Nix's Whinge-A-Thon 2008

I've decided to get this all off my chest all in one go!

These are my pet peeves for 2008.

1. Teenage service attendants. Back in high school, I worked my ass off to try and get a part-time job, only to be turned down time and time again by the managers of McDonalds, Subway, Hungry Jacks, Crazy Horse..... I was a smart kid. I got good grades, had a good work ethic, I could articulate well enough and was well presented. But I never got past an interview.

But still, these days, it shits me to tears that I go into a supermarket and when I get to the counter, the 12 year old serving me says 'Hi, how are you?' WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING UP AT ME! GRRRR! I am so sick of the phony politeness that they are forced to do by their trainers, laced with insincerity. And I am fed up of having to repeat everything I say because they haven't listened the first time (even though it was them who asked the same written-out questions they ask everyone). There are so many people out there who are struggling to find work (adults particularly) who never get these jobs because the inarticulate morons they hire are cheaper to pay.

A fellow con student (who shall remain nameless) said to me a while back that at her franchised workplace, she is polite to the customers right up until about 4:45pm because it's the end of the day and then she just wants to go home because she's tired. I'm sorry but that pisses me off. The customer at 2 minutes to 5pm is just as important as the customer at 9am or at 1:30pm. Don't they teach that when they train their staff??????

The majority of teenage service attendants are rude, insincere and act like they don't want to be there. And yet, me, a willing polite and efficient kid, never got those jobs. It makes me angry. I stopped off at McDonalds a while back at Collinswood where this young girl served me at the drive through. She was gorgeous - she greeted me with a massive smile, got my order right without me having to repeat myself and was genuinely polite and helpful. What time was it, you might ask?

It was 3am. I felt like sending her a big bunch of flowers for being the first teenager to be polite to me ever in a fast food drive through.

2. Fast food restaurant lingo. Billy Connelly once said that it pisses him off when McDonalds won't understand that you want a chicken burger unless there's a Mc in front of it. He basically goes 'How about I stick a McFork in your McFucking McEyeball?'

Ay ay to that. The other morning, I stopped off at a BP On the Run to grab a coffee before work. I went up to the counter and ordered a large latte. Pretty simple order. And the girl looked at me blankly and said 'What size?'. So I said, "uh, the largest one". and she says "Do you mean the grande or the max"? I said to her, "the largest one". And it still took her 2 minutes to work it out. And even then, as she grabbed the wrong sized cup, I had to correct her.

Since when has 'small, medium, large and extra-large' become difficult to understand? Why the f**k do coffee franchises and fast food restaurants change the standard names on their products to make it difficult for their customers to order anything. They just DON'T understand if you don't order it in their stupid '"El Smallo, Regulatory and Gargantuan". I order a large latte just simply because it's even harder to order a medium one. I'm waiting for the day they name the size of the cups the same way they label tampons 'Mini, Regular and Super'.



3. People who mispronounce words (either deliberately or accidently). The use of the English language has become so lazy these days. If I hear one more person that says 'appree SEE ate' instead of appreeSHEEate', I will scream!!!!!! It gets my hackles up big time. That goes for 'vi-tamins' instead of VY-tamines. And HA-rassment instead of ha-RASS-ment.

South Australia is fast becoming New South Wales in their increasingly lazy pronunciation. We are fast becoming the state of 'Skew-uls' (instead of Skool) and 'Grafs' (instead of Grah-fs) and 'Ca-sel' (instead of Cah-sel). Oh and don't even get me started on people who say 'be-corrrs' instead of 'be-coz'.

4. People who diss Adelaide. The Adelaide vs Melbourne debate has been on everybody's lips lately. But have you noticed that there are no born-and-bred South Aussies dissing Adelaide? The only ones who are criticising Adelaide are people who have left our state now or have moved here from the eastern states. So all this stuff about how even South Aussies are criticising Adelaide is a load of bollocks. The majority of Adelaideans love Adelaide. They choose to live here because its a great city. It may not be the entertainment central of Australia or a great leader in innovation, architecture and business. But that's what makes it great. It's a sleepy little town that's friendly, warm and inviting.

It's the fact that we can walk from one side of the CBD to the other in 10 minutes. It's the fact that we don't have to pay $10 to get on public transport each day. It's the fact that visitors arrive through the Adelaide hills when driving in from Melbourne or Sydney- sure beats the shit heap that is Deer Park.

It's the fact that we don't have to buy interstate wine to get a nice drop to have with our dinner. It's the fact that the skyline hasn't been tainted yet by the ugliness of high rises. I don't live here because I want us to be a state that's moving forward in business, innovation and tourism. I live here because its my home and I never feel like I'm being overwhelmed by bustle and the architectural equivalent of a wet fart.

As far as I'm concerned, the people who don't like Adelaide can fuck off and stay away. Those who live here now (that were originally from other states) can go back where they came from and leave those of us who love our little city in peace.

5. Unqualified or illeducated instrumental music teachers. People who are attempting to make money out of teaching instruments, regardless of whether they are qualified to do so, really piss me off. I am so sick and tired of correcting terrible technique because the teachers my students have come from have not taught them the right way. There are generations of people who think that just because they can get a note out of the instrument, that gives them the skill to teach. WRONG! All it does is frustrate the students who, for the rest of their playing lives, struggle with certain things due to poor technique. Some just simply give up because it's all too hard for them to get over. Others unfortunately become teachers too and pass their bad habits on to their students.

