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: 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.
But fabulous is such a great word. You can be forgiven for using it frequently. However, anyone who over-uses “at the end of the day” can never be forgiven. I find it triggering.
Oh lord, and once you have tuned into these verbal tics you can never, never, tune them out. I used to work in an open plan office and there was one guy who broadcast his phone conversations to the entire office. There were days when we all came to a standstill and just listened. There was a long running saga about a stray Waitrose trolley, I remember, that I think he took all the way up to head office… After that, all my team took to wearing headphones, which annoyed me, but I couldn’t really blame them, under the circumstances
I wait with teeth clenched for the moment in the day when my roommate says in her incredibly annoying voice “Can I borrow your SPONGE”. Every. single. day.
Also petty.
i get hives when i hear “the reality is” or “whatnot” . may i suggest ear plugs (you can say you have an ear infection) – your two lovely men would drive me to distraction followed closely by insanity.
I can just see them. Brilliant. My problem is that I tend to adopt others’ tics even when they desperately annoy me. And then I annoy myself….
Chuck fabulous in to the conversation in foreign languages for a week or so … they won’t catch on and you’ll be able to spin right back into “fabulous dahling” by the Monday after Christmas! I alternatively am a bit of a bugger for “I hate to say this but …”
Czech: báječný. Danish: vidunderlig; fabelagtig. Dutch: fantastisch.
Estonian: imepärane. Finnish: suurenmoinen. French: formidable.
German: fabelhaft. Hungarian: mesés. Icelandic: stórkostlegur.
Italian: favoloso. Latvian: lielisks; pasakains etc etc etc ;o)
Just found your website, you write very well! Laughing about these verbal tics, hilarious, I can just picture them! Hope you get your own office space soon…