Words To Work By

In the battleground of the average workplace, words don't always mean what they appear to. Here's a free and handy guide from a self-proclaimed master of weasel words, tailored to every occasion and mood.

I did something

I was the only person on the team that worked on something, and I WANT THIS TO BE KNOWN!

You could say this when you're feeling brave and aren't otherwise disenchanted in any way. However, the preferred occasion to use this is when a long history of a lack of recognition has built up enough inertia that you no longer care about the ramifications.

And make no bones about it: there will be ramifications, typically involving your manager overriding your self-eulogizing with 17 others indicating that no, actually the whole team did the thing, and it was a stellar team effort.

We did something

I didn't do all that much, but I just did enough to salve my conscience and not suffer sleepless nights. This of course means that I probably sent an unhelpful email or two, or perhaps gave a pep talk to the guy who did the actual work. If I'm a manager, then of course I did nothing at all.

Bring out the "we"s when you anticipate great rewards by associating yourself with the real doer. In case your foolish mind is going astray, let me clarify: rewards aren't metaphorical here. Think money, cash, dough, dosh, the green stuff, you get it.

Something was done

I did something, but I suspect the thing I did is going to catch fire (and that's in a bad way in case you are a secret arsonophile) and crash and burn really soon, so I don't want to risk putting it on record that I'm the one who caused the trainwreck.

The eagle-eyed Sophists among you might be wondering why you might not just drop the "we" bomb in this case as well and be done with it, but you're just showing your newbie colours, greenhorn! Even if you send out a mail saying that "we did it", it's still your email-address and your feet that're going to be held to the fire.

Here's a free tip for ya: make sure you don't have wax wings before you decide to fly into the glow of the sun.

I messed up

As you can imagine, it's hard even for a master dissembler like me to worm my way out of such a terse set of words; which naturally means that these deadly words are potential career suicide and must be used as an absolute last resort! Only when all else has failed - and by all else, I mean ALL ELSE - that means you've tried everything short of murder - do you admit to something like this.

Another free tip: you may have some pretensions of humility or honesty or some such grave fault, and you might be wondering if you should own up to your mistakes. Let me put it this way: unless you have a trust fund, a secret treasure chest that has enough money to support you and your family for a generation, or you have a penchant for begging on the streets, rid yourself of these flaws. Become a snake-tongued wordsmith and save your career.

An interesting factoid about this phrase: it has never, ever been heard from the lips of a manager, and it has been seriously considered by a consortium of linguists and neurologists that there is a biological reason why this might be the case. I have some ideas around initiation rituals around chopping up your tongue and rewiring your brain when someone becomes a manager.

We messed up

This phrase is easy to pin down: the speaker is saying to the listener - "You messed up, but I have a tiny reserve of goodwill towards you, so I'm softening the blow a bit."

You may often hear this from your boss, and you may be labouring under the delusion that he is trying to shield you from the effects of your mess, but WAKE UP! Think back to all the times you've heard this phrase, and soon you'll realize that it's only happened in a one-on-one chat.

In a setting where there's even a slight chance that your boss could be burnt by such a confession, he'll be sure to call you out by name as the source of the problem. He'll probably throw in your phone number, your home address, navigation alternatives to your home address in case that street gets choked with traffic, nearby pigeon delivery points and your mom's insurance number, just for good measure.

You messed up

Alright, if you hear this, it's time you had one foot out the door already.

In the mealy-mouthed world of corporate chat, a direct accusation is akin to being stabbed in the belly. Repeatedly. RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

Now, it is certainly possible that you didn't actually mess anything up, but that's beside the point. This phrase is only used when the user of the phrase has burnt his bridges already.

If you use this phrase on the other hand, congratulations: you've made an enemy. An enemy that'll feud with you for the rest of your life, and if you were particularly harsh with your delivery, for the next three or four generations.

Things got messed up

If you're in a position where you find yourself forced to use this, I offer my sympathies. You're stuck between the proverbial Devil and the deep blue sea, the rock and the hard place, you've jumped into the frying pan et cetera.

So the typical scenario for this awkwardness involves you not being brave or foolish enough to own up ('I messed up'), not being a manager ('We messed up') and having actually been an integral contributor to the mess up. The passive voice is your only remaining friend, and awkward sentence construction apart, could possibly fool an email-skimmer or two into not quickly identifying you as the source of the dumpster fire.