WE HAVE SOME COMPLAINING TO DO
part one
Well done, everyone! The Complaint Line has been on fire. Which makes sense (waves hand at…actually, maybe the better question is what aren’t we waving this particular hand at, right now).
I may turn this into a series. But for now, please enjoy part one. And then go outside (Spring just arrived in New York), or get a massage, or eat some cheese, or take a bath. Or do whatever is the most enjoyable activity you currently have access to. You deserve it.
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I am SO FUCKING TIRED of my fellow adult woman friends refusing to be on time for things, refusing to make plans in advance, refusing to respect the time we set aside for each other. Yes, I know: calendars aren’t fun!
Calendars are exhausting and we use them in our Jobs and to Run the Household and we don’t want to associate them with our friends! But we all have such limited time that, when these grown-ass women miss our plans or cut them short because they “didn’t look at the calendar,” I want to tear my hair out! You do, in fact, have to respect me and MY time by sticking to the plans we made together!
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Why tf does threads only ever ask me whether i want to see the patently great posts of rightfully incandescently pissed midlife women and never the shitty ones of small-minded losers?!? yet again, for the people in the back: f*ck ALL OF THE TECHBROS since the dawn of time, along with the abject failures they persist in calling algorithms.
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My job stresses me out (I'm doing the work of two people, some bad co-workers), but the job market is so bad that I can't escape. I want to live in a walkable city, but I live in a place where I have to drive everywhere. My co-workers say annoying diet-culture cliches while I'm struggling with my weight. I feel tired all the time. Hulu puts up its ads for other TV shows during credits, so I can't see the last part of "Abbott Elementary." [ed note: This annoys me too! You can hit “watch credits” to avoid.]
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I am angry/frustrated/sad that I am about to turn 43. The last 10 years have been so challenging with Trump, covid, Trump again. I thankfully got married a week before the 2016 election. I learned my partner has an addiction 4 years ago and I put my mixed desire to have a child on hold. It doesn't feel fair that there is a shelf life on being able to have a child (naturally). I had a miscarriage and felt that grief. I want to do things on my own time frame. It has taken so much energy to show up for my life and deal with the disappointments and challenges. It doesn't feel like all of the world chaos it isn't going to let up anytime soon. I want support/bandwidth and the time and space to process everything happening.
Thank you for receiving
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Unemployment is a bunch of ongoing boring bullsh*t. Jobhunting is irrevocably broken and i’m way too smart/stylish/prone to making everything/everyone i interact with better/happier to have to be out in these streets fighting alongside so many other worthy (and unworthy) parties for the scraps we’re currently forced to consider a livelihood, time i should get to spend doing the actual work of helping to make things better.
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Oh man. I sent the most complain-y email to about 10 of my closest friends last month. I am turning 50 at the end of March, and starting about 6 weeks before my birthday, friends started asking me about my plans. "What are you doing for your birthday??? It's a big one!!!" I told them I had made no plans. Zero. In part this is because, frankly, all of us are turning 50 this year, and the idea that we each have to have a separately meaningful blowout seemed a little silly. But also, it was a stroke of bad timing: 2 weeks before my birthday, I had to go on a big business trip. For most of February, I had been planning meetings and dinners and lunches for 40 clients, arranging plane tickets and hotel rooms. The idea that I had one more brain cell available to devote to planning something for myself felt laughable.
So, I emailed these friends, apologized for my poor planning, but said I just didn't have it in me. I wrote what I'd like from each of them individually (these included gifts like, "I'd like you to show me a movie you think I haven't seen but will love,") and told them I'd claim the gift anytime in the next calendar year. And then I said, "On my actual birthday, I'd kind of like someone to kidnap me, put a chloroform rag over my face, and have me wake up at dinner somewhere. I would be grateful for that, but I will not plan it."
Luckily, and as I knew they would, each of my friends responded with grace and kindness, they kicked into gear, and soon I had a weekend's worth of birthday plans. My gratitude really can't be expressed strongly enough; I don't know where I'm going to be on the night of my birthday, but honestly, I wouldn't care if it's Taco Bell. The gift isn't dinner; the gift is that I didn't have to plan it. (So I guess this is a mini-essay about how sometimes what feels like complaining is just asking for what you need.)
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Why do people insist on making online recipe comment sections sucky and useless? It should be an area where folks comment about the recipe or offer useful feedback (e.g., I found the ratio of butter to flour too dry, so added two tablespoons of milk the second time making the recipe and the crumb was lighter). NOT (this recipe calls for lots of tomatoes, but I don't like tomatoes, so this recipe sucks. But I instead made something that vaguely resembles it and can I tell you about why its better?).
Also - why is it impossible to find clothes that fit online, and yet simultaneously being driven to finding clothes online by the paucity in local clothing options (outside of major cities)?! I understand that our economy is heading to shit at an exponential rate, and one of the BIG losers are small business owners, especially those that don't sell their products online. But that being said, it's impossible to tell products apart online! All the retailers online describe their clothes in (pretty much) the same way, using (essentially) the same words, and using someone (often thin) and (alway) pretty to model the items. The abundance of options, and the inability to sort through them meaningfully to find pieces I like drives me fucking insane.
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I've been passed over for a promotion at my org (which I love!) for the fourth time. Every manager I've had has said I'm more than ready for the next level. Peers recognize it too. But again and again I am told I "meet the competencies" for the next level but my expertise doesn't align to the current business needs, which is counter to everything I see at this org. There's no action I can take, no path forward, I just have to wait and try again. Last year, a man got the promotion over me (I was second choice). A man who has a reputation for being unreliable and incompetent!!! It's infuriating and makes me feel silly and helpless.
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My writing motivation has gone out the window! I haven’t had an idea in months! I haven’t been published in over a year! All my friends are deep in early motherhood and I can’t complain to them about anything because I sound like a petty little monster! My job is so boring and I worry I’m stuck! Also, movies are way too long! And I’m tired of eating so much protein! And I can’t figure out what jeans are in style and all my plants keep dying! Pringles have become too small! My favourite wine now gives me an instant headache! Okay that’s probably enough - thank you for this outlet
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I suspect this will be the first of several submissions (if I can remember to submit) since I, like you, complain about being a complainer. But my most recent petty complaint is for people who place their dirty spin shoes on the bench where people are meant to comfortably SIT to put on said spin shoes. Shoes, meet floor. Bench, meet bum. That is all. Do better, cyclers!
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Am so frustrated that I have to be a scientist with a specialty in chemistry to choose a skin product. Am aware that it is the beauty industry preying on my ignorance and that is the point but still HATE IT.
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I think this should be a book. One billion complain-worthy things. By all the women in the world.
Absolutely love this and feel it is a crucial stress valve! Thank you!
The pressure to have a party on "milestone" birthdays makes the birthday not fun. I haven't had a birthday party since I was in middle school, and I've never missed it! When I have a "big" birthday, I take a trip to somewhere I really want to go. For my last birthday, I went to Quebec with my partner. No organizing, no planning, just plane fare, a hotel, and a carry-on. Once there, you get to do anything you want to do without worrying about anyone else's schedule.