I had a mature age student a while back who I charged $20 per half hour to teach. This is a standard rate - if not, a bit under the going rate these days. One day, suddenly, he said to me, I'm gonna learn from a lady next door who charges $10 a lesson. I asked him if she was a qualified teacher or a professional player. He said 'no, she was just a lady who had played clarinet for a while'. I later found out that the teacher he had gone to was a woman in a band that I had played in who had some of the worst technical habits I had ever seen. I just felt quite despondent that I was losing a good capable student to a woman who was, no doubt, going to destroy his potential. And all for the sake of $10. Besides the fact that people like that, giving substandard tuition, make it twice as hard for us qualified teachers to make a living because they are taking all our students by charging half our rate.



6. The Clipsal 500 and the dickhead drivers that it produces. This basically applies to anyone driving a Holden or Ford V6 and highter or turbo charged Nissan.


The Clipsal 500 is the bane of my existence. In addition to causing no end of traffic jams in the eastern suburbs (for which the residents should be compensated in their council rates), in turn causing a mass increase in greenhouse gases from idling cars, it produces a multitude of extra wankers on the road. The Clipsal 500 encourages every idiot with a V6 or higher to imitate the people they've just seen on the track for the next month. I am scared to be on the road in March for fear of being wiped out by some testosterone-charged bastard with a licence and a high powered (and might I add, ordinary) car.

The one major problem with working in the northern/north eastern suburbs are the dickhead drivers I face everyday. The other day I was driving in an 80 zone towards Mawson Lakes and this dangerous prick drove up behind me, got within 2 metres of me before changing lanes and sped past me at double my speed. When he went to cut in front of me, he lost control and spun out, narrowly missing me by a metre or so, before ending up on the side of the road next to me. I almost had a heart attack. If he had hit me, I would have been wiped out completely - my life would have been over. All because this fuckwit decided to exert his driving authority over me. I was so angry that I felt myself wishing that he'd rolled his car into a tree.


I am so sick of wankers in Commodores tailgating me all the time. The problem is, even if they don't change lanes to pass me, they sit behind so close that I find myself having to speed in order to get a safe distance away from them. Where the friggin' hell are the cops?????? I have yet to see a single police car monitoring this on the stretch between Montague Road and Mawson Lakes Boulevard. And yet, the radars are unfairly positioned 2 metres into the 60 zone as it drops from 80 at the tollgate on the South Eastern freeway, where drivers struggle to get their speed down enough without wearing out their brakes. Where's the equality?


Why the hell do we need cars that can go 200 kmph when the maximum speed is 110 anywhere in South Australia? Cars should be made to be speed limited by law. And no person under the age of 25 should be allowed the privilege of a high powered car of any sort (and not be allowed to travel with more than one passenger under the age of 25 also).


7. The fact that concert bands in Australia get no support. Basically, concert bands are treated like crap in Australia. We live in a very brass band orientated community and so those of us that play saxophone, clarinet, flute, oboe and bassoon, have very little opportunity for a musical outlet. The fact that there are 12 people in TOTAL in the concert solos this year in Brisbane is shameful (particularly since at least 2 of those are brass players). I am taking 3 days off work to compete against myself. How unfair is that? Where is the support and encouragement for concert bands? The possibilities that a concert band presents are much more versatile than a brass band (as much as I love the brass band sound). It is very different, rich in timbres and much easier to play a more versatile program.


If this was the US, it wouldn't be the case as there is a very large band community in the states but here, it's virtually non-existent. I'm worried that I will have to move interstate even to play for fun soon because the South Australian concert band community is struggling to maintain a decent standard.


Let's give some more support to our woodwind players who quite often present as high a standard of performance as brass players.


8. Rich people who assume that everyone is exactly like them. I have never had much money. Ever. We were always struggling as a family and now as I am independent, that is still the case. I work my ass off for much less than someone else doing the same hours (I can think of a few friends who are a good example of the latter). It's extremely frustrating. But what is more frustrating is the people who just assume that they are the most important thing to be paid and take no consideration to the fact that maybe they are not my highest priority. Take for example, the bank.

I hate the bank I'm with. I have been increasingly more disappointed with the substandard service they are offering their customers. And this last incident has taken the cake for me and has forced me to make the decision to move my money elsewhere after 29 years.

I have two accounts. One was overdrawn by $137. The other account - my business account - had over a thousand. On Monday last week, I transferred the thousand into another investment account with another financial institution. But of course, it doesn't happen for a day or so. So I was assuming the next morning that I would have $55 in the account still to pay for the petrol I put in my car. But no, my account bounced when I tried to pay for the petrol. How humiliating. So I left my mobile phone there as collateral and went to work. I called the bank and they told me that because one of my accounts was overdrawn, they had taken $137 out of my business account to pay the debt. So this had now overdrawn my business account by $80 (because of the $1000 that had come out at the same time).

Well I, to put it mildly, spat the dummy. How dare they take money out of an account that has nothing to do with the overdrawn one. Just because it's with the same bank doesn't give them the right to steal money out my account. Anyway, the collections guy I talked to at the bank recognised that what they had done was illegal and transferred $137 back into my business account.

Three days later I got home to find a letter stating that I had been charged a $38 fee for overdrawing that account. And it has now taken almost a week and I still have not been reimbursed for that money. How the HELL can they get away with this stuff? My account was NEVER overdrawn. There is no record of an overdrawn account on my transaction list and surely if they override their decision, the fees should be overriden too as it was not my fault. I'm so fed up. What makes them think that they are the most important people that I need to pay. They have received literally hundreds of dollars from me in the last couple of years in fees and charges. I have rent, electricity, food to buy. How dare they? So all because they decided to break the law, they've just lost a customer that has been with them since she was born. I've had enough.


Anyway, that's enough whinging for one day. Phew!