PassiveAggressiveNotes.com » actions speak louder

Lost & found

Kerry — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:19:56 +0000

Our anonymous submitter in California is not the resident of Apartment 105, but she knew exactly who this note was intended for. “The dude in 105 lets his dog out, deposit her gifts on the sidewalk, and then run back. Dude stands and watches her, perfectly at his ease,” she says. “This has been going on for as long as I’ve lived here, so I guess someone finally got fed up.”

Adds our submitter: “This is not the first time I’ve seen a note like this. The shameless are immune to passive-aggression.”

related: passive-allergic

Bleak House

Kerry — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:35:22 +0000

“A few years back I was living in a halfway house in Canberra where theft from the communal kitchen was a common problem,” writes Alex in Australia. “One morning we woke to discover that the fridge had gone missing.” (The coffee in question was stolen from a cupboard, but apparently the owner thought removing the fridge was the best form of attack.)

The fridge incident went unresolved for many months, Alex says, because none of the residents could be bothered to move it back inside…and nobody had $3 to spare. In fact, he says, no one ever seemed all too concerned about the whole thing, explaining, “because we spent most of our money on vice, we had no food to put in the fridge anyway.”

Eventually (long after aAex moved out) the fridge was declared a traffic hazard, and a charity took it away.

related: Um, Rene Hall?

The art of the passive-aggressive note

Kerry — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:11:47 +0000

Sure, it’d be easier and quicker to just clean it up. But the modern passive-aggressive (like Katey in Berkeley’s ex-roommate) can’t pass up the opportunity to make a point.

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A common variation on the Van der Rohe approach, as documented below by Sam in Dallas, is the so-called “Reverse Magritte.”

Meanwhile, post-modern passive-aggressives (like this New York office-worker below) can’t resist throwing some irony into the mix, intentional or not.

More recently, passive-aggressives have begun to show the influence of the burgeoning neo-pop movement. Our anonymous submitter in Houston, for example, designed the original stamp below for use in his work. “I am an engineer and we have to mark up technical drawings for manufacture,” he explains, in his artist’s statement. “It gets used at least twice a day.”

The bleeding-edge of passive-aggressive note-writing, however, lies on the west coast, where Rebecca in San Francisco says that in the past, “We’ve had an ongoing series of notes left in the office kitchen — usually of the ‘your mother doesn’t work here’ or ‘there is no such thing as the coffee fairy’ variety.” The Koons-inspired piece currently on display in the office breakroom, however, makes its point with no words at all.

related: Why-fi

The thought that counts

kerry — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:18:14 +0000

Our anonymous submitter from Dallas works in the creative department of a large corporation that’s recently cut back on extras like holiday parties and cake and fruit. This Scrooge-like misanthropy seems to have taken a toll on staff morale — even among the determined breed of office “fun fund” leaders.

(Click to enlarge; transcription below!

subject: Secret Santa

Since we have no more motherly types left (Denise, Andrea, etc.), I have been elected to be the cruise director this year.

We’re doing it from next Monday (the 10th) to next Friday (the 14th), since people will start going out of town the week after that.

We have a $20 max. You can spend it however you like. You can get your person a $4 gift every day, a big $20 gift on the last day, or however you want to break it up.

If you’ like to participate, please come sign up at my desk by tomorrow by noon. I will be drawing the names at lunch time. It’s not mandatory for everyone to play, but just do it. Don’t be a grinch!

If you don’t care what your Santa gets you that is fine, but if you do, please post a “Secret Santa Wish List” on your cube, so that they will have an idea what you like, and can go shopping this weekend.

Also, don’t give people used stuff (the person who gave me the half burned candle two years ago knows who they are!).

Apology denied

kerry — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:00:34 +0000

Our anonymous submitter in California was having some issues with her roommates not washing their dishes. “It got so bad that I picked up what I thought was a black bowl…only to find it was white and covered in ants,” she says. When asked to clean up after themselves, the roommates responded with a note calling her a bitch. Then came this one — accompanied by someone peeing in her shampoo.

Adds our submitter: “I moved out not too long after that.”

related: This makes me want to scream

Why-Fi

kerry — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 03:18:37 +0000

“Apparently I needed to help pay for the growing Internet bill,” says our anonymous submitter from Boston. “This was the only way I was notified: no connection and a wireless LAN reprogrammed with a new password.”

But password-protecting your network is actually a relatively direct (and dare I say, more effective) approach compared to this…

Passive-allergic

Kerry — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:32:57 +0000

“Okay, so I’m not sure if I’m in the wrong on this one,” says Melanie from Sydney. “I have a long-haired cat who sheds a lot, so I just used to pick up the bits of fur and throw them out the window.” (Um, right, of course.) Melanie continues: “I’m on the third floor and look out over the street, so I didn’t think it would upset anyone. but then I found this clump of cat hair in my mailbox.”

Melanie adds: “I live in a block of 40+ units and my cat is an indoor cat, so a) no one really knows I have him, and b) it must have pretty hard to track done the owner of the multi-shedding, window-fur-tossing cat. That one clump of fur — which they would have had to have collected over a period of at least two weeks — says more than words ever could.”

related: The cats must go!

No reading required, kids

Kerry — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:12:44 +0000

“This isn’t quite a note,” writes Andrea in California. “Actually, it’s not a note at all.” But passive-aggressive? Yessir.

She explains: “My dad’s job is to take out the trash. It’s probably his only household chore. But for some reason, it never seems to get done.” So Andrea’s mom took action. Sort of.

After this, Andrea says, it only took her dad three days to acknowledge the trash and take it out.

This is why your server is cranky

Kerry — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:30:46 +0000

Exhibit a) submitted by an anonymous bystander at a lunch counter in Oregon Caves National Park:

Exhibit b) submitted by Patrick in Kansas City, Missouri, who explains: “My friends Chris and Katie had a rude waitress a few weeks ago. In order to tell the waitress that there was indeed a reason she wasn’t getting a tip, Chris left this little note where the tip would ordinarily go.”

Though I can certainly empathize, as a former food service industry worker I just can’t condone not leaving a tip. (I’m guessing there are a lot of you, however, who’d disagree.)

related: passive-aggressive linkage