Michael had diarrhoea last night. Every hour or so he poked me awake saying, “I want to go to the toilet.” “Can Daddy go with you?” “No.” I know it was worse for him but he got to stay home in bed but I had to come into work where, frankly, my employer did not get full value for its expenditure on my salary.
Work
The English
The English are class obsessed. I went to hear an “inspirational” Englishman speak about his experiences. He announced to the audience that he was “working class” that his grandfather had been a barman and that it was through the transformational power of education that he was able to enter the venue as a speaker rather than “a servant”.
While Ireland may not be a classless society, it’s a lot closer to that than England is. I think I can confidently say that no Irish person considers that it is embarassing to have relatives engaged in pretty much any job (ok, nobody wants a cat burglar in the family, but you know what I mean). It doesn’t matter what your grandfather did for a living. It doesn’t matter what anyone’s grandfather did for a living.
I thought his use of the word “servant” was interesting too. I wouldn’t consider the waiters or those doing the cloakrooms to be servants. I wouldn’t regard it as their destiny to stay in the same position for ever either. Servants has the whiff of indentured and servility about it. I don’t like it. Maybe it’s just the difference between the colonising and the colonised. All that said, education can be transformative; for everyone.
Talk in the Office
I used to work with the daughter of a British army officer who drew my attention to the way language from the military makes its way into general business language. Ever sent anything up the line? You see what I mean.
This is obviously bleeding into other areas (pun intended). I noticed a colleague of mine using medical language at a meeting recently. Speaking about a problem in the organisation she said “It is not common but where it presents, it presents acutely”. Can I clarify that we are not talking about the symptoms of a patient in hospital? She was so pleased with this odd expression that she used it several times. She also emphasised that a solution will need to “resolve matters across the piece”. “Across the piece” is very popular in this office and the next time I hear it, I will not be responsible for my actions.
My loving husband points out that “surgical strike” is an expression which combines war and medicine and that, if I am able to work it into my next intervention at a meeting, my successful future is assured.
And your particular office jargon peeve, what might that be? Feel free to share.
Feeling my age, again
Ireland is awash with angry workers. This morning, I asked my 28 year old colleague whether she had ever seen a strike before. “No,” she said “and I thought to myself as I walked past a man with a placard, this must be what industrial unrest looks like.”
Oh Celtic Tiger cubs, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Quotes of the week (loosely interpreted)
I found this in a document I was reading recently:
Many wheels have been set in motion, which do not need to be reinvented.
I ask you, really? I have met my master in the matter of cliche.
Many weeks ago, I found this in the Irish Times and I’ve been storing it up for you since, it was apparently said by Louis de Paor and reported by Quentin Fottrell (great name eh?). It would be important that you know about Peig to appreciate it.
When she [Peig] was dying there was a pilgrimmage to be at her bedside. Isn’t it funny the way people don’t mention Henry James’s “Portrait of a Lady” as an excuse for extinguishing the English language?
A very bold Princess at bedtime: Can I have a biscuit?
Mr. Waffle: The audacity of hope.
Petty
I like my job and I like my colleagues but due to a series of administrative glitches, I do not yet have an office.  I try to be above caring but I do not like it oh no I do not. I am huddled in a large room with other people. I want to be alone so that I can talk to my childminder in private or even concentrate on some work. Nor do I particularly want to hear other people’s phone conversations. Due to a series of canny career choices, I have not had to share office space very often in my professional life and I am not enjoying it on this occasion.
I am being driven demented by the two lovely, lovely men who work in the corner and have some rather annoying verbal tics.
Lovely man 1:Â Well, they won’t be attending the meeting as such.
Lovely man 2: I can only say they ought to be there.
Lovely man 1: They would know that as such.
LM2: I can only say the chair will be disappointed.
LM1: They will be sending their apologies as such.
LM2: Will they? I can only say that it is a mistake not to come.
I was cruelly telling a friend this and asked whether I had any verbal tics and was quite disconcerted to find that he said, with some relief, “yes, you say fabulous all the time”.
I imagine that when I am not there, scene in the corner goes something like this.
LM1: It’s not that I object to the word ‘fabulous’ as such.
LM2: I can only say that it’s a good word in its place.
LM1: It’s just that she says it all the time as such.
