Stuff I Shouldn't Have To Do

Fix RedHat's idiotic default locale setting of LANG="en_US.UTF-8", which breaks every CPAN install with funky Makefiles:

LANG="en_US.ISO-8859-15"
SUPPORTED="en_US.UTF-8:en_US:en:pt_PT.UTF-8:pt_PT:pt"

Explain to the Slashdot sub-genius who designed their RSS feed "anti-abuse" detector that my ISP performs "transparent" proxying, and that I'm not the one trying to get their feed 5 times a minute.
Deal with former colleagues who work at vendors when they try to persuade me their products are best, just because.
Have to explain to same that I'm not biased - just choosy enough so that I deploy what I know I can rely on, not the latest fad.
Get to know from third parties later on that they think I'm biased anyway, and that I shouldn't be around when they sign the deal.
Deal with former colleagues who are Mac/Linux/Windows zealots (select all that apply) when they refuse to accept other people have opinions (and the right to run whatever they damn well choose, as long as it's not illegal).
Do Perl code on an empty stomach.
Put up with "belt and suspenders" approaches to engineering that will force us to waste time because we won't commit to a solution without a big brand name behind.
Be a solution architect bereft of a very big stick.
Put up with whining colleagues that weasel their way out of helping out and keep trying to stick their fingers on the pie.

I could go on and on, I suppose.