August 7, 2007
SFist Finds: Passive-Aggressive Note
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This one reads like its straight off of Passive-Agressive Notes, although it's of a much more subtle caliber than this one.
SFist reader CD found this note on his door, written by his neighbors. CD pointed out that the marathon-runners were so concerned about their precious sleep that they neglected to even ask for a pledge. We imagine their voices to sound something like the passive-aggressive voice of the boss in Office Space.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago (to _______ at least), we have been training for the SF marathon to raise money for the AIDS Foundation. The marathon takes place this morning (early) on July 29th.We would really appreciate it if you could be quiet over the weekend, so that we can sleep/rest before race-day.
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Sounds like a perfectly reasonable request to me.
I know! I don't get what's passive-aggressive about it at all. Reading between the lines it sounds like the runner has noisy neighbors, and he has to make a special request that they be quiet for two nights so he can sleep before the marathon.
It's a direct request, nothing passive or aggressive about it.
Well, I think asking someone to be a quiet the *entire* weekend is pretty overboard. And notes always seem to come off as passive-aggressive, but to each his own.
Is it signed by "guest?" Oh sorry. Was that passive-aggressive of me?
Is it signed by "guest?" Oh sorry. Was that passive-aggressive of me?
I think the term is often mis-used, for a definition see:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-passive-aggressive-mean.htm
I don't think that writing that letter is in any way passive-aggressive.
Ya, sorry but that's simply not passive aggressive. The request totally reasonable and stated in a polite and respectful manner. I feel sorry for them that they even have to ask - said neighbor must be a PITA to live under/next to to have to even ask for some peace and quiet like this.
The recipient of this letter is most likely, completely clueless, and probably too immature to realize there are other people living nearby that have to deal with their shit. My bet is they are probably pretty disrespectful.
When you choose to live in a dense urban environment, you absolutely must consider your neighbors when making noise (having people over, staying up late, watching loud movies/playing music – whatever). It’s important to think about how your living habits impact those around you - esp. when you aren't living in a single family, detached house out in the boonies.
If someone wants to live loud in the city - go OUT - lots of places to go to be loud in SF!
DAMN YOU!!
Now I have been spending many precious minutes reading the hilarity that is passiveaggressivenotes.com!
IN FUTURE LET'S PLEASE NOT POST THESE LINKS, SHALL WE?!?
Sounds like a perfectly polite, reasonable request. I feel sorry for these people that clearly live next door to a noisy asshole.
I'm with the majority of the other commenters on this one. Once you've lived through the hell of noisy, inconsiderate neighbors, you'll see this in a whole different light. I feel for the note-writer and hope they got some sleep.
for the commenter at #7, i am said immature, clueless, disrespectful neighbor. i understand perfectly well how the dense urban environment works, how to be a respectful neighbor and how to make sure that the shit of mine that my neighbors must to deal with is as minimal as possible. i even take out their trash bins for them.
but as you may not be aware, sometimes people stay up late on weekends. and those of us with friends sometimes invite them over. i hadn't considered it to be my immaturity that was the culprit, perhaps it's simple ignorance, but i wasn't aware that was verboten.
anyway, i got through the first paragraph of that letter and thought to myself, i wonder what a decent donation would be? but then i saw that they didn't actually want me to donate money to their charity run but instead just to STFU. that surprised me, this being san francisco and all with our heightened awareness of the toll AIDS takes. no matter how immature, clueless and disrespectful i am, it would seem that they'd at least give it a shot. (maybe they're friends of yours?) i might even go so far as to call it immature.
but i still took out their trash bins anyway. one day, fingers crossed, i'll get a clue.
What is going on here? The ”bitch spilled my coffee on me on muni" post and now this one? I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask your loud neighbors to keep it down and if you bring coffee on MUNI, you might get burned. Please move on to SF news and what not. Maybe go pop in on the LAist, they have a great blog going!
does the noisy neighbor live on the top floor? it's my experience that loud upstairs neighbors have no sympathy if they aren't also being driven batty by noise cause they have no clue how aweful it is. In the past I've tried a combo of ear plugs, mutliple loud fans and stuffing a pillow over my head to get some peace and quiet with no luck.
take your friends to a bar next time.
I found this on mcsweeneys, hysterical:
Apparent Passions of
My Upstairs Neighbors.
BY GLENN LINGLE
- - - -
Moving furniture
Rolling bowling balls off of tables
Keeping time to music by beating a staff
Picking up anvils, and then dropping them
Riverdance
Ha. The author of the note should come live in my apartment for a while. My neighbor upstairs has two large dogs that love to play. And bless her heart, the neighbor is a tiny thing but to hear her walk across the floor you would think Sasquatch was living up there.
Earplugs. I recommend earplugs.
For the runner. The girl upstairs doesn't bother me at all. It's called a city. Unless the neighbor is just out of control loud, then author needs to chill out. Or go live in the suburbs.
But I don't think her note was particularly rude.
