Entries Tagged as '“helpful” advice'
Vanessa in Baton Rouge can vouch that that the state of her friend Charles’s bathroom and boudoir is “perpetually dirty.” Oddly, though, “of all the times I’ve been over to Charles’ apartment with his girlfriend, I’ve never, ever seen his roommate.”
(Which makes me wonder…could this note from Charles’s “roomie” actually have been written by said girlfriend? I’m not sure which scenario would be more passive-aggressive.)

Tags: "helpful" advice · Baton Rouge · cleaning · roommates · sig o · signed with love · smiley
Need to borrow a cup of sugar? How about five pounds of dog poop? Well heck, that’s what neighbors are for!

related: Do you want a doggy bag for those leftovers, sir?
extra credit: The perfect leash for dog haters/sociopaths
Tags: "helpful" advice · dogs · heart · most popular notes of 2011 · neighbors · shit
Be afraid, roomies. Be very afraid.

related: I don’t complain.
Tags: "helpful" advice · dishes · martyr complex · odor · roommates · signed with love · smiley
When he first moved in, says our submitter in Melbourne, the apartment across the way already had the two big handmade nuclear posts in the window. Two months later, up went the note at the left about unneighborly acts like obscene “jestures” (which makes me envision of motley crew of courtyard jugglers giving the finger to nosy busybodies in the apartments above.) The cigarette notice is the latest addition.
Says our submitter: “I’m tempted to strut about without trousers and see if I can get a mention, too!”
![If you have problems with residents of the apartment blocs e.g. antisocial behaviour, laundry on balcony, noise, music, mobile phone conversations, shouting, obscene jestures [sic] Contact: [redacted]. NO Nuclear AUSTRALIA! BAN URANIUM MINING and EXPORTS! First floor flat opposite throwing cigarette butts into the street. Ground floor flat likewise. If you have problems with residents of the apartment blocs e.g. antisocial behaviour, laundry on balcony, noise, music, mobile phone conversations, shouting, obscene jestures [sic] Contact: [redacted]. NO Nuclear AUSTRALIA! BAN URANIUM MINING and EXPORTS! First floor flat opposite throwing cigarette butts into the street. Ground floor flat likewise.](http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5018/5433085088_ca1da538ac_b.jpg)
In the meantime, his other neighbors seem to already be getting in on the act.

(As always, just click on the images to enlarge them.)
related: WiFi for Passive-Aggressives
Tags: "helpful" advice · Melbourne · neighbors · note wars · raging against the machine · smoking
Taylor in Tulsa, Oklahoma works — well, worked — at the front desk of a hotel. “When I started this job,” he says, “we were told we could eat in the back office so that if it got too busy we could stop our lunch and help out, but apparently my offensive burrito was over the top.” Taylor swears the dirty dishes weren’t his, but he was laid off anyway — after which, he adds, “the note was promptly removed.”
(“Outback,” by the way, refers to the employee dining area, not the steakhouse known for its “delicious” bread.)

Meanwhile, at a small office in Canada, our submitter says one of the company’s directors has a similar habit of sending out a pedantic “just FYI”-type memo to the entire staff each time she has run-in with another co-worker. (And yes, our submitter says, they’re always in Comic Sans.)

related: Complimentary body spray for all employees!
Tags: "helpful" advice · a little patronizing · all-staff e-mail · Comic Sans Alert · dishes · fired · food · hygiene · memo · message to all intended for one · odor · office cop · Ontario · Tulsa
September 22nd, 2010 · 55 Comments
So, the other day, Olivia’s mother and aunt were having a conversation, and her Mom was fretting about how she’d been overeating this week and how she was going back on her diet the very next day and blahblahblahwhydon’tgrown-upsevertalkaboutanythinginteresting.
Olivia says this inspired her eavesdropping 7-year-old sister to post this helpful reminder where their Mom gets ready in the morning, just to make sure she wouldn’t forget!

related: Please don’t take this the wrong way, pregnant lady, but have you considered Weight Watchers?
Tags: "helpful" advice · heart · hey fatty · Houston · Mother-daughter notes · signed with love
Hey, look — it’s almost the entire 12-step program in one note! I especially like the abridged version: “To the idiot who stole: the world is your oyster.”

related: Is your washroom breeding Bolsheviks?
Tags: "helpful" advice · heart · Orange County · stealing · TL;DR · toilet paper
So, Jen in Ontario, Canada just moved into a new shared living arrangement…with a 50-something lady. “I thought having an older person as a roommate would more peaceful,” she explains. “Turns out I was wrong.” Communication skills, it seems, aren’t one of those things that necessarily improve with age.
Within a week of moving in, Jen says, there were “helpful instructions” taped up all around the house. After that, the notes just kept coming, accusing Jen of everything from filling the dishwasher with soy sauce to sabotaging the tea kettle — always book-ended by a “Pls” and “Thank you,” of course. Because that’s how mature adults act.



related: The Post-it Wars
Tags: "helpful" advice · blitzkrieg approach · cleaning · dishes · dishwasher · kitchen · laundry · old folks · Ontario · p.s. · roommates
“I found this posted on every vertical object within a block radius around Adam’s Point in Oakland,” says submitter JasonP. (I particularly enjoy point #4 of the response.)

Meanwhile, a set of neighbors in Vancouver, B.C. were tussling over a similar case of mistaken identity.

related: I’m not creepy, in fact…I’m quite gay.
extra credit: “But he was dressed like a ‘gang person,’ you guys!”
Tags: "helpful" advice · CAPS LOCK · exclamation-point happy!!!! · graffiti · mistaken identity · neighbors · noise · Oakland · Oops? · rebuttals · Vancouver · vandalism
Every day, you watch them, in horror: Those vile, germ-laden, nether-region-wiping creatures who don’t wash their hands after using the toilet. Confronting the offenders directly wouldn’t work, because, well, you’re passive-aggressive, and that’s just not how you roll. So what to do next?
Well, you could dazzle them with some accusatory statistics…

…or attempt to appeal to the altruists in the audience.

And maybe try to lure in the sports fans with the promise of some fun trivia!

If they see through that little scheme, you could try patronizing your patrons outright…

…or just straight-up treat them like four-year-olds. (“Did you wash your hands?” “Yes.” “DID YOU WASH YOUR HANDS?” “I said yes!!!”)

Perhaps even a dash of reverse psychology?

Of course, those less-straightforward techniques just might just backfire on you. In that case, you could play the bully with THE CLIP ART THAT MUST BE STOPPED.

Or, if your clip-art collection is a bit larger…release the dragon!

Not scary enough? Maybe it’s time to bust out the F word.


Or the even scarier F-word: FECAL-ORAL.

And if that still doesn’t work? Well, I guess you’ll just have to flounce away, invest in some latex gloves, and vow to hold it ’til you get home.

(Thanks to Jen in Houston, Jenni in Spokane, Marley in Pittsburgh, Lindsey in Memphis, Laura in Richmond, and the many anonymous submitters for their contributions.)
related: Five approaches to toilet paper maintenance
extra credit: “On Washing Hands,” by Atul Gawande
extra extra credit: “Maybe You Touched Your Genitals” Liquid Hand Soap

Tags: "helpful" advice · a little patronizing · bullet points · clip art catastrophe · hygiene · office · rebuttals · restaurant · reverse psychology · rhetorical question · washing your hands