January 11, 2007

I'm bilingual?

Apparently my brain does have a filter to prevent me from saying things that will get me into a lot of trouble. It also seems that it speaks in different languages then I do.

I had a big meeting this morning at work. We were going over a problem we are having with some of our inventory. This has been something I’ve been working on for 3 weeks to no avail. One of my two managers started making statements that where completely uninformed and outlandishly simple on how to deal with the situations. One of the statements was, “All you have to do is make a phone call and it’s done.” That statement would be the equivalent of saying is, “All you have to do is push a button on a camera and you have a picture in your hand.” Well, no. You have to load the camera with film, then you take the lens cap off, aim the picture, push the button, take the film to have it developed, the people there do there job and an hour later you have your picture. Sorry, I couldn’t come up with a better analogy. The phone call was step one in a 30-step process. Phone calls had been made 3 weeks ago, so it’s more then that. There was a bunch of other stuff being said as well.

I tried to explain it’s not as simple as he would like to think. He kept insisting this could be done by the end of the day. In reality, even if I had an easy button and the planets aligned just right so that I had the powers of a god, the soonest it could be done is tomorrow, in reality it will be another 2 weeks while all the other departments involved get online. He just kept interrupting me, making outlandish statements and completely being an annoyance. My temper was starting to get the better of me, and it was getting heated in that room. Finally my temper let loose with, “You farking idiot. You might want to shut up while the people that know what they are doing discuss this you stupid son of a beaotch.”

It was at that point the buffer in my brain kicked in. However, instead of not letting me say anything, it translated it into a different language. A fictional different language. One that only the most hard core of geeks may pretend to know. No, it wasn’t Klingon; it was Wookie. Yea, I said Wookie, as in Chewbacca from Star Wars. That’s right, in the middle of a meeting I let out a very loud Wookie howl. The meeting stopped dead.

My peers are looking at me with that, “What the hell was that?” look on their faces. The two managers just kind of stared at me as if I had spontaneously grown a second head. I was so hot that I didn’t even realize what I had done until one of my peers started laughing and another one asked me what that noise I made was. Then in my head I heard the sound I had just made. Fortunately, none of the people in the room were big enough Star Wars fans to recognize it, except for one person. They did say it was an impressive Wookie howl.

Eh, at least I didn’t get in trouble.

Posted by Contagion in Tales from the Work Place at January 11, 2007 07:10 PM | TrackBack
Comments

You have nimble grey matter.
And it's a danged good thing, too!!

Posted by: jimmyb at January 11, 2007 08:44 PM

you are wise beyond your years....

Posted by: caltechgirl at January 11, 2007 11:32 PM

You might want to ask Ktreva about the truthfulness of that very first sentence there...

Posted by: Ogre at January 12, 2007 08:15 AM

Drink warning please!!! I damn near sprayed my screen with coffee. That was frickin' hilarious.

Posted by: Shawn at January 12, 2007 12:10 PM

Bahahahaha damn dude, I'm about pissing myself laughing. This would even be funnier if you still had the period facial hair...

Posted by: Graumagus at January 12, 2007 12:14 PM

Heh. I need to learn how to do that. :-)

Posted by: Richmond at January 12, 2007 12:49 PM

So the sensitivity training is paying off?

Posted by: Raging Mom at January 12, 2007 01:42 PM

I don't know what happened, but it saved me from a lot of trouble.

Posted by: Contagion at January 12, 2007 05:12 PM

ROFLMAO!!! Oh man, I can see you howling now. That's excellent.

Posted by: Teresa at January 12, 2007 05:49 PM