Saturday, September 01, 2007

Zapping My Energy

I hired this guy who seemed smart enough. And he does a pretty good job with projects, customer communication, etc. But he has this cringe-inducing habit of either choosing the wrong word for the situation, or making up a new word altogether. I can stand it (almost), but he's become the joke of the office. What do I do? Some examples of Chris-speak:

  • "This office is really blush."

  • "You just need to give him a little more leedway."

  • "How am I supposed to wave through all these documents?"

  • "Ouch! That water is scolding hot!"

  • "You're really zapping my energy."

  • "I have this manual down packed."

  • "They never do anything. That department is like a sift."

  • "We should be able to test that in the third quarter, banning any emergency."

  • "But Carl, in his infamous wisdom, decided to hold off."

  • "If we do it that way, I guarantee you we'll get all kinds of slack."

  • "What projects are coming down the pipe?"

  • "This whole thing is a thiasco."


    • It really is getting to be a thiasco.

    There's hope! Just kidding. Besides the obvious (firing the guy), you have little recourse. He's not going to learn his way out of this. If anything, he'll make up more and more words until he's speaking his own language. You could give him a dictionary, but that probably wouldn't get the message across. The only other thing you could do is to try to keep track of all of the words he butchers, and say them the right way repeatedly. This works with kids, but given the extent of the vocabulary you're working against, you'll probably end up fighting a losing battle. Changing jobs is probably your best option (other than firing the guy) -- anything else will just end up being an exercise in fertility.

    posted by Lawrence A. Fing @ 12:00 PM

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