Comments

1
I'm just going to bypass the obligatory first comment pointing out the irony in posting a rant about passive-aggressive notes on what can only be described as a passive-aggressive note system and go straight to agreeing with you.

I mistakenly put a bit of food waste in my recycling bin (on top of all the legitimate recycling) and the disposal service left a damn note on it that they wouldn't take it until I remove the food waste. Because they most certainly wouldn't have taken it had the food waste been concealed under that cardboard box where they couldn't see it. Which is where it will be when they collect it next week. Assholes.
2
People maim and kill each other over stupid little confrontations, and now we've even got 11-year-olds pulling guns on people over the most trivial shit you could imagine. People aren't pussies just because they don't want to have direct confrontations with strangers over stupid bullshit.
Anyway, what kind of loser would wait around for someone to come back to their car to tell them in person that they parked like an asshole? Leaving a poison-pen note on someone's windshield can be a little satisfying, harmless, and often well-deserved.
The way you've written this makes it sound like your very manhood is at stake over "stern words" in some petty confrontation, so I'm not sure what's really going on there.
3
PS: Learn how to recycle. I'm saying this to everyone collectively, because on multiple occasions I've seen assholes try to "recycle" pizza boxes... with old pizza and oily garbage still inside. If your recyclables are mucked up with your disgusting food waste, they can't be recycled and it can fuck up the whole process. That's just how it works. Doesn't their job suck enough already without you stashing food waste and other garbage in there?
4
Geyser, that's precisely the reason I'm irked by the note: I know how to recycle. Given the fact that thousands of people around this city successfully "recycle" pizza boxes, unseparated plastic bags, intact corrugated cardboard, etc., my little pineapple top and a few food-touched paper towels (I am not exaggerating) seem like a really tiny thing to deny pickup over.

Also, I would posit that their jobs suck exactly enough to put up with my bit of garbage in there, considering the fact that they deal with much worse from so many others without incident. Seems like an overreaction, is what I'm saying.
5
Confrontation might not be necessary. A kind word from an actual talking face goes a lot further with me than does a note from someone I don't know. I am way more likely to stop a likely unknown and bad behavior if I have someone ask me to stop. It creates perspective and you can empathize with someone you have put out. Notes are pretty weak and usually take it too far with the aggression/name calling. Don't be confrontational or create an affront with a nasty note. Assertiveness coupled with kindness gets you what you want every time.
6
@5: I can understand what you're saying, but IA seems to be calling for actual confrontation (anything else is "passive aggressive"), something I've seen many others say on this blog.
"Assertiveness coupled with kindness gets you what you want every time." Hardly. Even politely asking someone in a movie theater to please be quiet can lead to getting threatened on the way out of the theater. Most times not, but is it worth taking the chance? Maybe I'm a pussy but I've accepted that strangers, especially men, can be dangerous psychos with rage issues who have something to prove if anyone "starts anything" with them, even politely.
In other cities (NYC mainly) I've seen people in public take issue with something a stranger has done, and it often escalated to two people standing there yelling, or worse. It's just not worth it over something trivial. It's even worse in the clubs when drunk suckaz start flexin'.
Then again, there's probably more to this than can be seen on the surface, and this whole gendered "pussy" vs. "balls" thing may be more revealing than IA intends.
7
I see what yer sayin. I was outside the men's room at gypsy the other night and this guy bypassed the entire line to run into the bathroom. I said to the guy next to me "He must have to take a shit!" and the guy, who was told there was a line, came back and told the guy next to me to "shut his fucking mouth, I don't need to shit." I said that I had said it and I was joking. The guy next to me then proceeds to tell the shit guy to fuck off and they then got in a fight. Fucking ridiculous. So yeh, you are right in many ways. People are fucking crazy.
8
Geyser brings up an interesting point about confrontation: you just never know how someone is going to react. I tend to be the chat-with-anyone-about-anything type, which mostly works great in this town. Even the shy folks are usually game for polite conversation or a trivial request at their expense (move your table closer to the wall to make a path, stop kicking my chair, etc.), but you definitely do run into the occasional psychopath or person-on-the-edge-after-a-long-work-week-and-a-couple-of-tequila-shots, and those scenarios can escalate very quickly. I guess in that case, I would simply ask that people pick their battles. No one wants to get curbstomped for asking someone to pull their car up closer to the next car, so tread lightly when making those asks.

But I would fall back on #5's advice: doing something with grace and a smile goes a long way toward making your life better in nearly every situation, whether you're confronting or being confronted.
9
When I lived in Portland (Mt. Tabor), I witnessed my fat bitch of a neighbor run out to the sidewalk and fish out a bag of dog shit that a passerby had dropped into her trash can (which was out at the curb awaiting pickup/trash day) and RAN down the street to hand it back to the dude who dropped it in there. The fat cow said to the surprised dude "here you go: you left this in my trash can". I hated that ugly bitch.
10
...which was the premise of another wonderful I,A in which some deep thinker was acting like the worst thing in the world that could happen to a trash can was having a bag containing some stranger's dog's leavings thrown into it.
12
This IA is full of awesomeness!

100% dude!
13
@jake...agree. Portland is low key (which is good), but you are right about the whiny bitches. Confrontation is necessary at times, but not on trivial issues. If people want to be snarky and leave little notes and blog comments so be it. It pretty much tells me this is the only power you have because you clearly have NO backbone or courage. I also am not losing any sleep over that type of behavior.
14
Note to self: Remember to write note that says "stay away from I, Anonymous, because it sucks" and tape to computer screen.
15
That taping a bag of dog shit to the door thing doesn't exactly constitute passive aggressiveness, if you ask me (I think people have gotten a little lazy about the meaning of this term)...
16
IN THIS THREAD: NO ONE KNOWS WHAT PASSIVE-AGRESSIVE ACTUALLY MEANS.
17
To be fair, everyone with a dog is an asshole and people with dogs in apartments doublely so.

Chances are the person who taped the shit to the door did not know who was responsible.

and since all dog owners are assholes then all dog owners are to blame.

No one needs a dog. There are not vast heards of cattle or sheep to be wrangled in town. There is no duck hunting happening down by the river. If there are rat problems that require a terrier chances are an exterminator can do more than a hyper dog.

Fashion dogs are even more pointless. Bred and kept for vanity the miserable little things can barely breathe or walk or stay warm.

People who own dogs are assholes. People who own dogs in apartments doublely so.
18
#16:
I'm fairly sure it's passive-aggressive to state, in a comments thread, that no one in the thread "KNOWS WHAT PASSIVE AGRESSIVE ACTUALLY MEANS(note:unnecessary use of 'all-caps' and misspelling of 'aggressive" in direct quote left in place intentionally, which, I suppose, could also be taken as passive-aggressive)" Without actually posting the CORRECT definition of "passive-aggressive"

Was THAT a sufficiently passive-aggressive response to the original passive-aggressive post?
19
#17: obviously, you don't know any elderly or shut-in people who have no one except their dogs(usually small and well-behaved) for companionship.


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