... I wasn't aware people use graphing paper for anything else besides graphing ... stuff.
"Where's my stapler? You took my stapler. I have lots of gasoline. Might catch on fire. Building might burn down."
Some people consider the use of notes alone versus a face-to-face confrontation to be exhibiting passive-aggressive behavior. That may be true in some cases (like when you know good and well who stole your lunch, but you post a note on the refrigerator), but I'd give the runners the benefit of the doubt on this one. Nothing really sarcastic about it, and who knows when you'll find your neighbor at home?
This just reminds me of all those "he was always so quiet" reviews by neighbors once someone goes totally apesh*t and slaughters someone/their noisy neighbors.
Just sayin'
I side with the note leaver. They are trying to be nice to disrespectful a holes.
Noisy neighbor chiming-in proves excessive tendancy for buttache behavior.
Note leavers be damned. Assholes rule.
See, this is why we live in a house in the suburbs. Still have neighbors next to you and behind you, but not over or under.
Consider my predicament, living below someone who is otherwise very quiet, except for leaving his windows open day and night. He's got allergies. Really bad allergies. And while I'm not a squeamish person by any sense, after six months of hearing make every single nasty, disgusting but probably necessary noise to clear his throat and sinuses every waking hour, my compassion has about run out. Hearing the whole CHHHHHHHHAK HAAAAAWWWWWCCCCCHHHK thing day after day hour after hour... anyway, how do you deal with that?
I should add that it's not just me, but all the surrounding neighbors that are getting a little tired of this. How do you bring up something like "the sounds your body makes are revolting and we really wish you'd see a doctor" without making him feel humiliated?
Dear Guest: are you on f'ing crack??? this note is not passive aggressive? You must be a real pleasure to eat dinner with.
#1 - graph paper - why not write the note on tighty-whities with a sharpie?
#2 - "as I mentioned a few weeks ago"? This is code for "I am pissed I am having to tell you again" - but the note-writer won't say it. That is the definition of passive aggressive. A well adjusted person would either say "I am mad" (aggressive) or leave it out (passive).
#3 - "early" in parentheses? Does the writer think maybe this fact would be lost on the reader if it were not pointed out? Like maybe this is the special once-a-decade Midnight AIDS Marathon? But obviously it SHOULD be obvious otherwise it wouldn't be in parentheses! This is like people who lie and then insist they didn't do anything wrong. But then, uh, why'd ya lie?
#4 - only on Planet Douchebag (or in the suburbs) is this a non-invasive request. The reader is being asked to modify her behavior to suit the lifestyle choices of the writer. I'm assuming the reader is not a tweaker who is hosting bongo orgies at 3am - in which case the neighbors would be calling the police. The reader is simply a person who entertains on the weekends and doesn't think to bug her neighbors about stuff she can deal with herself - like with earplugs, or my own preference, a fan.
Unless the redacted salutation is something like "Dear thoughtless neighbor" or something equally condescending and vague, I think SFist reader CD is being a bit of a whiner. The note is a request for common courtesy not an ultimatum. Suck it up and keep it down, CD.
note recipient here again (also left comment #11).
it's really weird and a little fascinating to see over a dozen people insisting i'm a major league asshole (and one even finding proof in the fact that i left a comment!) i thought of leaving this comment earlier, but decided to wait to see more responses out of curiosity. but now i'm off to hopefully catch ball #756 so here it is.
here, in its entirety, is my submission note to SFist:
alert readers will note a couple of things: (1) i acknowledged right up front that it wasn't passive agressive; (2) any passive agressivity that *is* in the note was not the reason for my submission; and (3) the actual point, as i noted in my last comment, was the fact that they couldn't even bring themselves to ask for a donation. this isn't a dig at you all, but i'm a little stunned that despite it appearing now three times on this page no one seems to catch that. it leapt off the page immediately to me. i also find "please keep it down" notes and face to face requests to be absolutely fine as well as unworthy of sharing. i've even made that kind of request myself. but it's weird (and i mean that honestly, not sarcastically) - i never thought people i asked to keep it down were as awful as you all find a stranger who you know nothing about.
the truth is, i was happy to keep extra quiet. i don't have the balls to try a marathon and consequently respect anyone who does. maybe i am an asshole (as well as immature, clueless and disrespectful), but this isn't the reason.
flame on.
Why did they have to mention what the marathon was for? That's what I see as being passive-aggressive. Who cares what the purpose of the race is if all they want is peace and quiet?
We're so charitable, we thought you should know. Now STFU!
I usually enjoy the FOUND entries on SFist. This one was just a big whine. I agree with #12. The coffee post was a big crybaby rant. This one is too.
Look pal, you have people over who make a lot of noise. It's annoying. Grow up. I don't care if it's the weekend. You still bug.
Everyone has been assuming the note was to a neighbor.
Sounds like it's from room mates to another room mate who is probably a meth head up rearranging furniture all weekend.
