"Listen" and "Right"

​In my last job before retirement I worked for a health care organization during the H1N1 craze.  I volunteered to represent our organization for on local pandemic planning committee and I received hours of FEMA training.  The point is, I saw what would happen early on and began voluntary social distancing on March 11th.  I’ve been “distant” for 43 days.
 
I have been distanced long enough to get a bit snarly and things are irritating.  Of course, like many of you I have become addicted to the 24 hour news cycle.  I toggle between MSNBD, CNN, NBC and PBS.  Don’t ask me to explain this behavior, I can’t.
 
I have noticed an all too common speech pattern that now drives me crazy.  People begin any sentence with “Listen”.  Why do they say that.  I’m watching the news program, I don’t need to be told to listen or asked to listen,  I’m already doing that.  Adding “listen” to a sentence adds nothing and is irritating.
Worse is that many add “right” to the end of their comments.  My guess is that they are seeking approval or agreement with what they have just said.  Well, they can’t know if I agree or not when I’m sitting in my living room and even if I could respond, I wouldn’t.
 
So, I would like to propose that everyone in tv land immediately cease from using the words “listen” and “right”.  Those words will not be missed and I may regain what little sanity I had before this mess started.