I’m working at this wonderfully relaxed place now where a large portion of my work consists of running errands for others and taking care of correspondence and where nobody only shows up for work because his parents forced him to. I got my own little office and when I started off in December, our IT support told me to “make sure you’re installing Skype”. The entire company is handling their everyday communication over Skype – how cool is that? I get to be online there all day long and I’ve totally not added a single one of my buddies to my contact list…
Anyways, correspondence. When you’re writing several E-Mails in a row to reply to some business associate or contact, the mind switches off at the oddest times (or maybe it’s just my mind which is an entirely valid possibility). Most business is done in English and so I’m taking care to honor the code and include all those nifty, standard greeting and closing formulas, à la “Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further information” or “Please find enclosed…” and so forth. Corporate language, I has it.
In between handling those letters, I also get to send a lot of short notes or reminders to my co-workers which are frequently in different languages, namely German or French. And that’s when it happened.
When you’re writing more casual types of Emails to friends or colleagues in German, it’s pretty standard to use acronyms like ‘LG’ (liebe Grüsse) or ‘MFG’ (mit freundlichen Grüssen) to replace “kind regards” as a closing line. This has even made its way into more formal letters by now, depending on what the subject is or for how long correspondents have known each other. So naturally, when I was asked to send a short request for booking confirmation out on a workmate’s behalf a few days ago, I didn’t hesitate to end the Email in that way (you need to assume this would have been in German):
[actual message here]
Please contact me if you require any further information.
LFG, Silly Goof
LFG…
I actually wrote LFG!
A splitsecond after sending that Email (figures), I realized it.
/facepalm
And I know why of course: I spent a large portion of my free ‘blogging and blog-reading time’ this week on reading about Cataclysm’s 5man runs, the fail and glory of them, especially in regard to being a healer. There will also be a contribution of my own to that topic pretty soon, so MY BRAIN IS IN LFG MODE!
It’s days like these when you realize you’re having enitrely too many thoughts on WoW. Have a good weekend everybody and be careful on those heroic runs!
now you need to find out a good meaning of LFG, in case the recipient asks.
theB
LOL, I actually thought about that already! x)
what will it be then?
Liebe Freundliche Grüsse ofc! Or possibly feign surprise and say your fingers must have slipped on the keyboard 😛
It’s easy enough to explain as a fat finger keyboard slip. Better than telling a colleague that they totally pwned that unprepared sales representative, which, er, I might have done once.
Nicely done 😀 You never know, your recipient might reply in WoW-language… that’d be weird.
I once wrote roflcopter in an email at work which took some explaining.
When the explanation mentioned the lmaoplane I realised I need help 🙂
I have used the term “Awesomesauce” out loud to my co-workers, which got me more than a few odd looks.
Haha..!! Well, I have been known to say ‘lol’ in reallife conversation sometime which I admit is cringe-worthy – but then we’re all victims of habit, right? /blush
Lol..too funny!I was put in a situation where I had to train a few new guys on how to fill out the vehicle entry and person entry logs into the app center at work.(I work security in downtown Charlotte N.C.)After every 1 of them failed to get a single log filled out correctly,(I intended to remark under my breath but apperently it didn’t work out that way,) “OMG what a pug grp!” The look of confusion on every 1 of thier faces was priceless! “A manager will tell you to do something,A true leader shows you how something is to be done”