why is it that the work-place just begs you to use cliches? it's like a special language created for people who spend 8 hours cramped up in the same hole every day. almost as if people forget that in the rest of the world we are capable of putting our own phrases and sentences together; not required to borrow somebody else's that's been regurgitated a million times over.
if i have to hear one of the following things again, i think i'm going to explode:
"well, you know, tomorrow is another day." no shit...
"working hard? or hardly working?" hardly working hard.
anything about your brain thinking it's friday, when it's actually some other day.
"all work and no play makes *insert co-workers name here* a dull boy/girl."
comments about drinking the *insert company/organization name here* kool-aid.
"hot/cold enough for you?" (in reference to the office temperature) obviously it is, because i have control over the temperature in here.
"rome wasn't built in a day."
maybe we fall into this because we feel safer not talking in the ways we do in our personal lives. are we scared that the people we work with are going to judge us, based on the way we talk? perhaps it's just easier to make idle chit chat by throwing cliches back and forth, rather than having an intellectuals conversation?
ugh, anyway, i challenge you (if your work place suffers from this as well) to refuse to let a cliche pass your lips! it's harder than you think...it just comes so natural in certain environments.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
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2 comments:
This morning my office manager made a (not)funny remark and my co-worker gave the requisite short laugh, but before he finished I instinctively gave the same laugh with the same intonation and rhythm. It was a like a quick echo, but the mistake betrayed our inauthenticity.
Like in an episode of Full House when DJ's being a little too nice and the ruse shows through and Danny says "Wait a minute," and knows she's hiding something.
Yeah, that pretty much describes it.
some people can't really handle anything except shop talk and banal expressions until they get really warmed up. or liquored up. i use this as my rationale for getting them liquored up on a semi-regular basis. still have a lot of semi-drunk conversations about marginal rates of substitution for weird things like shoes and boobs, but it's at least a start.
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