I really, really like rules. I always have. Ever since I was 14 years old and worked in a news agency. My boss thought I was the employee of the century because the EFTPOS limit was $10 and if someone spent even 5c less than that it was NO EFTPOS FOR YOU! The limit wasn’t $9.95, so sorry desperate mother with three screaming children. I’d love to help you out but I can’t risk my perfect employment record for you. So yes, you are going to have to drag your exhausted posse over the road to the ATM. Why? Because I don’t make the rules. I AM the rules. Rules soothe me. So do boundaries.
This is why I’m extremely scared of the acronym ASAP. I get sent at least twenty emails per day from clients, friends, editors, directors and journalists asking me to do things ASAP. That simple little acronym has a vice-like strong hold that makes me drop everything I’m doing to attend to the ASAP situation. Which is really silly because ASAP is not that big a deal, but to me it has this foreboding and to be quite frank, inflated sense of urgency.
If something is really, truly urgent people don’t ask someone to do it ASAP. They say they need it by 4 o’clock, it has to be on their desk in an hour or they’re taking it to the printers tomorrow. What ASAP usually means is ‘I want you to think this is really important but I’m not senior enough/forgot to tell you about this last week/not paying you enough/not paying you at all/don’t have any authority over you/am asking you for a giant favour so I’m using the magic word ASAP to make this seem really pressing in a non-threatening way‘. This is fine for most of the population who don’t take casual acronyms as seriously and literally as I do. But me? I take issue with ASAP because I believe that the timely completion of a task is one of the most satisfying acts a human being can perform along with peeing after holding it for ages or finally dislodging a seed from your teeth after four days of stabbing at it with a toothpick.
I’m completely neurotic about meeting deadlines and stand so firmly behind my own life motto that I’ve made a poster out of it.
I’m not so pious as to pretend that I have never used the term ASAP but I pretty much only use it if I am being a bitch or trying to buy myself some time. If someone has sent me four emails asking for something ‘ASAP’ and has given no time frame or actual deadline and is generally being a bit of a dick, I’ll reply with ‘Sure. You’ll get it ASAP.‘ and then secretly in my head I’m all ‘Oh, you’ll get it ASAP. As. Soon. As. Possible. Right after this repeat of The Brady Bunch. That’ll learn you not to give me a direct deadline. ‘
For the record I also hate ‘RIP’. It’s so gravestone-y.
Do you hate any acronyms?
22 Comments
-
I always take “ASAP” to mean “right this instant”, but then I get resentful and irritable because of it. Rather than racing to get it done, I stroppily leave it until the very last second… which is still probably three weeks before it was *actually* needed.
I also take issue with people requesting read receipts; it feels like they don’t trust me to do my job unless they’re waggling their fingers at me. Which, unless they’ve used the acronym ASAP, is absolutely not the case.
-
Author
I HATE read receipts. I just ignore them, it’s so rude to send them.
-
Exactly.
-
-
-
When I worked in sales I learnt in sales training that ASAP/Urgent have different meanings to different people. It was all about quantifying expectations. So now when people say those things I ask them when they ideally want it back, you’d be surprised at the different answers. Anywhere from straight away (what I thought it meant) to a month down the track.
-
I’ve had someone say ASAP and they meant before the end of the year and it was August. I was like ‘do you even know what that means?’
-
-
Nebulous, non-specifics irritate me also. I don’t like being told someone will be around “soon”, or to be told “just wait a minute, please,” when the person REALLY means “I’m putting you on hold for half an hour”.
-
Oh yes! Soon is so annoying, like if someone is running late and they say they’ll be there soon you know you’ll still be there half an hour later.
-
-
I hate ASAP and try to never ever use it myself. I am a rules person too and its vagueness does my head in. The way you have described its use:
‘I want you to think this is really important but I’m not senior enough/forgot to tell you about this last week/not paying you enough/not paying you at all/don’t have any authority over you/am asking you for a giant favour so I’m using the magic word ASAP to make this seem really pressing in a non-threatening way‘.
Is exactly SPOT ON! ASAP is rude and makes me cringe every time I see it!
-
It just makes me cringe because I have brain problems with leaving things undone.
-
-
Definitely true that it means different things to different people. Now I also ask when is the latest that they need it by, as mentioned below the answers vary massively!
I also hate RIP. Someone died, at least have the decency to spell out three words, or even better actually put 5 seconds of effort into coming up with something that’s actually meaningful.
-
I’m the same. Every time someone puts RIP someone on Facebook I want to defriend them.
-
-
I love ancronyms. I don’t have much of an issue with ASAP, but I totally get what you’re saying. PS: I don’t freakin love kittens, I’d like to answer a different question 😉
-
Whoa, that’s only supposed to show up once! Thanks for letting me know.
x
-
-
Nah, too much time in Canberra has left me loving em
-
Public service? Pubes LOVE acronyms!
-
mmmhmmm 🙂
-
-
Hard to avoid them right Fiona? I too am fond of an acronym – for the same reason – but ASAP is also a pet hate of mine Ms Smaggs. If you can’t give me a fixed, actual deadline, then ASAP it is – which means as soon as I get through the pile of actually important things with actual deadlines that I urgently need to deal with.
-
-
Acronyms, Jesus. My husband just MAKES THEM UP and expects me to magically understand what he’s going on about. Seriously.
TMLAB [ Too Much Lunch After Breakfast ] WTF???!!!!
ROTFLMAO
-
TMLAB – can I steal that?! Priceless.
-
-
ASAP is just plain rude. It implies that they don’t respect your time at all. Fair enough, if my boss asks me to do something ASAP I will do it as soon as I can though.
-
Totally agree. As Soon As Possible – or as I like to think of it, as soon as I’ve finished the 50 other tasks on my desk that have actual, tangible deadlines. Maybe.
-
I don’t particularly have an acronym that I hate, and I even have the abominable habit of saying some acronyms out loud, like double-you-tee-eff, or el-oh-el. Which annoys everyone including me, so I’ve no idea why I do that.
For some reason this post reminded me of this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc-L3vPNXMw Now I’m going to be singing it for a while. Thank you. 😛
