1. Interviewing badly in a bad economy. So I finish interviewing this person for my department, and I ask if he has any questions for me.  He says, “Well, where were you before you joined the company...”

[assesses my still-boyish features as well as long tenure at my current job]

“...grade school?”

Survey says BZZZT.  I absolutely will recommend this candidate receive a job offer on the spot...to sling fries, that is. Still, I guess it was a backhanded compliment of a sort, and I did go ahead and cancel my weekly botox appointment.

2. Excessive display of Obama fervor.  Look, I like the guy too, and I’m particularly fond of his ability to speak in complete sentences as well as the fact that he used to collect Spider-Man comics. But he is not going to single-handedly save our economy, bring peace to the Middle East, defeat the terrorists, and invent flying cars. At best, he’ll get around to one of them. And I know the one I’m betting on, and will continue to watch the skies until I see it brought to fruition.

3. People who send me an email at work and then come over and ask me if I’ve read the email.  Couldn’t you have just come talk to me in the first place if you were so motivated to gaze upon my beatific features? Why send the email and give me the spanish inquisition?  Here’s a surefire way to know that I’ve read an email (that you just sent five minutes ago): you get a reply.  The Interwebs, is there nothing they can’t do?

4. People who say ‘you know’ like it’s going out of style. There’s nothing wrong with verbal tics; I personally begin every sentence with “Listen up, bozo.” But if you can’t get through three words without saying “you know,” I’m happy to go make some chamomile tea while you relax and collect your thoughts. And then if you start up again and keep doing it, I can dump the tea on your head.

5. People who nominated Benjamin Button for Best Picture.  That movie definitely gave me the sense of a someone’s complete lifetime...mine.  Slipping away hour after hour after hour.  I didn’t even like it the first time it swept the awards.

6. People who allowed sub-prime mortgages to go on for years. These guys totally messed it up for all of us, and have you noticed that we haven’t even heard an apology?  They’re all just trying to blend in, saying “Gosh, times are sure tough” like they had nothing to do with it. Let’s all gang up and, say, not invite them to any parties this year.  That’ll send a stern message.

7. People who find a two-hour window in the weekend to do their taxes insanely early so they can use the refund for beer money. Oh wait, that’s me.