There are a lot of things in the world today that annoy me. Grammatical errors made by the reasonably intelligent, bad weather when I have the day off, rodents under my kitchen sink, a plot line in my head that won't come together on paper, no matter how hard I try, and so on and so forth. I'm sure all of you have similar lists.
But you know what is really getting my goat right now? When you unintentionally do something that irritates/offends someone else, and instead of that person coming up to you and saying, "You know, I didn't like it when you did such-and-such. Would you mind not doing it again?" this person goes and tells all of his/her friends or coworkers about it, so that the first time you hear about it is when you get the mass e-mail that's been sent to everyone he/she knows.
I forgot to give something to one of my coworkers once. I didn't do it on purpose -- it just happened. I had every intention to give this person the item (I even had it in my hand and was just about to stand up and walk it over) when right then, things got rather busy, and I forgot all about the item in question. It ended up in my cubicle for about half an hour while I was at dinner. My coworker needed it while I was eating, and, not realizing where it was, was a little annoyed at the fact that she had to hunt it down. Then, instead of coming up to me later and telling me that she didn't like having to search for it, and could I please remember next time, she sent out a cranky e-mail to all of our coworkers, all of whom knew that I was the only person in the building who would have had the item. At no point did this coworker ever say anything to me about it.
So the next time someone does something to you that you don't like, don't just rant about it to everyone you know. Most likely the offense wasn't intentional (mine certainly wasn't), and if that's the case, the person probably had no idea that they did anything wrong. Talk to the person instead. Let them know that what they did bothered you. They probably won't get mad, and they'll probably even apologize and promise that they'll try to do better next time. But if you go and complain to everyone else first, the chances of you making up with this person are much much smaller.
