One of my coworkers, a friend, actually, has been on an epic year-long journey to launch a new, company wide system. This is huge stuff...stressful, hours of work, and it went live yesterday.
That meant he had to stay at work very, very late last night to see this thing through with all the IT folks. A long night.
Being the kind, supportive coworker that I am, on my way out the door at 5:00, I stopped by and said, "Hey, *you* have fun tonight! Me? In about a half an hour I'm going to be drinking Sangria over a really good dinner."
My coworker looked up from his computer, and, peering over his glasses said, succinctly, "up yours," then turned back to work.
You know, you don't really hear a good "up yours" anymore these days.
In those two words, he told me off, steered clear of HR violations, and conveyed months of exhaustion.
Well done!
I think people have lost the talent of telling someone off. You get too many rambling diatribes ("you know what you are? You are a bunch of......"), too much eff word use ("effing muther effer eff eff eff"), too many attempts to make it into a deep insult ("yo mamma!")....it's all just unoriginal work.
I feel like the tell off is a lost art.
A clean, simple, well spoken "up yours!" conveys quite a bit.
As with many things, simplicity is elegant.
