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On Being Pedantic
May. 11th, 2020 02:19 amGenerally speaking, I am extremely pedantic, both in real life and on the Internet.
For example, in real life, I studiously avoid the split infinitive unless it is specifically required at work, and tend to look down upon anyone who doesn't.
And just now, on the Internet, a certain NPC (non-player character) in a certain online title offered me an informal quest to deliver an item to a nearby address for a reward, and even offered to warp me to near the destination. I accepted the quest, but unfortunately, MS Word crashed before I was able to save the deadline, which I had read visually but not saved in a file.
Therefore, I attempted to look up the deadline, but the details on the item delivery date were not listed on the item, and because the quest was informal, it was not listed in the quest log, either. Because the time was approximately 2:15 AM (Japan Standard Time--I live in Tokyo), none of the members of my guild were online, either.
At first, I attempted to discard the item and re-receive it, but the system did not allow me to do so.
Therefore, despite being only a few seconds away from the delivery destination, I deliberately warped back to the assigning NPC and cancelled the quest, forfeiting the reward.
This is also how I tend to behave in real life as well.
Generally speaking, if I can't save a record of an assignment, unless I am desperate for the reward, I would rather forfeit both the assignment and the reward than complete the assignment without saving the record. I need to have a complete record of everything that I do, or else I become extremely restless.
Also: I tend to abhor errors. For example, if I save a short text file and then wish to modify it before the minute changes but miss doing so, I will actually use a file date/time modification tool to change the modification date/time so that the record indicates that I made the modification before the minute had changed.
Incidentally, when I was growing up, my mother, who had been born and raised in an aristocratic Japanese samurai family, was intolerant of even the slightest mistake, too. She insisted that I earn 100% on every exam in elementary school, and required that I stay up until 2 AM every weekday to earn the highest possible scores on my grade report.
If I earned 100%, I was rewarded with the purchase of a new board game of my choice; if I earned anything less than 100%, I would not be given any reward, scolded, demanded to explain why I did not earn 100%, and ordered to study harder to earn 100% on the next exam.
Her perfectionism did not stop there.
When I once dropped chopsticks on the floor, she yelled at me for 3 hours.
When I once lost my umbrella during the rain, she yelled at me for 6 hours nonstop and did not allow me to sleep that night.
When I complained, she would call the police to the apartment and ask them to teach me to obey her.
On one occasion, I explained to those police that it was very difficult to do everything perfectly on the first try. When one of the police officers then said to my mother, "Isn't it unnecessary to get so angry?", my mother solemnly replied, "It is not necessary to make a mistake."
That police officer gave up on persuading my mother to stop becoming angry upon witnessing my slightest mistake. When my mother tried to call the police the next time for complaining to her, the police took much longer (approximately an hour, as opposed to approximately 15 minutes) to arrive.
Perhaps because I was raised to be so, I tend to think and behave very similarly to my mother concerning being a perfectionist.
And unlike my mother, I personally additionally tend to be extremely detail-oriented and pedantic.
Because of my pedantic perfectionist personality and short temper toward even the slightest mistake, at least 2 other players in online titles have nicknamed me "Darth Vader."
For example, in real life, I studiously avoid the split infinitive unless it is specifically required at work, and tend to look down upon anyone who doesn't.
And just now, on the Internet, a certain NPC (non-player character) in a certain online title offered me an informal quest to deliver an item to a nearby address for a reward, and even offered to warp me to near the destination. I accepted the quest, but unfortunately, MS Word crashed before I was able to save the deadline, which I had read visually but not saved in a file.
Therefore, I attempted to look up the deadline, but the details on the item delivery date were not listed on the item, and because the quest was informal, it was not listed in the quest log, either. Because the time was approximately 2:15 AM (Japan Standard Time--I live in Tokyo), none of the members of my guild were online, either.
At first, I attempted to discard the item and re-receive it, but the system did not allow me to do so.
Therefore, despite being only a few seconds away from the delivery destination, I deliberately warped back to the assigning NPC and cancelled the quest, forfeiting the reward.
This is also how I tend to behave in real life as well.
Generally speaking, if I can't save a record of an assignment, unless I am desperate for the reward, I would rather forfeit both the assignment and the reward than complete the assignment without saving the record. I need to have a complete record of everything that I do, or else I become extremely restless.
Also: I tend to abhor errors. For example, if I save a short text file and then wish to modify it before the minute changes but miss doing so, I will actually use a file date/time modification tool to change the modification date/time so that the record indicates that I made the modification before the minute had changed.
Incidentally, when I was growing up, my mother, who had been born and raised in an aristocratic Japanese samurai family, was intolerant of even the slightest mistake, too. She insisted that I earn 100% on every exam in elementary school, and required that I stay up until 2 AM every weekday to earn the highest possible scores on my grade report.
If I earned 100%, I was rewarded with the purchase of a new board game of my choice; if I earned anything less than 100%, I would not be given any reward, scolded, demanded to explain why I did not earn 100%, and ordered to study harder to earn 100% on the next exam.
Her perfectionism did not stop there.
When I once dropped chopsticks on the floor, she yelled at me for 3 hours.
When I once lost my umbrella during the rain, she yelled at me for 6 hours nonstop and did not allow me to sleep that night.
When I complained, she would call the police to the apartment and ask them to teach me to obey her.
On one occasion, I explained to those police that it was very difficult to do everything perfectly on the first try. When one of the police officers then said to my mother, "Isn't it unnecessary to get so angry?", my mother solemnly replied, "It is not necessary to make a mistake."
That police officer gave up on persuading my mother to stop becoming angry upon witnessing my slightest mistake. When my mother tried to call the police the next time for complaining to her, the police took much longer (approximately an hour, as opposed to approximately 15 minutes) to arrive.
Perhaps because I was raised to be so, I tend to think and behave very similarly to my mother concerning being a perfectionist.
And unlike my mother, I personally additionally tend to be extremely detail-oriented and pedantic.
Because of my pedantic perfectionist personality and short temper toward even the slightest mistake, at least 2 other players in online titles have nicknamed me "Darth Vader."
