What drives you crazy?

From an oft referenced source – Jack's Winning Words Blog - comes this little piece of wisdom. “No one can drive us crazy unless we give them the keys.” (Doug Horton). Who has your keys?

Less than competent Realtors often have my keys and they do drive me crazy. Why it’s so hard to call a fellow Realtor back or to respond to a request for feedback after a showing is beyond me. Yet, that happens all the time. I suspect that is why the number one complaint about real estate people from the customer base is that they don’t return calls. That would drive anyone nuts. I must have left one of my keys in their lockbox.

It also gets to me that I don’t get one of my two morning papers before it’s time to go to work. I often call it my afternoon paper, because the Detroit Free Press doesn’t make it to my house before 8 AM many mornings and not before 9 AM on weekends. The Oakland Press is almost always on the sidewalk by 7 AM, weekdays or weekends. Some weekends I don’t get the Detroit Free Press until after 10 AM. Grrrr! So, somehow my Free Press delivery person has a set of my keys, too.

And don’t even get me started on dumb drivers. These days a lot of people are really moving around in mobile phone booths, too busy talking to pay much attention to the world around them, which just happens to include me, other cars, signals and signs and pedestrians. I might as well just toss them a set of keys.

Inconsiderate parking also gets to me and I often take the time to inform them of the availability of “parking for dummies” classes and books in the form a little notes left on their windshields. It is especially annoying to see non-handicapped cars in the handicapped parking areas or some idiot in a 12-14 foot long crew cab truck parked in a “Compact Cars Only” spot, with his bed hanging half way out into the road. More keys please.

Wow, this is starting to sound like an Andy Rooney piece on 60 Minutes. I guess I am becoming an old curmudgeon, too; and that ticks me off. Hand me a key.