www.leefur.com

I'm on a plane right now, just got done cramming for 3 hours (after my work day) on this stupid document in the airport and then here folded into my airplane seat. I had a bunch of non-work-related things to blogger on about, but now I want to complain about something worky. So on with the angst:

Tell. Told. Emailed. Yelled. Wrote. Called. Talked over. Blabbed. Whispered.

When did these words become uncool? Did I miss a God damn memo? Better question - when did they become too vague, or too inaccurate? Now I haven't been in the ol' working world all that long. But even I remember a day when the sentence "Yeah, I communicated that to Bill the other day" would get a strange look and - if you were to use it repeatedly - perhaps a slap in the face. Now all these high-falutin' office monkeys find importance in using unnecessary (and in this case, unnecessarily vague) words to communicate. Did you see that? I used "communicate" because it made sense there; I was referring to various forms of communication - verbal, written, emailed, shouted, met and discussed at length, passed-in-the-hall-and-shouted-and-moved-along- too-quickly-to-allow-a-retort, etc. But these butt munches make such a feeble attempt at faking intelligence by saying "communicate" instead of the simpler and more accurate choices I laid out above. Typical example:

Lee, to Butt Munch: "Butt Munch, did you tell Manager Munch that there's no way we can do 13,000 hours of work by the end of next week?"

Butt Munch, to Lee: "Oh, yeah. I communicated that. I'm still waiting to hear back. I'll let you know."

Well, you fucking butt munch, in what form are you expecting to hear back, since we're apparently operating on such grand and vague terms? I imagine Manager Munch will probably hurredly (and self-importantly) rush past you in the hall and murmur some sort of dismissive acknowledgement of your "communication." But perhaps you'd prefer Manager Munch to use sky writing (but alas, he would never approve that expense report). So maybe in the form of a bagpipe from yonder hill? Perhaps war trumpets? Maybe an interpretive dance? Donkey call? Sonar blip? You fucking jackass.

Next time, Butt Munch, when I ask you a question like that, do me a favor and relax the shit-eating part of your brain for a moment, and lie to me instead by saying "Oh, yeah. I told him about that. He's gonna get back to me. I'll let you know."

I swear, at some point I'm gonna "communicate" with my fists.

. . .

That wasn't sufficiently cathartic. Let's hope the vodka cran helps. Oh - we're beginning our descent into San Diego where it's 70 degrees with a light breeze out of the north west. Faaaantastic! (I could continue this rant, but about the chicken-shit management phrase "growth opportunity" ... but I temporally digress)