misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

As I bitterly come to the final hour of work before Christmas break, I must share a few final pet peeves. This shall complete my list for 2006.

* About 17 times a day at work, I hear the following phrase: "I'm just playing devil's advocate". I fucking hate this saying. Roughly translated, it means "I'm being an argumentative cunt-whore, disagreeing with your points simply to make myself feel relevant." Seriously, what exactly does it mean to be devil's advocate? If you are truly employed by the dark king, you should at least have powers beyond simply arguing the counter-point to my postion. You should at least be able to blow fire, turn paper into 100-dollar bills, or fly. Something interesting. And how does arguing a point connect you to the devil? If anything, you are playing the boss's advocate, not the devil's. And whatever comes after the "i'm just playing devil's advocate" is usually boring corporate bullshit that satan really could care less about. It usually is something like this, "I'm just playing devil's advocate, but I don't think the client will like the idea of a blue border around the banner, unless you stretch the resolution out to compensate, which i'm not exactly sure the media buy will allow for." What? Why did you have to play devil's advocate to make that point? Couldn't you have just made the point? Is satan sitting down in his fire-house, listening to millions of people claiming to be his advocate, and getting all pissed off? Maybe he has real advocate, some other demon or dark prince, the only one who could claim "devil's advocate" on his resume. And if he does, this advocate probably deals with more demanding issues than corporate bullshit, things like disease and violence and strife, not media buys, resolutions, and profit ratios. I mean, who knows, maybe the saying is useful, i'm just playing devil's advocate.

* After walking by a popular NY night club the other day, it dawned on me, that about 3 out of every 4 clubs has a name somehow connected to water. States of water, adjectives for water, actions of water ... Some examples of club names: Flow, Pure, Freeze, Fluid, Liquid, Drop, Stream, Bubble, Cleanse .... The irony is, of course, you drink anything but water at a club. And there is nothing pure about it, unless you are talking about the cocaine, at which point it all makes sense.

* I propose it is time to retire "Preaching to the Choir." I like the phrase, I use it often, but it is time for us all to put our heads together and replace it. I'll start the bidding with "Feeding the fat", as in "Dude, I agree with you, you are feeding the fat."

Ok. Merry Christmas.