Co-workers: they’re always saying stuff, am I right? Ladies, you know what I’m talking about.
Sometimes the things co-workers say are not the things they mean, and since I am the first person in history to ever notice this, here are some random entries from the Unabridged Co-Worker Translation Guide.
Entry #249: “I can’t figure out how to work my phone” = “I have not made any attempt to figure out how to work my phone”
Entry #106: “I need help with this” = “Do this for me”
Entry #387: “Hey, quick question…” = “Hey, several dozen lengthy questions…”
Entry #426: “We need to give Cathy a call” = “You need to give Cathy a call”
Entry #325: “Are you going out for lunch today?” = “Get me lunch”
Entry #622: “I think we’re out of pens” = “I do not see a pen within a three foot radius of where I’m sitting”
Entry #88: “Did Todd get a new computer?” = “Why haven’t I also gotten a new computer?”
Entry #139: “Thanks for showing me how to do something in Microsoft Excel” = “You are now the company’s expert in Microsoft Excel”
Entry #320: “I’m expecting a fax” = “I’m expecting you to hover over the fax machine for the next seven hours”
Entry #212: “I don’t like the look of that applicant” = “That applicant is black”
Entry #381: “I copied you on an e-mail a while back…” = “By copying you on an e-mail, I actually expected you to completely handle it despite the e-mail being primarily addressed to someone other than you”
Entry #414: “How’s everything going with you? = “I am about to ignore whatever you say and then tell you how everything is going with me, which is terribly, and which will take an hour”
Entry #198: “The copier is broken” = “The copier is out of paper”
Entry #198A: “The copier is broken” = “The copier hasn’t telepathically divined what I want it to do”
Entry #198B: “The copier is broken” = “The copier is broken, and since you are standing there I’ll just assume you’re the copier repairman”
Entry #198C: “The copier is broken” = “I broke the copier”