Because Words Are Lazy, Useless Slackers.
After spending the last two weeks of my life negotiating, bargaining, pleading, and possibly even making thinly-veiled threats against a coworkers’ family in a vain effort to hash out this one teeny-tiny, cosmically insignificant newsletter article on health care program management (yes, the same one I mentioned way back here), I have come to the conclusion that words are primitive, ineffectual communication tools.
Much like the homeless guy in Baker Park who mutters and makes borderline lewd gestures at the birds, you know language is trying to accomplish something, you just can’t quite tell what. (True story, by the way. Frederick homeless people, you so crazy.)
As such, I will no longer be wasting my time with it. I am so over words.
From now on, friends, my main mode of communication will be through bar graphs and pie charts — and the occasional Venn Diagram to keep things sassy.
So, I could devote the next 30-45 minutes on this post trying to relay to you how I’m feeling this morning… or I could just sum things up in five minutes with a handy-dandy pie chart.
Hmm, what to do?
Voila! Such is the awe-inspiring magic of Microsoft Office Excel 2007. Bask in its glory.
Seriously, I said bask.
And since that felt oh so good, I believe I’ll do another one.
I think I feel a bar graph coming on… Yep, here it comes…
Nice, right? It’s easy, gets to the point, leaves no room for misinterpretation.
I don’t want to brag, but I think I’m revolutionizing communication here, people.
Spread the word.
Comments
I have to say I am a writer but I get your point… must be the visual cues.
I don’t think it’s the words though. No, the problem is that so many people have been spoonfed everything they need to know for so long that they cannot think for themselves so you have to constantly hold their hand every damn step of the way.
Case in point: I do IT and membership stuff for a Society. I send out nice emails with step by step instructions on how to do stuff and I still get the most stupid questions back. One person sent me a screenshot asking me where the picture upload button was. It was right in the middle of the screenshot staring her in the face. I circled it and sent it back and she was appropriately sheepish afterwards but still.
And these people are EDITORS. They make their living by reading everything very very carefully. If they can’t read my emails properly, what makes them think that I am going to pass work their way anytime soon?
So I don’t think it’s words. It’s people being too lazy to think, to read things properly, or to pay attention to anything that’s not spoonfed to them and even some things that are.
I hear ya, lady! Every single job I’ve been at in recent years has required an inexplicable amount of hand-holding of people who get paid way, WAY more than me. It’s frustrating when other people depend on you constantly to help them do their jobs because then you fall behind in doing your own. Plus, I have a very low threshhold for nurturing — it’s pretty much why I don’t have kids.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind helping you out on occasion if you’re new or it’s not your area of expertise — I’m not a TOTAL jerk — but when you’re just too lazy or high falutin’ to look it up for yourself is when I get a little “WTF” about the whole situation.
Glad you were able to redirect my misguided rage toward the REAL culprit — and away from poor, innocent words.
I may now start a fire in my office trashcan.
Start a fire under a sprinkler that will short circuit the computer when it goes off so that the person that’s annoyed you the most will have their precious documents go kaput right before deadline.
REVENGE is a very sweet sweet thing.