If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?
Okay, okay, okay, I saw this and was immediately traumatized!
Story time!
Years ago, I worked at a grocery store for one of the worst bosses I’ve ever seen.
He was one of those people who would tell you to do something, like put tags directly on the signs. He wants them in the bottom left corner of the sign, on every single sign in the building.
Okay, fine. Not a problem.
Tags, pricing, signs were my job. I ran the POS department.
So I’d do it.
Then the following day, he’d demand to know why the tags were there after I spent the previous day doing just what he asked.
I’d tell him, I was just following his instructions.
He would say that he had no idea what I was talking about. “We never had that conversation.”
He was the worst. I worked for him for years.
Once I told him the permanent signs I ordered the day before were sent to the wrong state, so they won’t be here today. But I reordered them and our other store put our signs on the truck so they’ll be here at some point, either way.
Now, mind you, I have 20 to 30 minutes left in my 9 hour shift.
He asked if they’d be here today.
I said no.
We don’t have any more trucks coming in. The truck in the wrong state will drop them off at some point, but the reordered versions are more likely to be here first tomorrow. I’d just spent the last hour or two reordering them.
He asked again, if they’d be there today.
I said no.
He asked why I didn’t offer to jump in my car and go to another state to get them.
I laughed, thinking he was joking. But he looked at me with a serious look and asked if we were supposed to deal with temporary signs for another day.
As if we don’t use the temp signs all the time with tags so they have the proper price per unit or pound so we don’t get in trouble with the state all the damn time anyway!
I said I wasn’t going to another state that the signs aren’t in anyway because they were put back on the truck when the store realized they had the wrong bag.
He just stared at me.
I told him the signs I reordered would be here tomorrow.
He stared so more.
Why don’t I go to the place where the truck is?
I shook my head. My shift was nearly over. I wasn’t driving four hours to get some signs and then put them up when I already work 6 days a week, nine hours a day.
Nope.
He says, “Fantastic.”
This was his word for everything! Mad, annoyed, irritated, frustrated, happy (in the rare occasion), teeth gritted.
Fantastic.
He’d say it no matter what you told him, six or seven thousand times in one conversation.
I’d ban fantastic just to annoy him and give everyone in the world a reprieve.
I can still hear the way he said.
*Shudders.*
Yep, that’s the one.
Thank you for this question, it was lovely.
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