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muckefuckWell, I survived our in-service training for today, a three-hour workshop on serving internal customers. This despite the fact that (a) it was presented almost entirely through the medium PowerPoint slides of LOLcats and (b) I sat myself at the same table as the Big Boss so I wasn't able to surreptitiously mark up photocopies of Abendpost articles for later translation. I survived with my dignity mostly intact, though in case anyone in the Division didn't already know I was a bastard, I made sure to point out that empathy was all good and well the first couple times someone screws up, but by the tenth they can go sit on a stapler.
The presenters spent a considerable chunk of time trying to reshape our speech patterns, despite the fact that one of them readily acknowledged "tone trumps words". I was particularly amused by the suggestion that we de-escalate adversarial conversations through strategic use of the phrase "Help me to understand you", since it immediately struck me as exactly the sort of thing a Miranda Priestly might say. In fact, no matter how many times I hear it, it's inseparable in my mind from Meryl Streep's fantastically withering delivery. The presenters even confessed that it's basically become code between the two of them; I can think of worse euphemisms for "You are getting on my wick today."
They also tried to wean us off the word "try" because it usually means "no" (e.g. "I'll try to get that to you today" = "In your dreams you'll get it today"). Thank God the Big Boss stepped up and pointed out that they were essentially inviting staff to lie to each other so I didn't have to be the one to. They said point blank that nice people get "slammed" because they're the ones everyone would rather deal with, although they tried to undercut this mixed message by claiming unpleasant employees were on track to get fired. Well, when it comes to our organisation, they're half right.
The presenters spent a considerable chunk of time trying to reshape our speech patterns, despite the fact that one of them readily acknowledged "tone trumps words". I was particularly amused by the suggestion that we de-escalate adversarial conversations through strategic use of the phrase "Help me to understand you", since it immediately struck me as exactly the sort of thing a Miranda Priestly might say. In fact, no matter how many times I hear it, it's inseparable in my mind from Meryl Streep's fantastically withering delivery. The presenters even confessed that it's basically become code between the two of them; I can think of worse euphemisms for "You are getting on my wick today."
They also tried to wean us off the word "try" because it usually means "no" (e.g. "I'll try to get that to you today" = "In your dreams you'll get it today"). Thank God the Big Boss stepped up and pointed out that they were essentially inviting staff to lie to each other so I didn't have to be the one to. They said point blank that nice people get "slammed" because they're the ones everyone would rather deal with, although they tried to undercut this mixed message by claiming unpleasant employees were on track to get fired. Well, when it comes to our organisation, they're half right.