PDA

View Full Version : That one person who you think is great except that one thing....



MechaKingGhidra
2011-10-07, 09:43 PM
I couldn't really come up with a 'decent' title so apologies in advance.

There are pretty decent people out there that we get along with. We might just talk or we can be more influential on each others' personal or business lives.

But then you suddenly find out something that you just can't believe of the other person. You know it shouldn't be a real problem. You want to just shrug it off as you, personally, just being petty to take something so minor and make it a bigger issue than it really should be.

But then you get thinking about it and then realize it does indeed have long-term costs if you ignore it. Well, you're at a crossroads and you just can't do anything but vent a little and hope it gets better.

As such, I felt I would post a little story of what I have recently come across in regards to this and welcome others to do the same. I put it in spoilers in consideration for those who don't want to have to scroll past my likely weird perspective on the matter.

As someone who truly hates being "that guy" to ask others to repeat themselves as it quickly becomes annoying, I also detest not understanding what is being said for a variety of reasons. Clarity is our friend but some people don't understand that, it would appear.

However, as I am currently taking a college course in which the Business English portion of it requires routine vocabulary and spelling tests, I need a bit of confirmation as to what some of the terms being asked of us are.

I feel somewhat silly for the most recent time this has happened but I was becoming quite frustrated at the time because what should have otherwise been two of the simplest things to distinguish between was just an effort in futility.

My instructor is typically quite swell as she doesn't think herself to be "above" any of the students. She doesn't ignore questions outside the classroom as long as she's not overly busy but she's polite about it if she needs to say 'can it wait until next class?' which is rarely ever. And when she is not busy during off-class hours (either personal life or being asked questions *about* class, etc) anyone can relate to her as a person as a whole. I honestly respect her.

I felt the instructor was not stressing any portion of "conscious" and "conscience" well enough (if at all, it seemed like). I know it was a very minor % on a single test of many but I refuse to let little mistakes add up and surprise me at the end of how much it drops my total, overall mark.

The instructor doesn't have an accent and she didn't slur or speak overly quickly. She just simply didn't use enough stress on the most important part of each word. I even was looking at her face for stretched lips to see if perhaps that would indicate the "see-a" sound of 'conscience', whereas 'conscious' wouldn't have widened her mouth anymore than her just being silent. No dice.

The spelling/vocabulary test we had wasn't being dictated in the order of which the words came from our textbooks but *apparently* these two words followed after one another, only adding to the fact that at first I thought she was simply repeating the same word.

She wouldn't even use them in an appropriate sentence, though I did ask about it and I got the runaround of how that would be "too easy" and that I should have studied before the test.

Umm...what does that bloody-well have to do with ANYTHING? I *did* study (not that I needed to because that particular test was all composed of words any 5th grader should at least have some rudimentary understanding of, if nothing else) but I can't very well know what she was specifically referring to if she couldn't be bothered to make some form of distinction between the two if she wasn't going to stress the words (either verbally or facially).

I'm not psychic so...what; too bad, so sad? That's a slap in the face to someone genuinely dedicated to their education. I know too many people who got dropped a full letter grade because *they* let the tiny marks off their many miscellaneous works add up instead of taking a damn minute (if that) to make sure what the real deal was each time.

I know there's going to be more, likely similar, terminology errors as we progress into the content that is actually difficult on its own; let alone the idea of having to potentially hold anywhere from a 2 to 20-minute debate on why we should or shouldn't clarify what is required of us students in order to grasp the concept at-hand. :smallannoyed:

If this sort of incident continues to be a problem further into the semester, I am seriously concerned how it might reflect in my other classes with this instructor....

But maybe I'm just being really stuffy and altogether insane and it's perfectly normal for two people to butt heads like this and still get along swimmingly otherwise?

What do you think?

Aedilred
2011-10-08, 05:43 AM
Well, I don't think there's any shame in asking a teacher/lecturer to repeat points of importance every now and again. Chances are every time you miss something like that there are >ten other people in the room who did too but don't want to put their head above the parapet and will be relieved if you ask.

In the specific instance, if you can't tell from the context which word is appropriate then it's going to be worth asking. If you're worried about disturbing the rest of the class, then approach the teacher afterwards; any half-decent teacher will be happy to fill you in if you explain the exact nature of the problem (i.e. it's not that you don't know the two words are different and haven't studied, it's just that you find it very difficult to tell them apart when she says them). It's always better to ask immediately with problems (or at the end of a relevant class) rather than saving it for next time, though, as this circumvents the "you should have studied harder" issue.

More generally, I tend to find that most people have more than one annoying trait.

MechaKingGhidra
2011-10-08, 06:21 AM
Apologies, I was a tad flustered when I typed this so I mistakenly left out a few details.

I did indeed point out that she is completely misunderstanding my problem. I even gave several other examples to compare it to and went as far as to pose a few analogies to her. She was completely unphased and still chalked it up to me not being prepared. By the end of it, I was almost completely convinced that I was talking to a brick wall because I was getting nowhere no matter how I tried to phrase the issue.

Clearly she recognized I had a problem. I liked that. I really did. But it's the fact she just simply thought she knew what it was and that I was being needlessly tiresome and redundant about it when it was the complete reverse that aggravates me so much.

