[ysavir]

I live next door to a summer camp. The kind that has kids from the nearby city come for 2 weeks, sleep in bunks, play outside all day, hike, etc.

A few months ago we had a carpenter doing some work on the house, and he was asking me about the camp and living so near to it. Eventually he asked "Are they loud when they play? That must be so annoying. I'd hate that."

I replied "Nah, it's healthy and fun, and it doesn't travel as far as you'd think. The real annoying sounds are all the lawnmowers, weed whackers, and gasoline powered tools that people keep using throughout the summer". He immediately went quiet and sour. Guess I hit a nerve.

[johnfn]

Maybe because he was trying to make small talk and you insulted his profession?

[klank]

OP mentioned "lawnmowers, weed whackers, and gasoline powered tools".

That has nothing to do with standard carpentry.

[callc]

The carpenter may have thought the same sentiment is being applied to loud power tools such as table saw, jointer, router, …

[klank]

Certainly, which is why the social interaction OP described makes sense.

But OP was specific in the loud things they mentioned, and that list very much does not directly imply carpentry. So to then make it about OP's lack of tact by explicitly calling out the OP for focusing on their profession? It strains credulity as a good faith reading of OP's story.

[nothrabannosir]

In other words: GP hit a nerve.

[johnfn]

You don't think carpentry falls into the category of "professions that make loud noise outdoors"?

[klank]

Sure, and if OP had said that, perhaps we'd be having a different conversation. Or none at all?

EDIT: Ah, maybe you're responding to my remark of it having "nothing to do"? If so, yeah, that's hyperbole. There are similarities if you want to look for them. But I don't think they're meaningful connections for the point of the story and OP's reaction, in my opinion.

[johnfn]

The point of the story is that someone tried to strike up a conversation with OP and he responded by effectively saying "your job is loud and obnoxious", and it's presented as if it's a win. It doesn't really seem like one to me.

[ysavir]

The comment was not aimed at the carpenter. Nothing he was doing was loud, and nothing I've experienced with carpenters gives me the impression that they are loud or obnoxious. He was doing a great job. If he took what I said as a dig at his profession, that was his connection, not mine.

My take away, after the fact, was that he may have been someone who enjoyed landscaping his own yard and owned several tools that I listed. Nothing to do with his career and services, and nothing that's a reflection of our interaction.

The story wasn't meant to be a win or a competition. It was a reflection on how some people associate some loud sounds, such as motors, as being perfectly fine and other loud sounds, like children at play, being a nuisance.

[rascul]

Gasoline powered generators and air compressors that the carpenter might use to power tools can be quite noisy.

[jauntywundrkind]

I cannot wait for these to be banned, please, I hope.

It would cost so little comparative money for construction sites to go battery powered. There's some exemptions that need to be made (welders), but man, I doubt the average construction worker uses 1kWh a week. Battery power that shit, you brutes, and spare the world!

Switching these folks to battery would be such an enormous relief for cities. The cheapest shittiest 2 stroke generators raging from 7am to 4pm is an infernal senseless ceaseless din.

[klank]

Of course. But we already established that OP struck a nerve. OP themselves said that. And nobody was confused about why they struck a nerve with the carpenter.

But this isn't a conversation about whether or not it was possible to connect from what OP said to "loud noises". We all seem to agree on that. Specifically it's a question of whether OP was targeting the carpenters profession. I can't see how OP did that.

I'm kind of surprised I'm still here arguing this. But hey, it's a slow day and I guess it struck a nerve with me for some reason. Hope you're having a good day too!

[gilfoy]

The age old profession of generating small engine noise pollution

[ysavir]

I've never seen a carpenter use a lawnmower on the job. Seems unwieldy to drag up a ladder.

On a more serious note, most carpentry tools aren't that bad in terms of noise. They can get loud, but they tend to be momentary, getting a cut done, and back to silence. It's the landscaping companies that are running powered tools right up next to people's houses for 30-40 minutes at a time that are the problem. And by the time one company is done, another arrives and revs their own engines.

As for me ruining his attempt at small talk and insulting his profession... Eh. If someone's idea of small talk is trying to make children appear disrupters of the peace for having fun at camp for 6 weeks out of the year, as children ought to do, I'm not too concerned about making a comment expressing a common and often relatable sentiment that makes that person feel bad about their own disruptions of the peace. To the extent that I "insulted his profession", that was him setting himself up. Don't serve a dish you wouldn't want to eat. He could have made small talk in a hundred different ways or found a way to show appreciation instead of annoyance, but he said what he said, and he set the tone.

[reverendsteveii]

>Don't serve a dish you wouldn't want to eat.

BRB, off to the tattoo shop

[the_cat_kittles]

social skills of hn on display

[AnimalMuppet]

Carpenters don't use many gasoline-powered tools...

[klank]

Guess we had the same thought, I posted a similar comment. It genuinely threw me for a loop cause I was trying to figure out how OP actually said anything about carpentry...

[mr_toad]

Making furniture with chainsaws is a thing. Funnily enough they used to call this hacking, rather than carpentry.

[askafriend]

This is even funnier.

[GuinansEyebrows]

i can't tell how much of a point you're trying to make, but if complaining about children playing is small talk, the less of it the better.

[askafriend]

Definitely this. A total lack of awareness and tact demonstrated by OP.

[reverendsteveii]

The point of the story is that OP is absolutely aware of their lack of tact.

[justinrubek]

This is a very ironic comment.

[madcaptenor]

Also the camp was probably there when you moved in! So if you complain about normal camp noise you just didn't do your due diligence.

[sokoloff]

People buy cheap[er] houses near airports and then try to get airport ops changed/restricted all the time. (I agree with you, but it’s obviously a thing that people have no problem doing.)

[analog31]

IANAL, but there's established precedent about this, under the heading of "Coming to the nuisance."

[valiant55]

Yeah, I hate lawnmowers. I live next to a church/religious school and an apartment building both with a large yard. I don't mind the daily church bells at 6/12/7 but the constant lawn mowing is the worst.

[mensetmanusman]

Donate a tax deductible electric lawn mowing system that quietly cuts 24/7.

[Der_Einzige]

Very based. All the people who try to claim that this is bad social skills apparently just take it from folks in the often scummy trades (i.e. mechanics, dentists, etc when I say scummy) who treat us like shit and make snide comments and backhanded compliments with impunity about us lazy computer users. This is triply true in the post AI era. They hate us cus they aint us.

You hit a nerve here too.

[GuinansEyebrows]

i think you might be picking up on a level of disdain from others based on your attitude that might not be related to your profession.

we are all extremely lucky to have been born at the right time with the right set of resources to have found work in the information trade. we are not better than mechanics or dentists, and we're often compensated to ridiculous degrees when compared to arguably vital roles like teachers, social workers, therapists, custodial staff, conservation workers, public defenders, farm laborers, and so many other professions.

[scubbo]

> i think you might be picking up on a level of disdain from others based on your attitude that might not be related to your profession.

Bravo