useless phrases

[spatch]

There's a lot of useless phrases around us. So useless they can't even claim to be cliche. They're useless because they're used in an attempt to get us to take notice, but we've heard them so many times we know they don't mean nothin.

Take, for example, the fun phrase you hear every time you call an automated phone tree system.

"Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed."

Judging from the number of times I hear that in a day when making calls out, there must be a brisk business in Phone Tree Option Changing. Perhaps it's a career worth looking into. "Gentlemen, for the last two quarters now we've had callers pressing 1 for financial services, 2 for press inquiries, 3 for the company directory, and if they need an operator, to press zero or just stay on the line. Para espanol, oprimo numero quatro. But we cannot continue to produce the results our investors expect from us if we stay stagnant! We must have a phone tree shake-up!"

On the other hand, I've used the same bank for going on 6 years now, and every time they say "Our menu options have changed" and every time I just keep hitting the same numbers I always hit and I always end up hearing my balance, which is what I was calling for in the first place. Someday, however, I just know they're going to call my calling their bluff, and change their options around just to spite me, and I'll hit the same numbers I always hit and instead of hearing my balance, I'll have just transferred all my money to the bank president's offshore account.

Along with Menu Option Changer, another hot job must be Hotel Renovator. If you believe every hotel description you read online, every single goddamn hotel is "newly-renovated." Hotels are constantly being renovated in ad copy land. In fact, it's difficult to get a good night's sleep anywhere anymore, owing to the constant renovations going on, day and night. But hip hip hooray! That cockroach infested hovel you barely got two hours' sleep in last year is apparently now new and spiffy and shiny and comparable to the Savoy! (Hell, it was the Savoy!)

What other useless phrases do you enjoy on a daily basis, though you refuse to let them do what they were intended to do?

Comments

Keith in Minnesota

[(Anonymous)]

"You're entitled to your opinion."

Am I also entitled to punch you in the teeth for spouting off such a condescending phrase?

Not you, Spatch. The generic YOU.

Must up meds.

[scout1222.livejournal.com]

"There's no such thing as a stupid question."




I wouldn't be so sure of that.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

all work emails must be signed thus:

Thanks,
[sender]

Even if it's something like what i wrote recently:

Your timeline for this is not based in reality, even if you would manage to get me this material on time for me to do it by the time you need it. Please send me a more realistic deadline, keeping in mind the question of whether we all really need to give ourselves ulcers over a project that's going to go nowhere anyway.

Thanks,
Tasha

i think the person reading was probably going "Thanks for what, you smug bitch!"

i should have signed it "Have a nice day!"

[invisibelle.livejournal.com]

But people pressing the old menu options is a huge problem in the American economy; it wastes something like $274 a year per capita. Think what we could do with all that money.

[spatch]

I love when people finish their email with "Please advise."

Especially when it comes after a full laundry list of instructions and/or questions.

And by "love" I mean "totally loathe."

[annilita.livejournal.com]

No, I used to be a teacher, and I can vouch for that being a total fallacy.

[stopword.livejournal.com]

My favorite is "Please let me know if you have any questions."

I am pretty sure it means "I know this is kind of a ridiculous, poorly-articulated request, so I'm going to state the obvious."

I'm also frequently tempted to answer: "Oh, I have some questions." With no other text.

[ironpoet.livejournal.com]

"Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed."

Wait... if you weren't listening carefully in the first place, then you wouldn't hear these instructions!

[kevin-church.livejournal.com]

"Your call is very important to us, please hold."

If it was so very important to you, you'd answer it.

[wellstar.livejournal.com]

I am pretty sure it means "I know this is kind of a ridiculous, poorly-articulated request, so I'm going to state the obvious."

I don't think so, necessarily. I often use it to mean "I don't see how you could possibly misunderstand this, but clearly some of you people out there are idiots and I am the person who is going to have to deal with you, so I might as well give you my contact information now before you go complaining to everyone else in my department."

However, I usually phrase it as "Please contact me with any questions." This is short for "For the sake of everyone else you are tempted to annoy, please contact me with any questions." The phrase you despise is short for "Please let me know if you have any questions, so I can bang my head against a wall and mock you with friends and co-workers later." Ah diplomacy.

