The funny side of it

The economic down turn and "layoffs" the order of the day...I am lucky to be in an organization which is not affected by the turmoil.But never the less IT service industry is not the safest place to live in.

With monotony setting in...I am getting restless and seriously wanted a break, probably a couple of days off… Unfortunately for me, these high profile meeting and discussions happening every other day, I don’t really want to be left out...I had to know what was happening around. With options of a couple of days off completely ruled out, I sat starring at my desktop and expected a miracle to happen.

I turn around on a lookout for my colleagues to pass few comments, and in return I get a few business jargons (ohhhhhh no!!!!!!). I hate it but unfortunately or fortunately this is something very common in my team, associates and managers keep relating every single activity they see with some business strategy or the other.

Can you believe..one of my manager compared the "share auto" (a common mode of transport on outskirts of Chennai,India) with "Assemble line model" also know as the "factory model".

Well what do I do...what do i do???(thumping my desk with my fist),tried to work out something interesting.

I tried to push the team for a few lighter moments with topics like funny situation, sports, movies and also tried to pull a few legs, nothing seems to amuse them except business news and related topics.

I had enough..just then a thought flashed in my Grey matter. In a few min, I decided what I am going to do. I noticed that lot of them in the team use a few words repeatedly, few words they love to use and a few fillers as well. I know I am good at observing (observation is something I have mentioned in my resume too!!!!!!!) but just that I observe the wrong once.

Let me list a few of it (no offense to any one), I know all of us use these types of words and when it is over used it becomes obvious. Never the less, it is a style or an identity for an individual.

Basically… Bla bla bla…

I was counting the # of times “basically” was used in a 2 min conversation by one of my mates
…Guess what “basically” was used 12 times.

Some of the other commonly used words, which have become an identity for individuals in our team are listed below

Actually,

Cool (spelt as “kooll”)

Hey...ahaa

I buy your point,

Can I take 2 min of your time?

Sooper…Sooper

100% yar

Having said that

So…so

Let me say

You know

Like (a) (spelt as “lika”)

Absolutely (spelt as “abbbbsolutely”)

Excellent (spelt as “Exxxxcelent”)

We will sit after lunch

How are you? (‘are’ is spelt as “rr”)

Hey, end of day …

Give me 10 min yar

It’s so much fun counting the # of times people use these words unconsciously!!!!!!!!!!

"Lika" and "actually"

Recently, I attended a meeting presided by my manager and soon found the topics discussed a little above my level...I decided to shut my interpreting abilities and woke my observation skills...I started counting the number of "lika" and "actually" used by my manager in the rest of the meeting which lasted for another 15 min.

I kept counting 1,2,3,4,5...1,2,3,4,5... on my notepad. "Lika" had a count of 91 and "actually" had a count of 49...

Another occasion was a 2 hour training... 1067 and I lost count on the "Lika" used...

I guess monotony is setting on counting words...its time to find some other monotony breaker... ;)