BOFH: Attractive person is attractive. Um, why are your eyes bulging? “What brings you down here then?” the PFY asks the Director after he popped through the door unannounced. “Oh, I wanted to give you a heads-up on your new manager.” “Really, has Roy left?” the PFY asks, knowing the answer only too well. “Yes. He messaged me over the break saying he wouldn’t be coming back. Something about …
Got to agree it should of end with the police walking in and asking if anyone could help them with their queries regarding a recent domestic dispute and a enhanced cattle prod just outside the office. Sometimes one can unleash the crazy for good but that is rather like detonating an A bomb for the good of humanity. (best done if far, far away)
All questions about clothing with a partner risk waking the CRAZY. It's a situation designed to test even the most experienced of UN diplomats. In fact, they should use that as the interview test when they pick their next Middle East peace envoy.
For goodness sake woman! I don't even know what wallpaper colour goes with which. Don't ask me what colour dress you should be wearing. When I was a kid, and was asked what colour contact lenses I wanted, I said yellow! I was 4 years old at the time, but my point still stands. I should be excused from all discussion on the matter.
My sister-in-law genuinely asked me what colour kettle I was going to get, and whether it would match the accent colour of my curtains. She may as well have been speaking Klingon.
Ah! I read an article once about how colour blindness can help when detecting camouflaged animals and might have conveyed an evolutionary advantage when a small proportion of the (male) population were affected. Now I am beginning to see that there may be a whole other reason linked to increased reproductive opportunities.
"Orange" is probably the only answer that shouldn't be given, especially when "Green" is present ...
After that, "Is the house untidy?" "do these shoes go?" "when will you stop doing that?" ... there are no good answers.
Seriously, your sister-in-law asked about the colour of a kettle? (Reminds me of the HHGG, where they wanted to know what colour the wheel should be) ... Tell her you're a man, and you just want it to boil water.
Not just the colour of the kettle, which is bonkers enough, but whether it went with the curtains! I wouldn't know what colour went with what anyway. Let alone care. Still at least it was easy to answer. I'm not going out with her, so no lying diplomacy required, I was simply able to state that I don't care.
"Yes! That is exactly the point! Do people want fire that can be fitted nasally? ... OK Mr Wiseguy, if-you're-so-clever what colour do you think it should be?" etc.
Whenever I am quizzed about which shoes/dress/blouse/[insert obscure item for which she wants approval here] I never say the first one is OK. That would be suicidal. I always carefully compare the first option with the second, internally flip a coin, and follow the simple algorithm
if (coin.heads()){
cout << "I prefer the second" << endl;
} else {
cout << "No, the first one was better after all" << endl;
}
So far, I survive.
Clothes shopping. My wife is pragmatic now and we don't go together. Asking me about which of the x items is best is similar to me asking her which network topology we should use for the car. No idea, not in the least interested, and my opinion is of no constructive/considered value anyway. I once got busted for giving rote answers without even looking. There was pain, it was worth it, no longer get caught up in shopping for clothes together 'because it's what couples do'.
Clothes are foremost about utility of course, but then I like some flourishes (although not the same ones she does). Her selection of cardigans involves ones without sleeves, buttons and I kid you not there's one without a back FFS. We live in different worlds.
There you have hit the nail on the head, a number of times I have been with women who literally just want to unleash the crazy, I think it's because they are emotional beings (well more so than men anyway) and need a good rant or something. On a number of occasions my wife has mentioned to others it annoys her when I don't argue with her.
I just don't get the need for it, hence why I'm from Mars and she is from Venus I suppose.
Misogyny or (large amount of) Truth......you decide.
For example, last week I tried to help my wife out being a nice bloke and seeing she was a bit late. "I'll drop the boy off today if you can drop Hannah at the childminders" [for context, "The Boy" is a 10 minute drive each way in the wrong direction where Hannah needs dropping 200 yards down the road.]
This woke the Crazy, and not by a gentle nudge awake but by Smashing it in the face with a wrecking ball. "Oh, easier for you is it?? Suits you to do that doesn't it" (it doesn't but usually we do it the other way around and I still don't get the logic she used to get there).
Anyway, four times since then she's wanted to do it this way around so she can get to work quicker. And I've still not received a "I'm sorry for the over-reaction" or "you were right" or "that really helps me out"
The case for the prosecution rests M'lud.
Did I just read a thinly veiled mysogynistic rant or what?
Good God man! You're reading the BOfH, and you ask a question like that!?!?!?!
Even odder, given that the CRAZY is the pure distilled truth. Some people's CRAZY is well buried, and you're unlikely ever to see it. Some people can be set off at the slightest provocation. Because it's a weird emotional thing, it gets even more tangled when it comes to relationships between the sexes. As, in general at least, women and men tend to emotionally invest in different things. For example, I've had discussions with other men about what to wear to an event, concentrating on what social or professional impression you're trying to make. But they've never lasted longer than 2 minutes. And I don't know any man who's spent several months planning what they're going to wear to a wedding, or major party, having at least one conversation a day about it. And commenting on the absurdity of that much effort put into dressing for one event is a guaranteed way to wake the CRAZY.
"His Crazy might be prodded awake when she asks him: 'Can we really afford that?' or the old classic, 'Wow, this is the seventh time your mother has called you today'."
Somehow I missed this the first 2 times I dragged my eyes across it all. There's the 'vice-versa' that elevates this above cheap tired jokes about women in the workplace. *ends sarcasm*
What is this, the '70s?
I've had belly-laughs from the BOFH since dial-up. This wasn't at all worthy of the elitist murderous obsessives that I've come to know.