I'm also frequently tempted to answer: "Oh, I have some questions." With no other text.

If I were to respond to this, I would be tempted to write: "42." Whether or not I responded, I would chuckle.

[spatch]

I often use a variant on "let me know if you have any questions" when I do my Concierge email. Usually it starts the final paragraph, which comes after a litany of research or ticket options, so I phrase it as "If you have any questions regarding these options, if you would like me to book one of these on your behalf, or if I can be of any further assistance..."

In that context it is useful and can often lead to good customer feedback.

But when the phrase "Let me know if you have any questions" follows, say, a Managerial Edict that nobody's going to enjoy, it really loses its true meaning and becomes nothing but memoranda punctuation. The worst-case scenario would be something like:

Effective immediately, all employees must raise their hands and receive permission from the supervisor on duty to use the bathroom. Let me know if you have any questions.

And in that case, it's even more than mere punctuation; it's a full-fledged "And if you don't like it, go pound sand."

[spatch]

C:\TRU.DAT

[wellstar.livejournal.com]

Context? What's that?

My favorite ending to Managerial Edicts is "We appreciate your cooperation." Especially when it's followed by an emoticon. I just LOOOOOOOVE emoticons!!1!! :D

[lno.livejournal.com]

No stupid questions, just mind-numbingly stupid people.

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

"For purposes of quality assurance, this call may be monitored or recorded."

[spatch]

I have NEVER had to say that.
NEVER EVER EVER.

mutter mutter grumble grumble

[spatch]

But now that I've heard it, I'm making a concerted effort to listen more carelessly!

[gilana]

"We are experiencing a high volume of calls right now."

In other words, more calls than we had in, say, 1890. We're sure it's just a blip, certainly not worth hiring more employees.

[spatch]

And remember, Managerial Edicts are 1000% more authoritative when written in Comic Sans.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. I'm afraid I am guilty of this one on a regular basis. (Though not nearly as often as "Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, chanaleh.")

But when I tack on "Please advise," it is secret code for "UM, JUST TO BE CLEAR, I WILL NEED SOME KIND OF USEFUL RESPONSE TO THIS KTHXBYE".

[dskasak.livejournal.com]

"Please advise."

I'm guilty of using this phrase in work e-mails. Sometimes I mean it to say, "Awaiting more information." Other times, it can mean, "Now what, shithead?"

[wellstar.livejournal.com]

I love Comic Sans. It proves that The Manager is either a fun-lovin' fella, in tune with the Word At The Water Cooler, or a Hip Happy Lady with a sense of what makes The Employees tick. I buy it EVERY TIME.

[grumqa.livejournal.com]

I have a coworker who ended an email today with "For questions, contact $that_same_coworker."

I don't have any questions, and I'm not going to email you to get yours from you. In fact, you should probably answer your own questions on the subject before sending out what is intended to be informative email on the subject.

She does stuff like that all the time.

[gilana]

[morgaine723.livejournal.com]

We have a recording that says that for us on inbound calls, but if I have to return a call to someone, I have to give 'em the recording memo. One of my coworkers sounds like this when she makes calls out, "Hi, this is Barb from $COMPANY, and thiscallcouldberecordedforqualityassurance, whew! That's out of the way! I'm returning your call about ..."

[spatch]

Yeah, that's basically how we have to handle our Lawyer-Mandated Outbound Call Disclosure.

"Hi, I'm calling (from $COMPANY/from a travel agency/on behalf of my boss) onarecordedlineforquality, how are you?"

If I call another call center and give the spiel, they usually say "Heh, yeah, my calls are recorded too. How can I help you?"

Other people gloss right over it since you go so quickly, they feel most comfortable answering the "how are you?" and moving on to the next call.

Sometimes you get the person who picks up on it and makes a joke like "Oh, should I sing or something? Or watch my language?" Usually my response is "They're only concerned with what I say, so go nuts!"

[spatch]

Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[spatch]

Also, the more animated pieces of clipart you include in your memo, the more effective your employee outreach will be!

It's statistically proven!

