Abstract things that annoy me

[simont]

The sentiment ‘it's not much to ask’, presented as the sole justification of why people should do something you want. When everybody has a ‘not much to ask’ request and they're all different (or, occasionally, when the same person thinks of a different one every week for a year), they add up until collectively they are a lot to ask - so some of

Comments

[feanelwa]

It annoys me for the additional reasons that:
1) It usually *is* much to ask
2) Surely it's up to the person of whom the favour is being asked, to know how difficult it is? I mean "It's not much to ask, can you buy some milk?" has an answer of "no, that's impossible" if the corner shop has just been the victim of a smash and grab raid, you are late for work and you've lost your keys.

[ptc24]

Part 6 in a series, it seems. Why did you stop numbering them?

[simont]

I lost count :-)

[ptc24]

You could start renumbering them - the tags make it easy to find the old members in the series. It's not too much to ask, is it? :)

[feanelwa]

Was that entire thread started to set up for the punchline, or was it just a drive-by appropriate moment? :)

[simont]

Yes, it often seems to be judgmental: it's not much to ask, and therefore if you don't do it I can legitimately be outraged.

[kilinrax]

I believe the correct response to be "That's true, it's not a lot to ask, but I'm not going to do it."

[hatam_soferet]

This is what I now call "being a cake." Everyone snibbles just a little tiny bit off the cake, and before you know it you're left with just a pile of crumbs and you're standing there going "WHUT? where is my CAKE?"

[simont]

This is a great analogy provided you don't mind it instantly sidetracking people into thinking "mmmm, cake". Mmmm, cake. :-)

[cartesiandaemon]

Mmmmm... Cake :)

I assume you remember Mark Dominus' rather more detailed rant on about the same point, when he talked about small changes that had obvious small advantages, but hidden, aggregate disadvantages, that did seem sensible to make, but he resisted.

[simont]

I can't bring it to mind, actually. It might have been before I started reading his blog, possibly?