I know that everyone makes sweeping statements once in a while (I hope this one is not) and it is kind of acceptable in normal life. Having said it, the real problem with sweeping statements are it being made by the same person on a frequent basis.
I make this statement based on factual information from a highly informed source (my cubicle mate). It’s we two who are the most affected by the issue; we are sandwiched between the world’s best sweeping statement makers.
So what the hell is a sweeping statement you may ask, so I looked into the dictionary and all I got was “A sweeping statement is a statement that makes a wide-ranging and complete comment about something, or more often, everything. Unfortunately, it is very common for people to make these sorts of statements when they, in fact, are talking about minor groups rather than "everybody" (this being a word they could use).”
Well since we now know what the statement is, you may be asking me why the hell I am talking about it now. It’s because of this stupid guy (much worse than Forrest Gump to be precise) keeps making a statement every hour and today he said “In general I think that all Girls have an opinion that ‘ALL GUYS ARE JERKS’.“. I started to wonder if it is true.
Well I cannot comment on this, not to the fact that I am married with children, but I find that perhaps this statement of his for once may be true. Also it bought me to another question “Am I losing my touch to make sweeping statements of late?” I think project management really makes people dumb and numb. [This is certainly not a sweeping statement please]
Let me elaborate it for you to understand, It always disappoints me when I hear people involved in technology and people who I follow just go out and say things like "Women are good drivers" and I think it really just loses the credibility of the person making that statement even further. The problem is these people also tend to have a bit of authority and others just listen to whatever they say. Prime example: My boss at work.
Some of the statements made by my boss are listed here and then you decide
1. “All those who work on this project [Drowning] will be compensated well later in the appraisal cycle”
2. “Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t but the Truth will come out”
3. “Every project must track the traceability matrix to ensure quality from now on”
4. “This Subway franchise is bad, so all of them must be bad.”
5. “All my team members are acting like imbecile and I condescend to that fact.”
6. “Everyone must be made accountable in this project for better management”
7. “There is nothing like a stupid question, so what is stopping you from asking something?”
8. “We must all develop knowledge optimization initiatives to leverage our key learning’s from this project”
9. “The longer you with my project, the more diverse your profile gets.”
10. “If you all work really hard, then eventually we can fix all the problems.”
So now let’s move on to the next group of people who are born sweeping statement makers – well you guessed it right. The women folk have this inherent DNA which gives them the complete control to make sweeping statements at will. You are mostly wondering how I am making such a bold statement; well I look no further from my home – Wife and my Mother --- QED
There has been no end to the subjects that a woman can talk, take from cooking to cornea transplantation, nuclear gas to nanotechnology, cricket to online poker, washing machines to cryogenic engines – they have the capacity to make bold sweeping statements. And for those entire married “Y” chromosome humans who have an inherent capacity to follow will accept these statements and hence all conflicts are resolved.
It’s getting boring and I will come to the topic now (have to somewhere before the end) – recently since I have been given extra work in current role, I feel I do not have the time to make sweeping statements as I did a few years back. Maybe education and my current role is the main reason. Let me also tell you that it was this skill set of providing giant sweeping statements that got me to my current role too. This is why I am a little perturbed now that I am losing my skill set.
So I guess I have to go back to my basics ie. Start listening closely to my wife, and then get back to some real-time training (Facebook/Orkut Chat) to sharpen my skills since the appraisal cycle in my company is nearing and I have to fill huge chunks of forms stating my achievements in the past year. So folks wish me luck and send me some statements for my reserve.
I make this statement based on factual information from a highly informed source (my cubicle mate). It’s we two who are the most affected by the issue; we are sandwiched between the world’s best sweeping statement makers.
So what the hell is a sweeping statement you may ask, so I looked into the dictionary and all I got was “A sweeping statement is a statement that makes a wide-ranging and complete comment about something, or more often, everything. Unfortunately, it is very common for people to make these sorts of statements when they, in fact, are talking about minor groups rather than "everybody" (this being a word they could use).”
Well since we now know what the statement is, you may be asking me why the hell I am talking about it now. It’s because of this stupid guy (much worse than Forrest Gump to be precise) keeps making a statement every hour and today he said “In general I think that all Girls have an opinion that ‘ALL GUYS ARE JERKS’.“. I started to wonder if it is true.
Well I cannot comment on this, not to the fact that I am married with children, but I find that perhaps this statement of his for once may be true. Also it bought me to another question “Am I losing my touch to make sweeping statements of late?” I think project management really makes people dumb and numb. [This is certainly not a sweeping statement please]
Let me elaborate it for you to understand, It always disappoints me when I hear people involved in technology and people who I follow just go out and say things like "Women are good drivers" and I think it really just loses the credibility of the person making that statement even further. The problem is these people also tend to have a bit of authority and others just listen to whatever they say. Prime example: My boss at work.
Some of the statements made by my boss are listed here and then you decide
1. “All those who work on this project [Drowning] will be compensated well later in the appraisal cycle”
2. “Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t but the Truth will come out”
3. “Every project must track the traceability matrix to ensure quality from now on”
4. “This Subway franchise is bad, so all of them must be bad.”
5. “All my team members are acting like imbecile and I condescend to that fact.”
6. “Everyone must be made accountable in this project for better management”
7. “There is nothing like a stupid question, so what is stopping you from asking something?”
8. “We must all develop knowledge optimization initiatives to leverage our key learning’s from this project”
9. “The longer you with my project, the more diverse your profile gets.”
10. “If you all work really hard, then eventually we can fix all the problems.”
So now let’s move on to the next group of people who are born sweeping statement makers – well you guessed it right. The women folk have this inherent DNA which gives them the complete control to make sweeping statements at will. You are mostly wondering how I am making such a bold statement; well I look no further from my home – Wife and my Mother --- QED
There has been no end to the subjects that a woman can talk, take from cooking to cornea transplantation, nuclear gas to nanotechnology, cricket to online poker, washing machines to cryogenic engines – they have the capacity to make bold sweeping statements. And for those entire married “Y” chromosome humans who have an inherent capacity to follow will accept these statements and hence all conflicts are resolved.
It’s getting boring and I will come to the topic now (have to somewhere before the end) – recently since I have been given extra work in current role, I feel I do not have the time to make sweeping statements as I did a few years back. Maybe education and my current role is the main reason. Let me also tell you that it was this skill set of providing giant sweeping statements that got me to my current role too. This is why I am a little perturbed now that I am losing my skill set.
So I guess I have to go back to my basics ie. Start listening closely to my wife, and then get back to some real-time training (Facebook/Orkut Chat) to sharpen my skills since the appraisal cycle in my company is nearing and I have to fill huge chunks of forms stating my achievements in the past year. So folks wish me luck and send me some statements for my reserve.
No comments:
Post a Comment