[alphacygni]

I'm almost tempted to start using "Please advise". Or something. Because the number of times this week that I've sent out emails at work of this form:

"Question. Statement. Another question."

and gotten back:

"Partial answer to first question. Irrelevant segue. Fin."

IS DRIVING ME CRAZY. Apparently no one can parse more than a one sentence email anymore.

[doctor-sentence.livejournal.com]

"Have you seen [person]?" used to mean, "Do you know where [person] is?" I always get the urge to answer the question as worded.

C: Have you seen the boss?
M: Yup. Still not gone blind, thanks for checking.

[allicat42.livejournal.com]

You too, ay? LOL.

[ladivinafemme.livejournal.com]

My boss's boss ends his with "Respectfully." This in the same email in which he a) misspells my last name, b) refers to me in the 3rd person as the one who "will schedule a meeting for us."

F^cker.

[jackbishop.livejournal.com]

I enjoy the signage in the stairwell of my office, which is a DEN OF LIES. We're warned that there's no access to the 6th and 7th floors, which is not true. We're warned theat the doors are locked and alarmed on the weekends. We're warned that the freight elevators are for construction personnel only and that the passenger elevators are for staff only and that horrible things will happen if we don't follow these regulations, and that isn't true either. The closest thing to a true statement to be found in the stairwell is grafitti reading "UCSD fucks undergrads", and that doesn't really count as a sign.

[babs-the-nymph.livejournal.com]

My pet peeve:

"Please enter your account number so that the account representative may expedite your request."

Or somesuch variant. I've never entered that number and then had someone answer my call who didn't ask for it again. Either it's just a way of weeding out the accountless riffraff, or companies want to appear more technologically advanced than they really are.

[giantfightbot.livejournal.com]

No, the absolute best thing ever is to include three paragraphs of text in an attached Word document, forcing everyone to download 300k of your stupid message that could have just as easily been put in the actual message instead of forcing me to open Word or PowerPoint or whatever.

NOT THAT I AM BITTER ABOUT THIS.

My favorite thing lately is this one woman in the cafeteria who urges everyone to "Have a nice day," but in doing so she says "Have a nice daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay" and sorta sings the last word nasally.

Often times it comes off as "Have a nice daaaaaaa--".

[silvair.livejournal.com]

The last company I worked for that stated that, bought the first part of the system, then decided it was too expensive and did not buy the second part of the system that would allow the person answering the phone to have that info. Pissed callers off all the time and they never told the new phone reps who were always broadsided with it. But I thought it was nice that there was always money for head of the company staff to have annual meetings in exotic locations so that pictures could be sent to the drones in their monthly meetings to keep morale up. Proper use of company funds is so important.

[spatch]

The last company I worked for that stated that, bought the first part of the system, then decided it was too expensive and did not buy the second part of the system that would allow the person answering the phone to have that info. Pissed callers off all the time and they never told the new phone reps who were always broadsided with it.

My god. I worked at a place that had that EXACT SAME PROBLEM.

"Thank you for calling, my name is Bob Dobalina, may I have your 16-digit account number, please?"
"I just punched it in! Why are you asking me for it? Hold on, let me get my card out again..."

This only slightly beats out the roadside assistance job, which required us to ask people stranded on the side of the road to read their entire Vehicle Identification Number to us. We'd tell folks the VIN was on their registration card, but I always had jackasses who'd get out of the car ON A BUSY HIGHWAY so they could bend over the side of the car, peering through the windshield, to read it off the driver's side dashboard.

Was that an S as in Sam or a F as in Frank?
Was that a T as in Tom or P as in Peter?

"...and this one I don't know, it's an O or a zero, I can't tell..."

JUST SIT IN YOUR CAR, SAFE FROM GETTING HIT, AND READ IT TO ME FROM YOUR REGISTRATION.

[rigel.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's statistically proven that, the more animated pieces of clipart you include in your memo, the more likely it'll fill my inbox and crash my e-mail program.

Not that that's happened at my current job. *cough*

[rigel.livejournal.com]

For personal amusement purposes, this call may be played over the company loudspeakers at lunchtime. Repeatedly. Sped up so that you sound like Theodore from The Chipmunks.

. . . with the word 'pants' dubbed in for Every. Single. Noun.