KEY POINTS:
My comments last week struck deep into the nervous systems of many readers, with emails suggesting more who should be deported to Australia.
I thought road rage in New Zealand was problematic, but living here in the country has made me ignorant of other bubbling rages - like
pavement and workplace rage. The latter is not, as unionists would presume, against the bosses, but colleagues. Since sexual harassment laws mean we can't even ask someone for a date let alone shag them at the office party, we've turned to hating each other.
Pavement rage is not just directed against losers who meander along the street gazing into their mobile phones in anticipation of a text, but the lunchtime crowds walking moronically with iPod earphones plugged into the sides of their faces.
"Do they not realise how munted they look?" asked Stephanie. "Worse," she writes, "are the teenagers on buses who share one pair of earphones, so their tribal music comes out with an even more tinny sound than usual, to the annoyance of anyone sitting up to six seats away."
Shop assistants said they'd love to ignore rude customers who continue loud conversations on their mobile phones while being served, but, they say, the only time these yobs eschew swinish behaviour is to demand, in even louder voices, to see the manager so they can complain about being treated badly.
A correspondent sent another catalyst for pavement rage, exclusive to Auckland. She complains of massive SUV pushchairs wielded by "yummy mummies". This was explained by the emailer as Ponsonby/Herne Bay mothers, yet to move to Eastern suburbs for good secondary schools, who see motherhood as another spending dimension - they've purchased the ultimate designer goods in apparel and homewares, so turn to children. These mummies insist everyone get out of their path, "including me, quietly enjoying a morning coffee, a still legal cigarette and newspaper at an outside table".
I'd just blow cigarette smoke in the general direction of their Trelise Cooper-outfitted spawn, and watch said yummy mummy keep her distance in future.
But workplace rage is more cause for concern.
While we can avoid those on the street who rark us up, it's not so easy to pretend someone doesn't exist when they sit next to you every day, sharing the photocopier.
Kitchen pigs scored the highest in the inconsiderate stakes, and here's an irony. Tidy Kiwis, sick of always being the martyr who cleans up the pigsty, are even more frustrated when the notices they stick to the wall are ignored.
Challenged, in fact, by secret taggers adding their smart remarks.
But I also received other feedback from workers who can't stand going to work and finding the ubiquitous "everything is verboten" signs stuck to any flat surface.
Jack reckons since it's now redundant to place "thank you for not smoking" cards all around the office, the control freaks have suffered withdrawal symptoms of a different kind, so must find other ways of ordering everyone around.
Writes Jack, "I expect to go to the gents and find a sign ordering me to put the seat down after use. Actually, I always do, but if someone starts commanding me to do it, I'll leave it up out of spite."
Other habits conducive to workplace rage include eating tins of canned tuna at the desk, making the place smell like a cattery, and colleagues who forward email jokes or begin every working day emailing "good morning" to all. Ryan asks whether this isn't just a way to get around the workplace rule of saving personal chit-chat for non-employment hours?
Why do we suffer this angst, grinding our teeth when we should have a quiet word with whoever is driving us spare. I'm not Dear Mary in The Speccie, but we'd probably find we too have idiosyncrasies which cause others to seek the nearest boozer for a liquid lunch and breathe alcohol fumes over us all afternoon.
Aotearoans are a funny race of people. In restaurants we'll grind our way through overcooked steak despite ordering medium-rare, swallow a cup of lukewarm coffee, consume a dessert that's patently not home-made despite the description, then when asked how we enjoyed our meal we nod enthusiastically, "Wonderful, fine, great".
It's illegal to hurt anyone's feelings these days, but with a little less suffering in silence, and a little more honesty, we wouldn't need a penal colony for our irritants.