>It's not White Knightery. I just thought it was all a bit piss poor and ladz magz. And I'm not at work. The comments are however even more cringey than the article. I'm almost embaressed.
When you're at work, you must be in a very machistic environment to blow off steam like that during your free time. Or perhaps you liked the previous hundreds of installments in which the BOFH and PFY explored in excruciating details how to mangle, mutilate and utterly destroy, mentally and physically, all the men who get in their ways. I never thought of these as misandrist; did you?
What you're saying is, bitches is bitches.
Nope. What I was doing was replying in a semi-jocular fashion to a piece of comedy writing. But if you want me to be a touch more serious, then people is people. And I was quite tickled by the comic suggestion that everyone has a core of crazy in them, which it would be inadvisable to awaken. Lest ye be destroyed by floods of errupting wrath.
The BOfH seems to hate people, not women - so it's mysanthropic rather than mysoginist. Should you feel the need to dignify it with such analysis... An equal opportunities bastard. Every other episode suggests that all men are curry-munching, beer-swilling, lecherous pornaholics. Myself I'm no big fan of curry...
Waking up The Crazy in certain men can be very easy. Anything that suggests they aren't super strong physically. Anything that suggests they don't know everything there is to know about cars/trains/boats (insert vehicle of choice or all). Anything that suggests that you know more than them on any technical subject. Anything that suggests they aren't exceedingly attractive to the opposite sex even if they have a beer belly, flobbly backside, thinning hair & look about 50 when they are 30. Basically anything that touches on this type of man's enormous but fragile ego.
quote: "Waking up The Crazy in certain men can be very easy. Anything that suggests they aren't super strong physically. Anything that suggests they don't know everything there is to know about cars/trains/boats (insert vehicle of choice or all). Anything that suggests that you know more than them on any technical subject. Anything that suggests they aren't exceedingly attractive to the opposite sex even if they have a beer belly, flobbly backside, thinning hair & look about 50 when they are 30. Basically anything that touches on this type of man's enormous but fragile ego."
Tru dat
Plus you don't have to be female to instigate this; men who have those triggers can get set off by other men just as easily (although the misogynist ones will obviously take the implied criticism less well from females). I've had discussions over choice of turbocharger, or choice of switching gear turn heated due to particular participants disagreeing, even though their basis of disagreement was (it turned out) provably incorrect... :/
"even though their basis of disagreement was (it turned out) provably incorrect..."
Actually proving this type of guy incorrect is if anything MORE likely to trigger The Crazy. My favourite one was a guy who knew Everything There Is To Know About Cars who literally wouldn't talk to me for weeks (after shouting at me for a bit) when he found out I was right after a discussion about the favoured donor chassis for Davrian kit cars.
Basically anything that touches on this type of man's enormous but fragile ego.
Corinne,
I was thinking about men's bizarre release of the CRAZY over football. But obviously map-reading/asking for directions is another one.
Thinking about it: family + car journey = high probability of CRAZY criticality
There are many subjects which are unisex-CRAZY-inducing, but a surprising number which only seem to wind up roughly half of us.
"But obviously map-reading/asking for directions is another one"
You forgot suggesting that they RTFM, exacerbated by when it goes wrong showing them exactly where it says in aforementioned manual where they went wrong. Must admit I tend to do that one with the prime intent of triggering The Crazy
No you didn't. The word you are looking for is 'misanthropic', since the BOFH's 'skills' are directed towards all of humanity, not only those with the reproductive organs on the inside. You will note that the article gives examples of where men can trigger The Crazy in women, AND vice-versa, so if it is misogynistic, it is also misandristic. I would suggest that you take the blinkers off.
You overreaction reminds me of a series of posts on FB (not by myself I hasten to add - I won't get involved with The Crazy if it can be avoided) between a supposed feminist I know, and others; she is always keen to complain about how badly men treat women, whilst at the same time posting pictures of 'hunks' and claiming that there is no such thing as misandry. Prejudice and intolerance have more than one face, even if some faces are overrepresented.
Colour blindness, second only in usefulness to officially diagnosed (forces discharge medical) high tone loss; which in later life (aka a long marriage) mutates into selective deafness!
Can't claim colour blindness when you're an aircraft electrician, unless you fancy a career change.
Errr... Not having been challenged does not mean she has forgotten or -indeed- forgiven... The CRAZY is awake, hungry and waiting to jump on you at a suitable time. And a suitable time will for instance be when you are in the pub with your mates and preferrably your manager around, THEN the CRAZY will pounce.
Just you wait and see.
Coat:Obvious
So, does it mean:
a) the printout of the website was for very interesting places to work ("hottest workplaces in the UK") so the couple chose to go there instead? Then why would there be a dispute?
b) it's somehow sex-related ("hottest workplaces in the UK") which involved the couple? Then again, if both are on it, why would there be a dispute?
Sorry to be such a loser, but I failed to get the ending. I will blame the fact I'm not a native English speaker, nor am I in tune with Britain's highly subtle way of expression.
When my wife returns from the hairdressers, and asks the inevitable question that is something close to "How do you like my Hair?", the ONLY proper answer is:
"It makes you more beautiful than you already are!"
This solves LOTS of problems. Of course the question might take a different form, but the answer usually works in all cases.
You're welcome!
I've never known him to explain so much to senior management without the inevitable "rapid departure" of said manager. Is he showing a softer side in his old age?
Kudos to not-Spartacus - for someone who knows the Crazy like you know a pint (one presumes, despite your curry confession) you seem very willing to tempt it out of others on this board.
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