PassiveAggressiveNotes.com » privacy

I have a problem with your window manners

Kerry — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 23:09:06 +0000

At the time he received this note in his letterbox, Mike was living in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the apartments buildings tend to be rather close together. “My neighbor’s window is about 15 feet away from mine, across an alley,” Mike explains. “I can see her; she can see me.”

Though the wording of this note is considerably more polite compared to similar requests from other parts of the world, it still raised several questions in Mike’s mind. First of all, he says, “I have no idea how she knows I’m American. It’s not like I’m sitting in front of my computer, draped in an American flag.”

But more importantly, he wonders, “What’s the etiquette here? I thought this was just one of the quirks of urban living. You hear other people’s music, smell their cooking, and glimpse them through the window every once in awhile. I don’t really see why I should be the one to close my blinds and sit in the dark all day, since they’re the ones that have a problem with it.”

Well, what say you, peanut gallery?

Mike’s transcription: Hello US Citizen! It’s your neighbor speaking… I have a problem with your “window manners” — It’s quite problematic having you sitting in facel(?)-front many hours a day without making it cover or anything. I feel overlooked [Danglish for 'watched'] and compromised. XXX, Mel.

related: Be more private with yourself!

You know, there’s a pretty simple solution to that problem…

Kerry — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 03:53:10 +0000

“My housemate sometimes gets paranoid that people like to watch us going about our day-to-day lives in our apartment,” says Elizabeth in Australia. And yet, instead of, say, window coverings, this note was how she decided to deal with the problem:

These walls are NOT soundproof.

kerry — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 03:42:39 +0000

Jared says this sign was posted in both the men’s and women’s restrooms at his office in Salt Lake City, Utah. “It seems that someone does not like hearing people ‘pushing,’” he says.

Cubicle etiquette

Kerry — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:44:08 +0000

This series of signs (all made by one person, and pinned up across an entire bulletin board) is among my all-time favorites. The glorious redundancies, the inappropriate quotation marks, the clip art — oh, it’s just too good.

(Yeah, the last one is blurry. Our anonymous Canadian submitter apologizes.)