The note is certainly self-absorbed in that oh, so American lefty way.
Look, everybody, you too neighbors, we're running a marathon! Yes, it's for AIDS. Aren't we wonderful? Donation? No, I don't want you to donate; I just want you to know I'm running for charity. Oh, and can you be extra quiet the whole weekend so we can rest good? It's our special day, so I hope you understand.
I have a submission for supposedly found things. It's a FedEx door tag. I FOUND it when I came home today. It's quite the find.
Passive aggressive is trying to get people on some website to listen to you whine about a direct reasonable note. Get over yourself and be thankful the neighbors don't call the cops when you are 5db over ambient noise between 10:00PM and 7:00AM on any day of the week. (that is city code)
-iam5
dude,
do you live above them? do you have hardwood floors? is this a sub-standard builing, worth less than 3 million per unit?
if so, you are probably not aware that they can hear everything you do or say below them unless you never wear shoes, never drop anything, or never raise your stereo/tv beyond a regular morning talk show type comfort level.
not your fault but if this is the situation, it can just get quite tiring to live with for anyone.
Okay, the person who sent this letter to sfist is crying out to be schooled on a variety of issues. It is pitiful that the poor slob of a neighbor has to plead with you to keep it the hell down for one weekend out of your life so he sleep through the night. Do you feel at all ashamed about this? Are you so clueless and entitled that a simple request to refrain from being a jackass for 48 hours puts you into some insane tailspin that compels you to submit a personal letter from your neighbor to a site for public consumption and ridicule?
Well, it backfired, pal. Not only do most of the commenters think you're a tool of the highest order, but we sympathize completely with your neighbor.
It was completely low of you to send this note to sfist. If you had issues with It why didn't you man-up and discuss it directly with your neighbor? And for the minority of commenters who defended you by saying living on the cityeans you can act like a jackass, please move back to your frat house in the burbs.
And I'm disappointed with sfist for even running this. I agree with the poster who compared this to the drinking coffee on muni post.
correcting my typo: Should read "living in the city means..."
The people annoyed by the noise could always try my favorite drink to help them sleep.
It's called a V&V. Straight Gray Goose vodka with a couple of crushed blue Valiums stirred in. Makes you sleep like a baby.
I doubt it's that people didn't "catch" that the writer didn't ask you for a donation. It's just not surprising because they're annoyed and you just don't ask someone you're telling to shut up for money. That would be awkward.
Wow, I don't check my email for 18 hours and come back to this crap.
I agree, this post wasn't one of the best, and I knowingly broke the "found" rule -- whatevs. I thought it would be ignored at best. Yet this post has by far the most comments ever on a found post! Thanks for that, passive-aggressive anonymous guests.
--
Also, my s.o. has a 90-year-old neighbor who can be heard hacking up a lung 24 hours a day. There is no respite from it. Should I write a note on graph paper asking her to please be quiet as I am trying to get my beauty sleep for a weekend of yoga?
I am an extremely quiet person who has always lived on the ground floor, and I've been lucky enough to never have had unreasonably loud neighbors. You get what you give, in my opinion...
Leanne, I'm guessing the 90 year old hacking up her lungs isn't doing so recreationally. Perhaps she has a health problem?
CD's noisy activities presumably aren't related to some health problem.
I don't think it's fair to equate the two situations. Not all noise is equal.
jnice [#22], NONE of your enumerated points prove the note to be “passive-aggressive,” by definition. Snotty, yes. But snotty does NOT equal passive-aggressive. The term means to express one’s aggression non-verbally, or in an underhanded/manipulative way. This note doesn’t do that.
Furthermore, why do you ASS=U+ME that “the reader is not a tweaker who is hosting bongo orgies at 3am”? Unless you live in this building and know the neighbors in question, you have no clue what past incidents led to this note. I’ve lived beneath hellish neighbors (stomping in boots at 5am on hardwood floors, vacuuming/ blaring stereos at midnight, etc), and believe me, earplugs don’t do shit. If you’re being chronically disturbed by loud a**holes, you have every right to complaint.
I agree this note is impolite, but it’s not out of line, and no way in hell is it "passive-aggressive."
And I agree with the suggestions to CD: take your friends to a bar.
"Presumably" is the key here, on all sides.
And the term Passive-Aggressive Note was in direct reference to this web site, which does feature notes of this kind.
I gotta say the note is mildly passive aggressive, or at least creepy in its tone. The graph paper though that's what throws me over the edge into hating these marathon running, disease battling jerks. Leaving nots or graph paper is just condescending -- "Look at me, I do math!"
Still in the grand scheme of passive aggressive, is there any medium more passive aggressive then the Internets? Is there any more passive aggressive activity than blogging about someone who personally annoys one? If there is I can't think of it.
Actually this is what the note said
SHUT THE FUCK UP SO I CAN SLEEP ASSHOLE
Lost 2 hours to surfing passiveaggressivenotes.com. Thank you, motherfucker, for posting the link.