Actioning a blue-skies approach outside the box

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Brilliant.

In Oxford the other day I noticed a new cafe had opened on Cowley Road. There were several student-looking types in there glued to their Macbooks but the best bit was the guy behind the counter. Longish hair tied back into a small ponytail, a short but full beard, glasses with thick rectangular frames, reading a book he was holding up level with his face and literally stroking his fluffy chin as he read.

One of those moments when you half suspect the existence of some shadowy Ministry of Stereotypes.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps

"Looking like this:

326846.gif


a bonus"
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Definitely.

My girlfriend told me a great story last night about her employer, who will remain anonymous. She's responsible, among many other things, for moderating comments on her employer's website. Apparently, when she joined, human resources sent her a document containing a list of swearwords that should not be allowed to pass the filter, with alternative spellings, so for example:

motherfucker, also motherfucka; muthafucka; muthafuka.

So I was a bit confused: "Ah, so you were being asked to programme the website software so that it could automatically send to junk any messages containing these words? But I didn't realise you knew so much code to be able to do that."

"Oh no, you're not getting it. I don't do the code. We moderate the comments ourselves."

They had actually provided a list of alternative spellings of 'motherfucker', in case anyone were to miss the subtle nuance that 'muthafucka' was an alternative spelling of 'motherfucker'
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Wow, what a bunch of motherfuckers.

I hate this tendency many employers have not merely to fail to encourage initiative in their workers but actively to discourage it. It pisses me off when I order two drinks in a chain pub and the person serving me has to go to the till before they can tell me what the total is, but in a lot of these places they're probably just following standard procedure as dictated by management.
 

Local Authority

bitch city
Definitely.

My girlfriend told me a great story last night about her employer, who will remain anonymous. She's responsible, among many other things, for moderating comments on her employer's website. Apparently, when she joined, human resources sent her a document containing a list of swearwords that should not be allowed to pass the filter, with alternative spellings, so for example:

motherfucker, also motherfucka; muthafucka; muthafuka.

So I was a bit confused: "Ah, so you were being asked to programme the website software so that it could automatically send to junk any messages containing these words? But I didn't realise you knew so much code to be able to do that."

"Oh no, you're not getting it. I don't do the code. We moderate the comments ourselves."

They had actually provided a list of alternative spellings of 'motherfucker', in case anyone were to miss the subtle nuance that 'muthafucka' was an alternative spelling of 'motherfucker'

Are you keeping the employer anonymous because your girlfriend works for the daily mail moderating the comments on their site?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I hope we can give baboon a bit more credit than to think he'd be in a relationship with an employee of the Daily Fail...
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
ps i was being ironic

although i was thinking earlier, that it would be far from the worst job anyone could ever have. after all, while the daily mail is repulsive, at least it is open about its repulsiveness and its repulsive opinions. Many jobs end up contributing actively to the things that the Daily Mail merely rhetorically supports (although even this, as has been noted on other threads, is not always true - sometimes journalists manage to smuggle progressive stories into the paper, at least more progressive than the present government), yet are shrouded by a denial that this is any more than 'just a job', as if the things that are being done in employment don't happen in any real space, or with any real responsibility attached, such that the person themselves is 'liberal' or 'progressive' or similarly benign.

that is to say, lots of people accept paychecks from employers who produce far more bad consequences in the world than the daily mail ever would or could.
 
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blacktulip

Pregnant with mandrakes
OK, this is a genuine question, so please help if you can:

Have companies in the UK been giving their employees a new proper noun based on the company name? Like Halfordians or Lidlers or something?

I know this sounds daft but it happens a lot in Finland these days and I protest it at every turn. It always sounds like some new alien race in Star Trek (a side note, not my principle objection).
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
A particularly obnoxious one I hear at work a lot is "let's take this offline", meaning, "let's talk about it in private outside of this meeting".
I was thinking about this yesterday, and what it actually means is "will you stop dragging out this meeting by going on and on about boring pedantic shit that noone else cares about", but phrased in a way that the sort of person who does that will listen to. Hence it's a sort of cheat code for annoying people in meetings, rather than something you say because it's such a succint and expressive phrase. In that sense I think it's actually pretty useful.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Sure, I see the value of it, I just think it sounds a bit like some risible pre-dotcom-crash buzzword from the mid-late '90s, when "virtual reality" was all the go and any spy film worth its salt featured an attractive young person in glasses that didn't suit them "hacking into the mainframe" by typing very, very quickly while chewing gum.
 
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Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Alternatively I guess it sounds like a way of challenging some keyboard warrior on a forum to see if they're so brave in real life...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
"Now I wanna see a good, effeminate fight with plenty of ineffectual slapping, crying and going 'oww, leave off!'"
 
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