I find this BBC article hilarious. Don't dwell in blue-sky thinking! We need to drill down until we're outside the box and we can push the envelope into the helicopter view! It's sad that this actually makes anyone feel inferior. It should just make you feel like you work for tools, which I guess in a way also makes you feel crappy.
As my (blissfully) brief re-entrance into the world of office work yesterday showed me, I am very very very lucky to work in academia. Sure, instead of this jargon we use phrases like "heteronormativity" or "syntagmatic relata" or "diachronic versus synchronic" -- um, where was I going with that? Right! Well, at least I only find academic-speak to be embarassing sometimes, as opposed to the full-time absurdity of management-talk.
I think the test should be that unless you can explain an idea to a drunk Irish guy in a crowded bar and actually make him understand (S. is the queen of this), you shouldn't get to talk about it, period. In order to play the career game you have to use academic-speak and I will be the first to admit that it makes many ideas both more nuanced and more direct -- for those of you not in academia, I know that's hard to believe, but it takes a lot more words to explain the dialectic or hegemony than it does to just say the word -- but if we're only talking to ourselves, we're losing the war. Plus, you know, mark of insanity and all. We need more joined-up thinking in order to pick the low-hanging fruit!
Basically, I've got nothing. Time to go make a cake! A real one, not a metaphorical one.
5 comments:
I'm going to go make bread pudding. whee! umm...yeah. I have to read a book on management - I keep screwing up management questions on the Foreign Service practice test. Guess I'm just not down with all the ... cool... jargon. Right.
p.s. the bread pudding was great and my caramel sauce was the perfect mix of raw sugar, molasses and cream. yum!
Sounds yummy! My cake is a two-day project, so there'll be pictures tomorrow or the next day...it's all FANCY. :)
Wow heteronormativity and baking in one post! Or is it homosocial baking with Rachael in the mix?
(procrastinating right now)
Honestly, I think you all miss the point. Drunken Irishmen in bars need us to explain why heteronormativity is dangerous and why their friendships with male co-workers are homosocial. :) Then they need me to make out with them? Is that shoring up heteronormativity or what? Ah hell. Happy cake baking and pudding making.
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