Long Weekend and Workplace Culture

So how was everyone’s long weekend? Sleep late? Have fun? Drink margaritas? A friend of mine came to town and spent the night – it was fun. We drank too much wine and laughed a lot. Then we went shopping the next day and ate greasy cheeseburgers. Good times, good times.

And that about sums it up. Not much, huh? In the interest of keeping my posts longer than one paragraph I’m going to reflect for a moment. I recently listened to a book on tape called “Among the Mad.” It’s a mystery set in 1930’s England and I have really enjoyed the series. In the book, the heroine notes that people who work together often pick up and use the same turns of phrase. So true!

I’ve had the pleasure to work in several different settings and have found that certain phrases seem to stick around each organization. For instance, when I started at the last place I worked I remember hearing someone say “send me the electrons” and at first I was a little confused. Turns out they were not actually asking for some type of chemical procedure but to have the electronic copy of a document sent via email. I’ve never heard that phrase used anywhere else but at my last duty station it was very common.

It is common to use the term “kibosh” where I work now. Putting the kibosh on things is a relatively frequent occurrence and again, I’ve never heard the term used in another organization. I was speaking to an individual who works for another agency now but used to work for us and HE used the term kibosh as well! It’s a culture.

So, what’s your organization’s culture like? Use certain phrases a lot? Or not? Just me? Discuss!