I still like the old-fashioned one. “I have to see a man about a dog.” There’s something, I don’t know, 1920’s/Jazz Age/Fedora hats about it.

I assume everyone knows what it means.

“Travelling” is a terrific solution to the Crackberry. Nobody expects your Crackberry to work while you are “Travelling.”

I had a boss who was an exceptional Traveller. He spent about three days a week Travelling, even though most of his trips should have only been a two-hour plane ride from the office. He would leave word with his secretary that he was Travelling, and had, unfortunately, been forced to fly from, say, New York to Washington via Chicago. People would pity his airline-induced misfortunes while he was actually spending most of the day in a Hooters and had been nowhere near Chicago.

Sometimes the bastard even took me along with him.

You want a vacation? Move to France. This is America. 70 hour weeks, 52 weeks a year until you die.

“Team building” now means happy hour or drinks. “Would you mind doing x, y and z?” is now “Can you take the LEAD on x, y and z?”

“Making bad decisions and screwing up on someone else’s’ dime” has been replaced with “experience.” You don’t tell a potential employer or business associate how you screwed up costing the old company countless dollars and man hours, but learned from the situation. You tell them you have “experience.”

Also… tell Farquhar to fire his assistant for not being able to communicate efficiently. Reading that gave me an ulcer. Its time we important people take a stand. I dont want to live in a world where the incompetance of an assistant takes up my time.

That’s a scary rationalization.

I haven’t had a real vacation since 2000. I’m a little unsure these days what a vacation is anymore.
With the exception of this year, I considered “traveling” to, from, and while at a trade show as my poor vacation. Sad, uh?! At least I saw Montreal one of those years.

Scary times!

Visionary

A delusional and incompetent boss

I prefer saying “on holiday.” It sounds so European. And that way, when you come back in three days rather than three weeks, people are surprised.

Bing,

An altruist whose selflessness at work costs him career advancement might be considered not upwardly mobile but “downwardly noble.”

– http://www.sawyerspeaks.wordpress.com

Upon arrival at the job location, events of the upcoming day tend to unfold categoricaly:

Past business, current business, future business, and monkey business dominated by the assemblage of business and hormonal lusts.

Lusts for the reward of business can be fullfilled in the office.

Hormnonal lusts that can’t be fullfilled in the office may take place in the time share with the greeting: “HELLO WALLS, nice to see you; are you having fun today….”?

Euphemisms are the concourses to quiet time. When the cat’s away the mice will play.

Stepping away, I like that sounds better than what my secretary usually says” He on the crapper”.

Traveling, I like that too, sounds alot more dignified than “nursing a hangover or stepped out to inspect the chrome pole at the peeler bar”. My “aide decamp” that’s a fancy title for the gal that makes great coffee and excuses for me should read this blog.

Lucky for me and many others in the great white north we have places where cell phones still don’t work right.

So if you cannot reach me I’m in one of those places…heh heh. The fishing pole in my hand is really top secret company equipment.

I seem to hear a lot of “away from their desk” or “unreachable”. We do get a lot of “traveling this week” explanaition as well. That is another advantage that those who travel regularly enjoy, no one knows where they are or where they are supposed to be. Vacation can sneak right in there unnoticed.

I agree with you, it is sign of the times when you can’t openly broadcast that you are out on vacation. Or simply not coming in to work one day. Only the weak need vacation right?

As we begin to watch the progressive outcomes of the conventions starting today, we will hear a lot of euphenisms:

What we should pay attention to are “COMFORT ZONES” and “COMBAT ZONES”:

Speakers should be obliged to realize that the measurements of American “COMFORT ZONES” rest in our ability to quell strife in the “COMBAT ZONES”.

If we would respect our enemies more than our defenders, we would see our comfort fade into a facade.

No time for fears to give way to tears.

In DC parlance, the term is “On Travel”, rendered with a very final, officous, serious tone. (Hence the capital letters.) When properly delivered, this line stops all but the most intrepid callers.

When I am told that somebody has “stepped away” my first questions is, “Did he take a magazine in there with him?”

In my most polite moments, I kindly inquire when would be a good time to reach the person, and I suggest several time frames, such as ten minutes, an hour, or tomorrow morning. This technique usually eleicits the help that I need, even from the most protective of co-workers.

We used to say, “she’s “across the hall”. After 2 years, one of the guys in the office asked what people did across the hall. Can’t believe he had not figured it out, yet.

But, of course, “going to the bathroom” is itself a US euphemism that we in the UK find laughably twee.

I once asked a shop assistant in San Francisco if the store had a “lavatory” and got completely blank looks. I tried “loo” – still blank looks. Eventually I had to give in and use the bathroom euphemism – yuk.