Regular Life

Monday morning, I heard a co-worker say, “It’s a complete and utter… farcity.”

Screw-ups can be fun, but they also can ruin your career.

We all get a bit of a chuckle, with a dash of cringe, when some high-ranking official says something by mistake, or uses a word that does not fit the context. Sometimes, they make up completely new words on the fly, and this makes speechwriters wonder why they bother carefully crafting each sentence. They are there to help the official say the right thing at every turn, and most of the time it works. Then someone (Howard Dean) adds an insane battle cry at the end of a speech and lead admires the speed at which his campaign sinks.

The more common of our numbers do not have the luxury of a team to help prepare what we say.

Now, we all know “farcity” is not a word. Nevertheless, most of us know exactly what it means. The man who said it is a very intelligent person, skilled and respected in what he does. It just happens sometimes. Fortunately, unless someone like me comes along and writes about it, it soon fades from memory and there’s no harm done. In fact, much of the time nobody’s sure they heard it right and it’s never mentioned.

Now for something completely different, let’s talk about a thing called e-mail.

E-mail, a hugely popular form of communication, enables us to proofread what we “say” before clicking “Send.” Whether it’s a simple grammatical error or a heated outburst, we can take out anything that might be laughable or, more seriously, unsettling.

Unfortunately, this feature often goes unused at the office, resulting in a permanent record.

Some folks dash off a quick message without considering all its implications, and then the recipient has those words forever saved in a folder somewhere, just waiting to retrieve and share them at an opportune moment. They can be forwarded to multiple inboxes in a click of the mouse. It’s a sad commentary on today’s working world that otherwise decent people actually save e-mails for that purpose, just waiting to pounce. The old adage “forgive and forget” turns into “don’t forget, I have proof.” This results in a paralysis of personality in e-mailed correspondence that strips out everything that possibly could be construed as offensive. Obviously, if there is abuse or harrassment going on, we can more readily accept the hording and sorting of e-mails as evidence.

The motives, however, usually are more selfish than noble, and it’s too bad. Early in my time at this company, I made a suggestion to someone who had been here several years, in what I thought was a completely inert tone. Without talking to me first, she immediately forwarded the message to her supervisor, who asked me about it. I was lucky he was the understanding type. Note to self: tone is wide open for interpretation in the written word. You knew that. Now remember it.

I won’t even discuss accidentally using “there” instead of “their.”

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