This Is Very Benign, Nothing to See Here

It's been awhile since I wrote one of my infamous list blogs, and stuff has built up. In the interest of maintaining my tenuous grasp on sanity, and because I need to remain gainfully employed for another 10 years or until the kids graduate from community college, I'm gonna let it all out here. Working title for the list: Stuff That Pisses Me Off. I'll probably need to change that.

Stuff That Pisses Me Off

• My new(ish) Jeep has evidently been built by a team of Environmental Censors (not the monitoring kind, but the...well, yeah, monitoring kind, but with a "C"). For example, every few minutes, the Jeep Brain overrides my manual choice to recirculate inside air through my heater, and switches to outside air. The result of this is to instantly infuse the passenger cabin with the exhaust fumes of the 5,000 cars in line with me in California's stop-and-go traffic. During my typical 90 minute commute, I am forced to switch back to inside air circulation at least 30 times, while I am also required to open all the windows in the Jeep in order to get the exhaust fumes out at least 5 or 6 times during that same ride. Hey, Stupid Jeep Thought Police--if I am trustworthy enough to have a driver's license, I am trustworthy enough to make my own Air Circulation Choices!
• Those same Stupid Jeep Thought Police evidently took the day off, however, when designing the front window sun shade. If I position the driver's seat all the way back (which I am required to do since I'm an average-height human), the sun shade does not provide either front or side coverage against the sun's rays when the sun is anywhere below its zenith. Coincidentally, my daily morning and evening commutes are routinely accomplished at times other than noon. So...the shade is useless.
• People continue to send flowery emails and book special meetings with me for the sole purpose of finding a way to casually let me know that I am a female technology executive. The conversation goes something like this: Me: "I am somewhat interested in your product/service. Can you share more detail about the consumption model and pricing?" Them: "I have a daughter, so I totally feel your pain and admire your journey." Me: "Um, thanks. Can I see the demo now?" Them: "Can you believe that stuff at Uber/Google/ABC? Us non-prejudiced people need to stick together, am I right?" Pro Tip: You can be right and an annoying idiot at the same time.
• Many apps that have fabulous potential and generally good interaction design are ruined by poorly designed algorithms run amuck ("amuck"--a word that rhymes with "shmuck" for all you aspiring rappers out there). As an example, I recently updated a blog posting here on LinkedIn to which I attached an image specifically labelled "censored". (To be clear, the image was the word "Censored" inside of a big red circle, crossed out). LinkedIn blocked this blog posting--it no longer shows up in the feed, and viewership died at around 9,000 views, seconds after I updated the image. I kind of liked that blog posting (titled "A Tale of Two Men"), and I'm sad that I can't seem to find any way to override the algorithm. Meanwhile, over in Facebook-land, I'm continually presented with photos of exotically-designed cupcakes just because I clicked one time the week before Halloween on a really cute Ghost Cupcake design to engage in the brief thought exercise of how cool it would be if I actually cared enough to bake sh*t like that. And now, no matter how many times I click on sock ads, I still see cupcakes. I don't even want socks!
• Modern medicine is a complete and utter crock (which is short for "crock of butter", in case any algorithmic Sensors (Censors?...I can't help but feel that if I were a male technology executive, I'd probably know the correct usage...although I do have a son (sun?), so I understand the mindset) are reading this. After SIX FULL MONTHS of following a gaggle of doctor's advice on my excruciating heel pain, my foot hurts EXACTLY the same as when I started. Only now I am relegated to vaguely missing the wonderful pain killers I was taking last year up until the day that I made a New Year's Resolution to stop doing that. They've left me fully addicted to the idea that going to the doctor is supposed to accomplish something. I have found, however, that I can fall back on my earlier misconception that holistic medicine has an answer instead. Perhaps my latest phase (faze?) of turmeric-infused cryotherapy immersion will last long enough for my foot to heal (heel?) ON ITS OWN ANYWAY!!!
• No matter what I write or how I write it, there will be some subset of people who will completely misunderstand what I'm saying and send me private, hate-laced messages attacking my character and making disparaging comments about my lineage and intelligence level. Others will note in the feed that LinkedIn is not a place to say what we think, nor is Facebook or Twitter or The Classroom or really any Media Outlet, social or otherwise. I'm sorry you feel that way. There, I've apologized. Plus, I've helped to tune the Censors (dang it...Sensors???).