signs are some of the most confusing ones I have ever seen in my life. Even my GPS gets confused too. Go right. No I mean, merge left. Take the express route then merge into the local lane. Go towards the Holland Tunnel but then before you actually drive into it, make a sharp left. OMG – just fix the damn signs before I wind up in Staten Island or Downtown Brooklyn!

Go F**k Yourself GPS that Doesn’t Work in Downtown Manhattan – I know that working downtown is totally the place to be these days, but if you struggle figuring out where to walk after you’ve taken the subway to your destination, then I feel your pain. Just yesterday, I took the subway to Fulton street and then set my GPS so I could walk over to Liberty Street which my map told me was an easy breezy eight minute walk from the train station. The problem is, GPS doesn’t work really well downtown so instead of walking down Broadway, I went the wrong way down a narrow street and wound up by City Hall. I then hopped in a cab which got stuck in traffic and couldn’t go down a bunch of the streets and the next thing I knew, I was 20 minutes late to my appointment. AARGH!!!

Here’s to a jug handle free weekend for you. Even better, just stay inside and don’t drive. It’ll do wonders for your blood pressure.

March 1, 2019May 2, 2019

Go F**k Yourself Friday…the Real Estate Edition

I would like to preface this week’s column by saying there are a lot of realtors who I adore. In fact, my own mother-in-law is a realtor and while she’s not a top seller, she has made lifelong friends as a result of the incredible connection she makes with buyers. Sure, many of them choose not to move or pick another state entirely, but I love the way my mother-in- law operates. She always puts people first and the deals second. And on that note, for every other realtor who is motivated by dollar signs, this week’s edition of Go F**k Yourself Friday was tailor made for you.

Go F Yourself to the Bait & Switch Realtor – You were supposed to rent my parents’ home in the Hamptons during the US Open and proceeded instead to convince them to sell it. While you couldn’t find a buyer as fast as you thought and my parents went back to Florida for the winter, you kept parading your prospects through the house until you finally made a deal. Now you’re giving my folks the bums rush to close just so you can get your commission check. Sure, my family will never get to spend time in the Hamptons again, but who cares about family traditions anyway? After persuading another pair of snowbirds to sell their gold mine and fly south for good, my parents’ realtor is doing the happy dance. For the record, I have two words to say to you and trust me, it’s not Happy Birthday.

Go F Yourself to the Pushy Realtor – Several years ago, the #1 realtor in our area almost convinced me to sell my home. She took one look at our house and said we had to sell since there was no way we could send our kids to the school in our neighborhood and she tried to convince us to move to the more expensive part of town. Luckily, we didn’t take her advice because we would have totally been under water – and not due to a broken water heater. Instead, we put an extension on our house and just celebrated our 20th year living there. She’s still in business convincing people to move into homes they can’t afford. Sure, she’s made a bundle off the backs of unsuspecting buyers, but all that gets her is a big stack of money and an even bigger FU from me.

Go F**k Yourself to the Apathetic Realtor – After I had done a Google search of where my daughter wanted to live off campus, I discovered that the apartment one of her roommates had found was next to a vacant lot, boarded up buildings and a bodega on the corner. When I called the realtor, whose office was right next door to the building and asked her to share a photo of the front of the place, she refused. Recently, when my daughter experienced roommate problems and had to move out and her apartment mates turned her room into a pot smoking den two hours after she vacated the premises, the realtor refused to get involved. To add insult to injury, when we tried to get someone who was in the Air Force to sublet the place, the realtor, who didn’t want to get involved in roommate disputes, refused to approve him because those cannabis loving roommates didn’t want a guy living in their apartment. Maybe they didn’t want someone who would call the cops on them. Either way, apathetic realtor…go F**k yourself!

Go F**k Yourself to the “Look at Me” Realtor – I get that real estate is all about wanting to work with someone who has a great track record but I really don’t want to see your punim plastered on a massive billboard whenever I’m on my way to my neighborhood Stop & Shop. I’m sure you paid a lot of money so we could see how great you are but honestly, a magnet or a calendar is more subtle and actually comes in handy when I want to hang up a flyer for my son’s play or find out when Passover starts.

Go F**k Yourself to the “I Win All the Awards Realtor” – The last time I took home a trophy was in 1986 so whenever I see a realtor posting on their social media feed that they’ve won yet another award for selling their one millionth home, it drives me nuts. Seriously, no one likes a showoff. Let your customers sing your praises and stop sharing your glass awards like it’s an Oscar or something.