Tuesday, October 10, 2006

First Person Singular

Main Entry: 1 sin·gu·lar

Etymology: Middle English singuler, from Anglo-French, from Latin singularis, from singulus only one

a : of or relating to a separate person or thing

b : of, relating to, or being a word form denoting one person, thing, or instance

c : of or relating to a single instance or to something considered by itself
_______________________________

Want to annoy me? ...It's not hard at all.
~
Anytime someone in a group situation characterizes the group output with the first person singular pronoun "I", it disempowers the contribution of all of the other team members, not matter how important or trivial their role.
~
In the network deployment business, I have often heard people address the team effort with a phrase such as... "I can install x units in x days", or "I can lease x sites", or "I can get my proposal to you in two weeks" etc., etc., ...when the dufus couldn't do jack without a whole team in place.
~
This seemingly small habit annoys the hell out of me.
~
Sometimes it not only annoys me, but really pisses me off. Generally the perpetrators are not bad people, and are not intending to disempower, belittle, and embarrass the rest of the team. But they do.
~
When I get pissed off, I get irrational.
~
Not now, though. Now I'm just mildly annoyed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

FYYFF

Anonymous said...

When I get pissed of, I get irrational. Lots of I statements there, think about the blogging community for once.

I prefer the august, imperial we. Cuz me and my peeps is like that. No diggity.