Sunday, October 29, 2006
a case of the fake people
Was on the train the other day, and overheard this guy talking on the phone.(I wasn't eavesdropping. The guy was literally yelling into his phone. I couldn't help it.)
Anyway...he was going on and on about work related stuff and was sounding quite pissed, as though things were not going according to plan. And then, at the end of the conversation, he said
Wow. He uttered a grand total of 4 thanks in 1 sentence. I'm sure he didn't mean a single "thanks" he said. It was a prefunctionary utterance. Something that he HAD to say to be politically correct and polite. It wasn't something he wanted to say (obviously, since he wasn't happy at all at the way things were turning out.) but rather something he was obligated to say.
This reminds me of all the emails that i send out on a daily basis.
Every other email that i send out has a freaking "thanks" or "thank you" appended to it.
Sometimes I mean it, though most of the time i don't. Unfortunately.
But seriously, when you send like at least 50 emails out in a day, it can get quite hard to feel grateful every single time. Really.
Most of the time, I'm either saying "No, I can't do it" or "Sorry, we screwed up." Either way, neither situation calls for a "thanks". Yet, I always say thank you in the end.
Yes, even when I'm pissed off when someone screws up.
It's come to a point whereby it's weird not to say "thanks" at the end of an email or conversation. A default mechanism.
Which I think is sad. Because we don't mean what we say anymore. And because this is also indicative of how we are turning into these fake people.
Sad.