"No Problem" Is A Huge Problem And Other Pet Peeves

You've just begun your meal in a restaurant. Your waitress walks by and asks if everything is okay. You reply, "Yes, thank you."

"No problem," she responds.

You thank the college administrator for translating tuition payment instructions, which you thought had been written in a  Martian dialect.

"No problem," he says.

You thank your brand-new server at your beach club for (finally) delivering your meal. "No problem," he says.

Let's be very, very clear about this: saying "No Problem," when what you really should be saying is "You're Welcome" is a very BIG PROBLEM.

People of any age should not be even remotely thinking that performing a service for others, especially paying customers, might be some kind of problem. There is no problem, can be no problem, for eons there was no mention of a possible problem. Why is there a problem now?

Is this related to the phenomenon of having to accept "aks" for "ask?" Or, is it connected to young men and women habitually saying "And he was like and then I was like and then he was like," when they mean, "I said this, then he said that, and then I said....to describe some silly conversation?"

We don't know. We don't care. Stop with the "No Problem."

You're Welcome.



    
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How should we know when a driver ahead of us is going to make a left turn? He/she engages an ingenious device located on the steering-wheel column, called a left hand turn signal. Amazingly, there is one for a right turn as well.

You do not believe me? I feel your pain.

These days, when you're driving up 95 to take advantage of that huge sale on kumquat seeds at Whole Foods, you seldom see the vehicle in front of you using turn signals. It happens in town too. If you follow a Mercedes, anecdotal evidence indicates: no chance. Apparently there are no words in the German language for "turn signals."

Maybe we've stopped using the signals due to current vehicle design, which  complicates matters by making what used to be only turn signal arms into multi-functional devices. Trust us, even though you can operate Cruise Control or the nineteen window-wiper speeds from these arms, there really are actual, operational turn-signals there.

They are just like the ones you HAD to use in order to get your license. Except that you no longer bother using them. If you think this is really No Problem, you are wrong. Please be courteous and safe: use both the right and the left.

You're Welcome.
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You enter an elevator, headed to that important interview or presentation. You want to take these last few ascending moments to mentally prepare your pitch.

Suddenly, your concentration is broken, when you notice fellow elevatorians staring at the screen, as if they are actors in some sci-fi movie about aliens abducting humans in elevators.

Do you really need to know what the Dow is doing every minute? Do you really need to know what the dippy BP, Goldman, or GM CEO just said? Are you craving just one more look at Lindsay Lohan's headlong career/life nosedive?

No. You also do not need 24-hour TV in taxis, banks, airports, delis,
nail salons, or funeral homes.

We cannot find much decent programming on TV to watch in our home (okay, we're suckers for The Mentalist, MI-5, Masterpiece Mystery, Yankee Games). Why do some folks, who like to act like aliens, think we need crazy housewives from Topeka EVERYWHERE we go.

We must stop doing this to ourselves.

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We offer these improvements as a Public Service. We hope you are grateful, but for those who are not....
No Problem.