I truly hate arguing (especially with someone who thinks I'm arguing for the pure sake of it) but I'm not letting my grade slip so much as a darn hair because of something as utterly ridiculous as this. And like I mentioned in the spoilers: imagine if this is only a taste of things to come later in the course, when the difficulty starts really ramping up? :smallmad:

I honestly hoped to have her realize her teaching method was flawed (for this particular issue, that is to say) and I'm left stunned at how someone so skilled at adjusting themselves to such a wide variety of people otherwise misses the entire point of what is happening at this time.

Ever have those days where you outright swear you're the only sane person?:smalleek:

Metahuman1
2011-10-08, 02:38 PM
Ever have those days where you outright swear you're the only sane person?:smalleek:


All day, every day, all year, every year, forever.

Coidzor
2011-10-08, 02:55 PM
Oh, yeah, whenever I get TMI about people's sexual hangups that I had no interest in learning or interacting with.

Lord Raziere
2011-10-08, 04:21 PM
All day, every day, all year, every year, forever.

Agreed, all day, every day, all year, every year, forever and a half....

ghost_warlock
2011-10-09, 07:26 AM
Ever have those days where you outright swear you're the only sane person?:smalleek:

Sometimes the only sane answer to an insane world is insanity.
-Mulder

:smallwink:

Kjata
2011-10-09, 07:37 AM
I once knew somebody who i was kind of friends with. He was friends with one of my really good friends, we got along great, but we never hung out without this mutual friend. Anyway, we would hang out, do teenage deviant stuff. I did a ton of illegal stuff with this guy. Then one day, i realized that he never swore. Nothing. Most of the people I hung out with had incredibly foul mouths (myself included, whenever I post here I have to do so much self censoring), but this guy...

He would talk about some dirty stuff too, but always in such a... clean way.

It really grated on me to hear someone tell stories of debauchery without a single fbomb. It was so out of place, liking if during highschool your teacher greeted you with a "Mornin' motherf***ers."

Asta Kask
2011-10-09, 08:07 AM
Ever have those days where you outright swear you're the only sane person?:smalleek:

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

Marcus Aurelius

I really like this guy. He has a pithy saying for all occasions.

Castaras
2011-10-10, 01:27 AM
Happens alllllll the time. Perfectly normal. People are irritating creatures. :smalltongue:

Ricky S
2011-10-11, 07:39 AM
I know the feel of knowing too much about other people.

For some reason people feel they can confide in me and they do so in great detail. So if you ever met me in real life I would be able to tell you all the darkest secrets that people have.

I am so sick of hearing people's problems though.

Sipex
2011-10-13, 12:18 PM
OP, your situation sounds reeeeeaaallllly frustrating, although when I read your thread description I didn't think we'd be hearing those types of stories. I was thinking of minor habits or things (like the story about the guy who didn't swear) which irk people.

I don't have a specific example (well, I do, I have several, but I digress) but I hate it when people geniunely like you but see a minor flaw they can't get over. This dislike is magnified ten fold when people decide not to tell you anything and act passive agressive about it.

I mean, I really really try to be an understanding guy about these things myself. People have flaws, everyone has flaws. I don't care if you just don't swear, I don't care if you pick your nose, I don't care if you have a creepy doll collection. So I really wish people would try to understand others flaws (my own and others) instead of being social degenerates about it.

edit: I should clarify, I am not calling anyone in this thread social degenerates as this is about trying to get over the little things that bug you and if/if not you should make a big deal of them.

Karoht
2011-10-25, 02:42 PM
I used to hang out with a group of girls. The decided that I was entirely too nice, therefore it must be a front. So they preceeded to spend the next few weeks pretty much harassing me as much as they could.

By the end of it, I flipped my lid on one of them who did something that resulted in me having a bloody nose and as a result, a ruined shirt and pair of pants.

"HA!!! I knew it! I knew you were secretly an jerkwad!" she decried.

"...you pretty much kicked me in the face out of the blue, ruining my clothing with a bloody nose, and I'm the jerkwad? Pffft." And stormed off.

Ironically, the rest of the girls gave her the what for after I left. Apparently the rest of them had completely forgotten the purpose of harassing me, and it had just become the thing to do. When reminded of this by the one who ruined my clothes, one of them came to apologize.

One very akward conversation later, I learned that people can really hinge on finding that one wrong detail, with one reason being that unless you know what is wrong with someone, you just don't feel as secure around them. Either secure about yourself, or secure in that you understand how and why that person might react a certain way.

Due to my experience in this matter, I do feel that searching out such flaws is remarkably silly, and waiting around for that flaw to manifest is equally silly.


As for my friends, they do in fact all have a little tick. It's not glaring, all the time, but there are days it stands out.

Starwulf
2011-10-25, 05:01 PM
I once knew somebody who i was kind of friends with. He was friends with one of my really good friends, we got along great, but we never hung out without this mutual friend. Anyway, we would hang out, do teenage deviant stuff. I did a ton of illegal stuff with this guy. Then one day, i realized that he never swore. Nothing. Most of the people I hung out with had incredibly foul mouths (myself included, whenever I post here I have to do so much self censoring), but this guy...

He would talk about some dirty stuff too, but always in such a... clean way.

It really grated on me to hear someone tell stories of debauchery without a single fbomb. It was so out of place, liking if during highschool your teacher greeted you with a "Mornin' motherf***ers."

Can I ask what bothers you about someone not swearing? My wife can tell a dirty joke to shame most guys, but in the 8 1/2 years we've been married, she's only cussed twice, and both times were when she was absolutely infuriated to the point of insanity. She doesn't even casually say damn or **** or anything like that. Doesn't seem that odd to me.