I Almost Missed Gold
When I started work almost a month ago I posted an inspirational line on my message board to give courage to myself and those around me; it was a little saying many of us are very familiar with, but only appreciate just how poignant and true it is until we set foot inside a coorporate office as an employee. It reads: I BELIEVE YOU HAVE MY STAPLER.
Little did some people know that this was also an ingenuously crafted trap to expose the stupid people in the office. You set the bait, and then, like most things, all you have to do is wait patiently, and sooner or later you will find your trap sprung, and the stupid person in question dangling from a metaphorical rope, happily eating a carrot <--(that's the bait, the message i wrote, for those of you who don't understand figurative language)
I am happy to say that today i reaped the fruits of my labor, though to be honest, i almost missed it. When I walked into work this morning and got to the quaint little cube i call home, i say a message written below my homage to the great movie OFFICE SPACE. I didn't think anything of it though, as i was tired and there was unimportant crap to be dealt with: ie; my everyday bitchwork. It was later that day, while sifting through a purchased loan that i literally stopped, sat straight up, arched an eyebrow and reread the message. It said, and i quote: AW, DID SOMEONE STEAL YOURE STAPLER???
Hi, my name is Preston Hatfield, and I'm an English major and a Lieutenant officer of the Grammar Police. We've got a possible 24-17 in progress: some dumbfuck who doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're" and perhaps even "yore", at any rate, the perpetrator has a spelling issue as the VERY LEAST. I mean, "youre" isn't even a word.
So i circled the offending word and drew an arrow to it with another message in big letters in which i exposed the mistake. Two of my bosses came by later, read both messages, laughed with me and wondered to themselves 'i wonder who wrote that.' Well, chances are, it was one of the 30somethings who are getting paid much more than I to misspell words on important documents. Feels good to be an English major.
And just to be an asshole, i believe from now on every day i am going to write a new grammar lesson on my board. The first one starts tomorrow- the difference between "your" and "you're."
I know that one day i'll come around the corner and see a surreptitious figure frantically scribbling my "lessons" on a note pad and then realize I'm watching them. They'll give me a guilty look and then tell me they were looking for the "Johnson" file and I'll give them a very smug smile and say "sure you were."
Another person exposed in this sad sad world of butchers of the English language. If you really think about it, I'm just like Aragorn, only with English. So why aren't the ladies fawning over me? It's because i don't also speak Elvish isn't it?
"Why can't the English learn to set a good example to people whose English is painful to our ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely dissapears. Well, in America they haven't used it for years."
Little did some people know that this was also an ingenuously crafted trap to expose the stupid people in the office. You set the bait, and then, like most things, all you have to do is wait patiently, and sooner or later you will find your trap sprung, and the stupid person in question dangling from a metaphorical rope, happily eating a carrot <--(that's the bait, the message i wrote, for those of you who don't understand figurative language)
I am happy to say that today i reaped the fruits of my labor, though to be honest, i almost missed it. When I walked into work this morning and got to the quaint little cube i call home, i say a message written below my homage to the great movie OFFICE SPACE. I didn't think anything of it though, as i was tired and there was unimportant crap to be dealt with: ie; my everyday bitchwork. It was later that day, while sifting through a purchased loan that i literally stopped, sat straight up, arched an eyebrow and reread the message. It said, and i quote: AW, DID SOMEONE STEAL YOURE STAPLER???
Hi, my name is Preston Hatfield, and I'm an English major and a Lieutenant officer of the Grammar Police. We've got a possible 24-17 in progress: some dumbfuck who doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're" and perhaps even "yore", at any rate, the perpetrator has a spelling issue as the VERY LEAST. I mean, "youre" isn't even a word.
So i circled the offending word and drew an arrow to it with another message in big letters in which i exposed the mistake. Two of my bosses came by later, read both messages, laughed with me and wondered to themselves 'i wonder who wrote that.' Well, chances are, it was one of the 30somethings who are getting paid much more than I to misspell words on important documents. Feels good to be an English major.
And just to be an asshole, i believe from now on every day i am going to write a new grammar lesson on my board. The first one starts tomorrow- the difference between "your" and "you're."
I know that one day i'll come around the corner and see a surreptitious figure frantically scribbling my "lessons" on a note pad and then realize I'm watching them. They'll give me a guilty look and then tell me they were looking for the "Johnson" file and I'll give them a very smug smile and say "sure you were."
Another person exposed in this sad sad world of butchers of the English language. If you really think about it, I'm just like Aragorn, only with English. So why aren't the ladies fawning over me? It's because i don't also speak Elvish isn't it?
"Why can't the English learn to set a good example to people whose English is painful to our ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely dissapears. Well, in America they haven't used it for years."