I
do not know whether you want to acknowledge it, but don’t you think our lives
revolve around our professional space. All those experts and obviously loaded
big bosses always tell us how we need to distinguish our personal and
professional lives. They will always preach that their successful lives are
because they could draw the thin line between their personal and professional
commitments. Well, bigger and fatter salaries may have taught you that.
Let us not wander into that
territory, however. I want to draw your attention towards all official
no-nonsense jargon(s) that we use often in our day to day lives. How many times
in our everyday conversation, do we use the phrases ‘No Issues’, ‘Let me check
what I can do about it’ (famous HR lines), etc.?
One of my friends emailed me her
recent holiday pictures she had shot in Singapore with the famous message body
‘PFA’. I was dumbfounded to see such a formal way to share those pictures with
me, which I had already seen in Facebook. I forward the scanned copies of my
certificates from one email ID to another and write ‘FYI’. Now, I wonder why I
need to be informed. My maid calls me and asks if she can come late on some day
due to some reason and I reply her “NO ISSUES, you can come late”.
I will tell you about one more
hilarious incident, which to my horror, my husband never lets me forget. Why
should not I tell it to everybody myself? Once our car had gone for servicing,
when they did not wash the car properly and my husband raised a complaint. So
this car dealer calls us again for a free car wash. This time to our disappointment,
they had somehow misplaced our foot mats. So, I go to the mechanic (all fumed
up) and ask him “Is this how you do a SERVICE RECOVERY?”
One day my boss was on sick leave,
and he emails to all his team members with the subject ‘Out of service, on sick
leave today’. I could not understand whether to laugh or to feel sorry that he
was not well. Rather, I took a long tea break. We were having a party on New
Year’s Eve on our apartment terrace. Our own society was organizing the event
and we needed to contribute some amount. So one among us shouts (as we ladies
were chit chatting about our maids), “Let’s get ready for the party and
contribute the money ASAP”.
As you all are aware, water
scarcity is a big issue in any apartment on a weekend. One fine Saturday
morning, there was no water supply and when the reservoir could not reciprocate
to our demands. All the tenants and occupants of the flats asked the watchman
to run the water motor pump so as to meet our demands from the underground bore
well. To our horror, the watchman tells us that the water motor pump is not
working from the last week and so, he is trying the dealer’s number now. And
one gentleman who is from the Software industry tells him, “You should raise
the RED-FLAG immediately if there is any ISSUE, rather than waiting for things
like this to happen“. We understand that he had a point there, and he was off
course right but, our dear watchman didn't understand anything.
My sister sends me a greeting card
on my email with emotion filled words and images. I was brought to tears. Please
do not misunderstand me; I was not overwhelmed by her emotional greeting card.
I could not control my laugh and due to which my eyes started watering. At the
end of her email, it was written, ‘Thanks and Regards’, so and so, official
email ID, contact number, etc. Once we had visited our family friends’ and
their two year old son was very naughty. His father, on a lighter note, was
telling about his son’s mischievous stories and tells us “these kids are not very
USER-FRIENDLY”.
We were planning to call one aerobics
teacher or a gym trainer to our apartment, who can come daily morning and every
family can join in the training sessions. So, we started a discussion in
WhatsApp for its feasibility, cost, number of people interested, etc. I get a
WhatsApp message one day, “Hey, let me know who will be the STAKEHOLDERS and
what will be its IMPACT on regular gym timings”.
We are unaware of how many such
official jargons or phrases we use in our daily conversations. Now, please tell
me how and where I draw that thin line between my personal life and
professionalism. J
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