Nothing's worth the worriment

Saturday, December 10, 2005

you remind me of rose bushes, white marble fountains and feeble sunshine lying in great big golden pools over canopies of green lawn.

Having a British intern at the workplace is an interesting experience. You begin to fully appreciate differences in culture when exposed to someone from good ol’ England.
For instance, while a conversation between a DH employee and a member of the scanning department would typically run like this— “Hello scanning?”
“Grunt”
“I had send a picture called shec11-lulu that i wanted a double column for and you’ve given me a single column” (you blithering idiot)
“check comments, only that much possible.” slams phone
The same conversation would run somewhat differently when carried on by an Englishman.
“Helo, is this the scanning department, please?”
“grunt”
“Ya hi, my name is Joe. How you doing?”
(shocked silence)
“Um, i was wondering if you had received the picture i had send yesterday called shec11-lulu?
(recovering) “grunt”
“Oh smashing. Well you know the thing is, i had asked for a double column and there seems to be some mistake because the picture i’ve got is barely that.”
“see comments”
“ya i did do that and i was wondering if you could help me a bit. You see that picture is the only one available on the net and i have to catch my 5 pm deadline.”
“will try”
“Oh super, thanks very much then, catch you later, bye-bye.”
The next time he calls, it’ll be—
Helo scanning, this is Joe...”
“Yes sir, that Marthahalli picture know? we got it. i’ll send it to you immediately.How you sir?”
Moral of the story— Don’t mess with the British, or they’ll just be polite till you bloody well stop.

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