My delightful lunch is ruined. I go to pay, and the cashier asks, “Have you got much on for the rest of the day?” This absolutely gormless enquiry rankles, it continues to swirl as I stride towards the car, preoccupying my thoughts. Should I have been a smarty-pants and shared my plans to mow the lawns, clean the toilets, do the washing, the grocery shopping, the long overdue car vacuum? What might management do if I continue to chew up their staff’s time?
A guaranteed supermarket round-off, this banal statement has gone viral. My gardener dropped it on me last week and I even had my dentist ask me about plans for the rest of my day!
Which overpaid marketing guru has come up with this empty social terminator? It has the ring of an Americanism – the sort of statement that regularly creeps across the Pacific, embedded in some How-To YouTube bumpf.
A lot of us are discussing its use. There is general agreement about its stupidity, and our dislike of its insertion at almost every financial exit point. I was served by an obviously new, quite nervous check-out kid last week. As my grocery purchases filled the last bag, there was a tentative “Er, ah, you’ve got a lot on today!” They instantly realise their mistake and immediately parrot the correct phraseology.
I am still fuming as I get home and unload the shopping. I collect the mail, make a coffee and sit on the front verandah. The first missive opens with “Thank you for reaching out…” I explode, palpable indignation, maybe even steam issuing, and I reach for the mobile.
“Thank you for reaching out! Your call is important to us, but all of our consultants are currently busy with other customers. If you would like one of our consultants to ring you back, please press the hash key now, simply hang up, and one of our staff will be with you shortly. Or if you’d prefer, maybe go online to our app; enter your ID and passwords, follow the prompts to the dedicated pages dealing with commonly asked queries!” The letter concluded by advising me “… we are here to help.”
My mood darkens as I open the Council’s Rates notice. Four pages of obfuscation and double-speak, eg [we have] ‘…adopted a zero % average …increase… [but] this does not necessarily mean that your rates haven’t changed.’ I am invited to ‘visit’, even to ‘login’ if I need further clarification.
Enough is enough. So what to do? I spend the weekend considering options. I post a notice on my Facebook page inviting people to attend a meeting the following Friday to consider these gormless social pleasantries.
70 people turn up. Lively discussions uncovers hitherto unknown examples and confirms a general irritation.
The Mind Your Own Bloody Business movement, or MYOBB, launches on Facebook. The media carries our story, and 72,500 people join in the first week! It is suggested that MYOBB badges are worn when out and about!