I had forgotten all about The Pretenders…remember them, with Chrissy Hynde? We’ll get back to them in a second…I got a boss who loves to preface any criticism with the phrase “Now, don’t get me wrong, but…” He thinks that by making this disclaimer up front he is then free to go ahead and rag the shit out of someone (ragging v. to run down verbally). It has become a running joke among the staff who now say things to each other like “Don’t get me wrong, Bill…but you’re a fuckhead.” One of these days he’ll overhear and that should be interesting to see, but I digress.
Of course Don’t Get Me Wrong was a hit for The Pretenders back in the eighties. I prefer their earlier stuff, but that’s not the point. This constant exposure to that phrase made me remember I used to like The Pretenders. So I walked around the internet for a while, and there was a copy of their greatest hits just lying there on the floor…
I went in to work this fine Saturday to try and catch up on some office work, since they have laid-off half my staff and I’m now needed in the factory a lot more during the week. My boss walked in 5 minutes after me and started right in…
“Now, don’t get me wrong” he said, waving a little book around. “The apprentice has started using the order book like I asked him, but you see here? He’s taken up two lines. If he had written smaller he could have got it on one line…”
And there followed a 20 minute running complaint about NOTHING, all the while I’m conscious of the fact I promised myself I was doing 4 hours today and not one second more. So this is chewing into my time but there’s nothing you can do but stand there and listen. Then when you think he’s done you say “Yeah, I see your point” or something equally vague and try to edge yourself away. Usually he’ll start following you, keeping up his running diuretic diatribe until you can lose him in a turn.
But now I’m home, with the good medicine in me, The Pretenders on the mp3 – (I’m not the kind I used to be/ I gotta get a .33, baby.) Later I’m going to paint the bathroom. My bathroom in my house that I own…my house where it’s ok to write on two lines if you want, fuck take the whole book, if you like it so much.
That was a lot of work, trying to segue those two themes. Maybe a little nap before painting…
I had forgotten all about The Pretenders…remember them, with Chrissy Hynde? We’ll get back to them in a second…
8 comments:
"Don't get me wrong" is similar to a phrase common here in the phoney-polite US south: "bless his/her heart".
You can insult or disparage anybody as long as you add that phrase at the end.
Example: "Mary Jane is the fattest, ugliest pig in the office, bless her heart."
How about "No offense, but..." which clearly implies that there will indeed come something scathing and offensive at the tail end of that phrase.
Very true...there's also the even more blatant technique of adding "just kidding" after a well-placed insult.
all good points! I should have thought about it more... that should have been the theme, insult disclaimer phrases.
What about "don't take this the wrong way, but..."
ah no, Dan that one was mine!
"so did you get the memo about the TPS reports?"
yes Exile, except you were supposed write a report about the number of TPS related memos. At least that's what the TPS Assistant Planning Director said in his memo regarding future reports.
You know, right before he jumped.
Post a Comment