On Straw Men and Hay Dudes
Okay, so every once in a while I come up with something that I think is funny. Not in a chuckle for a minute or even laugh really hard sort of way but, like, enduringly funny.
So in reading Salim's post about jargon around the office this morning I was very happy to note I have created an alternative to the "Straw Man" - yes, we function in a creative bureaucracy (as opposed to just pushing papers) so we do create straw peoples (as a few women I work with call them; though I think given they're put up just to be knocked down it's the men that should be upset with the term). I can't stand the term. Nor can I generally stand the meetings in which we discuss them. So I've come up with a necessarily Californian alternative:
The Hay Dude.
It's natural for folks to say "hey dude" in California (well, a lot of places ever since the Big Lebowski came out). And given that the past 15 years or so has seen dude become an expression that applies to anyone, regardless of gender (or sex) I think it's a significant improvement on the PC tip to boot. Plus it's funny, which makes the meetings a bit more tollerable.
Now, the people I work with know that I come up with crap like this all the time so they just take it in stride; but it does have some stickiness, and I do believe more folks are using it around the office, hopefully not just around me.
Significantly, I work with folks that are, well, generally older. It's hard for them to think of dude as just something regular folks say (it doesn't help that I'm the one that coined the phrase, being one of the least regular folks in the office) but I'd guess in offices with younger people there might be some more acceptance and therefor some more traction. Who knows, people may adopt the hay dude; maybe the PUC will have been indrectly responsible for something other than rolling blackouts.
So in reading Salim's post about jargon around the office this morning I was very happy to note I have created an alternative to the "Straw Man" - yes, we function in a creative bureaucracy (as opposed to just pushing papers) so we do create straw peoples (as a few women I work with call them; though I think given they're put up just to be knocked down it's the men that should be upset with the term). I can't stand the term. Nor can I generally stand the meetings in which we discuss them. So I've come up with a necessarily Californian alternative:
The Hay Dude.
It's natural for folks to say "hey dude" in California (well, a lot of places ever since the Big Lebowski came out). And given that the past 15 years or so has seen dude become an expression that applies to anyone, regardless of gender (or sex) I think it's a significant improvement on the PC tip to boot. Plus it's funny, which makes the meetings a bit more tollerable.
Now, the people I work with know that I come up with crap like this all the time so they just take it in stride; but it does have some stickiness, and I do believe more folks are using it around the office, hopefully not just around me.
Significantly, I work with folks that are, well, generally older. It's hard for them to think of dude as just something regular folks say (it doesn't help that I'm the one that coined the phrase, being one of the least regular folks in the office) but I'd guess in offices with younger people there might be some more acceptance and therefor some more traction. Who knows, people may adopt the hay dude; maybe the PUC will have been indrectly responsible for something other than rolling blackouts.
1 Comments:
so i can't stand the people i know who call everyone dude all the time, i don't particularly like or dislike the term hay dude as apposed to staw men probably because i never think about either
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