Here’s where I’ll post some questions from the audience and my humble suggestions for solutions. To ask Sunny a question, type it into the “Leave a Reply” box at the bottom of this page and click SUBMIT. I’ll reply soon, typically on this page, unless you indicate that you need a more private answer.
Dear Sunny,
I have a neighbor who clips his nails every morning. What can I do?
Please HELP before I kill him!!!
Premeditating in Kansas City
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Dear Premed,
Every morning??? He IS a freak. You are right, he is wrong.
I know this is hard. I’ve been there and can feel your angst. In fact, I think I hear him clipping from here. Not only is it annoying to the point of making your teeth hurt, it’s the principle of common courtesy rearing its ugly head.
Please don’t kill him, unless, of course, you plan to use his own clippers. If you do, please write back from the cell (wouldn’t it be ironic if you ended up with a cellmate who clipped his nails, too? Ahhh, the sweet sound of solitary!) and fill us in!!
(DISCLAIMER: No matter how many times I like to play this movie in my head, I have to wholeheartedly discourage you from entering his cube mid-clip, grabbing them from his DNA filled fingers and air-clipping his groin area while explaining the error of his ways. This is America, after all. Land of the Lawsuit.)
Since you can’t change your neighbor, and I’ve found that no good comes from talking to people with total disregard for their surroundings, I suggest making the extra effort to stay late or come in early to locate the little bastards and remove them from his drawer.
If you’re bolder than that, when you find them, I suggest ripping them apart to render them unusable. Then, leave the remains in the drawer. That screams angry neighbor, so you may have to suffer any consequences of his evil-stank-eye. I’m pretty passive-aggressive, so this would bother me, but I staunchly support Angry Neighbor Behavior (ANB) in others.
Either way, you’ll have to be committed to the mission, because more than likely, his freakish behavior will not stop. People like this are rarely aware of anyone around them and it may not even dawn on him that someone else is anywhere near enough to his domain to destroy or hide or remove the clippers.
So, he’ll just have his wife (they’re always married too, which makes me blame her for not teaching him better) pick up a new pair and carry on.
You must be strong. Never give up. Keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the prize. It’s like training a puppy. Granted, one that should know better, but try to think of him as a stupid puppy. That way, it’ll feel almost like your helping him, while really you’re just trying to have a nice day.
Stay strong!!
Sunny D
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Dear Sunny,
It’s the darndest thing, but I have a confusing office bathroom situation. Every time I’m in there, no matter how many people, no matter what time of day, new people will pick the stalls on both sides of me. There are 20 stalls in there and it never fails. Never. Did I say never? Ha ha.
It’s like I have a magnet attached to my bodily functions?
What can I do?
Stalled in Seattle
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Dear Stalled,Oh my! Thank you for writing in. I thought I was the only one this happened to. What freaks. You are right, they are wrong.
I hate to be negative (sunny disposition and all), but there’s nothing you can do about this. It’s the same phenomenon as driving happily on a highway alone for a couple of miles, then happening on a cluster of folks – lemmings really – that interrupts your smooth sailing.
I think the majority of people are pre-occupied followers. They see one occupied stall and think that’s where they should be. Common sense sort of escapes them while they’re busy with thoughts of their last shiny thing encounter. Poor things.
In that vein, can you think of yourself as a leader? An innovator? Someone that people want to be near, to emulate? You are their guiding light. Their lighthouse in the bathroom fog. Would that help?
Next time you’re tinkling and thinking about someone inches away doing the same thing while in the middle of an otherwise empty room, smile to yourself that you started it all. You were the first. The best, really. The Lewis and Clark of the bathroom. People just want you to lead them. God knows what would happen if they came in there and you weren’t there. They need your presence and guidance, your strength and position.
You’re a giver and this is godly. You will have a special stall in Heaven between at least two empty stalls. I just know it!
Stay strong!!
Sunny D
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I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!
Your blog is interesting!
Keep up the good work!
I have a co-worker who believes loud music and ten cups of coffee is the way to wake up to show her perky side. It is driving me cravy because my cubical is next to her. How can I resolve this out of control, loud music, cafferine addicted nut?
Dear AJ,
Loud and ten? ARgHHH. You are right, she is wrong.
There are two types of people in this world: those who play loud radios in their cubicles and those who understand how rude this is.
Sunny has been in this predicament a few times. She has worn headphones, brought headphones for the perpetrator, asked nicely in person and in email, asked her boss to be moved. It has never ended well for Sunny. It’s the same phenomenon as someone cutting you off in traffic, you honking, and them giving you the finger. People. Bleh.
Have you ever seen the show, Nanny 911? The nanny’s biggest lesson for parents is consistency. If they tell the child to do something once, the child will inevitably ignore them, so the parent must tell them repeatedly and as many times as it takes. Eye contact is very important as well.
So, Sunny’s first thought is to go ahead and ask her politely to turn her radio down. It is a necessary evil in showing civility. You will inevitably have to do this more than once, so each time, she must be told more and more firmly. You are the parent, she is the child. And you are the better person.
Do this for one week. If, after that week, she still has her radio turned up loud, the parent in me suggests that you take it to your management (your manager can talk to hers if you don’t report to the same person). The child in me suggests that you bring in your own radio to drown hers out. Someone else will complain and probably take it to management. Either way, problem solved. She will not like you and talk about you to others, but if they’re the good kind of people, it won’t matter.
Sunny thinks she might lose some perkiness if the radio weren’t feeding her frenzy. But just in case, if she’s drinking community coffee, could you stay late and replace the grinds in the regular coffee bag with decaf grinds without anyone suspecting?
If not, there is still hope. With any luck, she will hate you enough over the radio battle to avoid you and your vicinity altogether. Her perkiness will percolate into another cluster of cubicles.
Keep me posted. And Stay Strong!!
Sunny D