Irritating turns of phrase

These are some of the phrases people use that grate with me, some of them more than others…

Do you know what I mean? repeated frequently. Yes. I speak the same language as you. I can follow the thread of your argument. I have a brain. I know what you mean.

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I have two female friends who will suddenly sing a loud ‘la’ note for no apparent reason other than that they’re not the centre of the conversation. Possibly the most annoying way to grab attention.

Guess what I did today… You gave yourself a full-frontal lobotomy with a spork? No? But what else would explain your prob…? Er. I don’t know. What did you do today?

Would you like to…? I’m on dodgy ground bringing this up because this is my lovely wife’s favourite prefacing question. “Would you like to empty the bins and recycling?” No, not really. Or, classically when I’ve just sat down on the sofa after a hard day, “Would you like to go out to the kitchen and do a random chore involving heavy lifting?” (Okay, that’s not a literal report, but the gist is true.) Used as a ‘non-nag’ nagging method. ‘I’m not telling you that you ought to phone your dad, but would you like to phone your dad…’

I’m not being funny but… Good thing you said that or I’d have burst out laughing at your point. You will let me know when you are being funny won’t you. I might miss it.

Have you got two minutes to [insert random charitable endeavour]? Yes I do have two minutes, thanks. And I’d like to keep them.

[In lilting sing-song] Thank you. One of my colleagues uses this method to signal the end of a conversation; say ‘thank you’ in a sing-song voice and then walk away. Thank you for listening to me; I’m bored of you now. Or, thank you for allowing me to interrupt your work; I don’t want to hear why my idea will create a lot more work for you because frankly I don’t care. Goodbye.

“Hello, can I speak to Mr Mattius/Mathis/Matthews/Matt-i-ass please?” No. Get lost.

I’m sure you’ve got your own - add them in the comments…

Not much love for the Vorderman

Star in a Jar suggests a new career for 'our Carol' could be... "lion food".

Can anyone better that?

Head cold

Came home from work today at lunchtime as I'm developing a head cold. Yesterday I had the classic sore throat which got worse during the day, despite an overdose of Strepsils. Today it's a bunged up nose. I'm predicting I'll be a snot factory tomorrow.

On Wednesday I sat in a meeting next to a bunged up sneezer who was quaffing Lemsip. I remember quite clearly bemoaning the fact that some people will come into work no matter how ill they are and spread the germs around. I was assured by said person she was not infectious because by the time you exhibit the symptoms, you're past the infectious stage. Yeah, whatever.

I think my current state is living disproof of that theory.

Annoyance

Grrr. Today I had a bit of a strop when my boss got copied in to a memo from one of the high ups suggesting a REALLY OBVIOUS thing we should be doing when interacting with the media.

Long story, cut short: we already do it. If relevant high up had bothered to check with us first we'd have told him we do it already, and in the case he referred to had done everything he'd suggested so 'helpfully'.

I sent a 'helpful' email of my own to my boss pointing all this out. Fortunately, my boss toned it down before responding to the memo which kicked all this off.

As Alice would say: Never compose an email while snarling...

What do they say at Nasa?

My stress levels are through the roof at the moment. Not only am I doing someone else's job in addition to my own, but I'm supposed to be writing the magazine, which is probably the toughest area of my job.

One thing that adds to my stress levels is being dicked around because of other people's incompetence - like the other day when I set up an interview for someone after checking his online diary and with him in person, only to be told the next day by his PA that said interviewee was off that day after all. Grrr.

When people are obviously being a bit useless at some simple task, my favourite unsympathetic phrase is "Come on, it's not rocket science!" Which makes me wonder, what do they say at Nasa when someone is being a bit useless?

Does the head boffin gather his white-coated scientist minions around him and spell out how simple the mission really is... "Now, come on guys, we're looking at an orbital launch, followed by a slingshot round Mars, and the probe does a close up fly by of Jupiter. It's really not that hard. It's only rocket science!"