fine whine

There are times I have a tendency to get a little silly at work. My co-workers by now understand my unique sense of humor and no longer give me too strange of looks when I try to crack wise or be witty. Instead they (fake a ) laugh and we all emjoy a brief reprieve from our otherwise drudgerous days.

Today I latched onto making proclamations. We bandy about a bunch of terms without having really set the words in stone, and this occasionally leads to confusion, or at least rampant inconsistency. On garments we ask for a "hangtag", a piece of card stock or paper or something similar with marketing information on it. We also request "hang tags". Typos add to the endless variations of "hangtag" around the office. So today, with my colleagues' agreement, I set it in stone with a hand-scrawled sign in my cubicle:

"Henceforth, 'Hangtag' shall be one word."

Naturally they mocked me for using such an archaic word as "henceforth". Realizing my error, I quickly amended my sign with another one:

"Henceforth, 'Going Forward' shall replace 'Henceforth'."

This too got a laugh, and we went back to work. The phrase bounced around in my head, a bit, and I have to admit that it has a neat rhythm to it. I started to imagine it being a real proclamation, and a new world unfolded in my head.

I thought of a medieval king laying down the law, trying to modernize his kingdom in words and other stuff. He'd be surrounded by his Knights, sitting behind signs with "sir" scrawled out and "VP" scrawled over their names. They'd be wearing ties over their coats of armor, as well, except that such a thing would be too ridiculous. At one point the King would call in their newly-dubbed Knowledge Worker, Merlin, and hijinks would ensue as a people so unfamiliar with modern English let alone modern business-speak would butcher both languages.

The idea had potential, but I had to get some work done and it was relegated to some chicken scratchings on a post-it note.