1. Lori M - my manager
2. Yong L - my colleague
3. Kimberly B - my crazy colleague
4. Christi B - Kim's manager
5. John D - Me ofcourse!
The Emails
From: John Dondapati
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 11:12 AM
Guys,
We’ve just deployed the new build onto the development server. Please test!
--
Thanks,
John
From: Yong L
Sent: Fri 5/21/2010 11:27 AM
I’ll be on vacation from 6/18 to 7/10. Let’s do as much as we can before that time frame.
Happy clicking… :-)
--
Yong
From:Kimberly B
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 11:34 AM
Who approved that vacation??? I want one those!!!!! hehe
--
Kim
From: John Dondapati
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 11:49 AM
Well Kim, are you gonna go home to China? I don’t think so!
Besides, you work from home remember? Heheh!
And that’s why you don’t get a vacation. So, there - I took care of it for you Lori!
--
John
From: Lori M
Date: Fri, 21 May 2010 12:00:50 -0400
Thanks John!!
Sometimes Kim gets a bit big for her britches eh??? Hahah!!
--
Thanks!
Lori M, Project Manager
The Autocomplete
You have to understand how human mind works in order to understand why this harmless email chain has caused a chaos. I normally have "Autocomplete" ON in my mind. I do not read anything completely and just try to complete it with something I already know. That's how everyone thinks/reads normally so I am normal -thank you! And when I read the above email, I missed the 'r' in the word 'britches' which is an honest mistake right?
Hence the original sentence :
"Kim gets a bit big for her britches"
became
"Kim gets a bit big for her bitches"
And once my mind is set on something, it will only see what it wants to see, so no matter how many times I read the email, I read bitches instead of britches. I clearly did not understand what my manager meant. And when I do not understand something, my creative side of the brain kicks in and I try to assume and create. In the process, I tried to dissect the sentence and understand it.
The Grammatical Analysis
The original sentence :
"Kim gets a bit big for her britches"
The new sentence after Autocomplete :
"Kim gets a bit big for her bitches"
Breakdown :
Subject : Kim
Objects : Bitches
Verb : gets a bit big
Reconstruction :
Who is Kim?
Ans : I know Kim. Kim is my colleague/friend.
What happened to my friend Kim?
Ans: She's got a bit Big.
Big for what?
Ans: Big for her bitches.
Who are her bitches?
Ans: There are five people in the email - Kim, Lori, Christi, Yong and Me. Since lori sent the email it cannot be her. Since she is talking about Kim, it cannot be kim. Christi is Kim's Boss so she cannot be Kim's bitch, it has to be the other way around -i.e. Kim has to be Christi's bitch if at all there needs to be some kind of bitch-hood between them. So, the only two other people left on the email are Yong and me. So, Yong and I have to be Kim's bitches. (But why? )
Reconstructing the sentence : : Yong and I are Kim's bitches? What the fuck?
The Chaos
With the new developments in mind, I walked up to my good friend/colleague Ms.Calendra P and complained with a sad little puppy face "I think my manager just called me a Bitch!" which completely takes her by surprise and she's like "I'm sorry, what did you just say?" so I repeat again "I think my manager just called me Kim's Bitch along with Yong".
Calendra says "No, I am pretty sure - Lori would not call you that - what happened?" and I said "I am pretty sure she did, look at the email yourself" offering her the email to look at. She reads it and blasts out laughing and tells me that she actually used the word Britches and not bitches which means pants/trousers.
But it still didnt make sense and in my mind I am still going crazy. Kim's too big for her trousers? What does that mean? Why would Kim be too big for her trousers? She has another thing coming? (are these two expressions related?) Is the joke on Kim? So, yong are I are safe but why is my manager calling my friend Kim a transvestite? May be Lori meant Bitches and misspelt it? Who made Calendra a Linguistic expert? What does she know?
Calendra goes on to explain that it's a southern expression to say that someone's Conceited (excessively proud of oneself), a.k.a self-important and saved me from doing yet another analysis/breakdown and reconstruction although I was mid-way by that time.
That seemed to make sense and I was satisfied with the reasonable explanation that Calendra offered me. So, I called Kim and explained her the confusion and that the Joke's on her (haha). So, Kim in-turn conferences in Lori as she thinks this is hilarious for some reason and we all have some good laughs for a solid 15 mintues. Although, Kim wanted to conference in Christi who is totally intimidating even for a grown man like me. I'm really scared of her and if I must explain how much then it's something like this - I can walk up to the devil and and look it in the eye and say "Fuck you!" but I would not walk up to Christi and say "You look good!". She's that intimidating. Thank god she didn't call her in.
At the end, it was all good. I am no one's bitch and I still have my job. yay! :)
Moral of the Story
Be careful when u read important emails from important people but not too careful that u overanalyse the situation. And use a language that is more common when you have immigrants like me working for you and for whom English is a third language although the medium of instruction is English in our schools. We think in our mother tongue first and then translate it and there's a lot that gets lost in the translation.
2 comments:
Well coming from the offender - I have taken to "thinking" before I type....hahaha!!
That was Lori M - my manager, ladies and gentlemen! :)
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