When Katie Gets Annoyed

I have not paid much attention to my blog lately. There hasn't been much to tell it. Things have been going along pretty well, which means my life has been boring, or at least boring to describe. But yesterday was a little different. I became somewhat agitated.

I was at work yesterday afternoon and as it happened, in such a location where I could overhear a short, informal meeting between an area supervisor, and about ten of his workers. These were blue collar workers who in some capacity handle store merchandise. Near the end of the meeting the supervisor asked if there were any questions or comments. One of the workers said, "Ever since our second forklift broke, we've been down to just one. If that one breaks down, we won't have none."

Well, the supervisor, who I will call Ron, tersely replied, "I'm aware that we won't have none. If it should come to that, we'll lease a forklift." Ron repeated, and put special emphasis on the worker's use of a double negative in a deliberate attempted to belittle the employee. It worked too because I heard a couple of chuckles.

I don't like when people are made fun of for such things. I have known and liked many individuals who did not speak perfect English.

A few hours later, near the end of the workday yesterday, I happened to stroll by Ron's personal whiteboard that he uses to post instructions or ideas. On it he had written: one person with poor work habits can have a negative affect on many others. My feet took about two additional steps beyond the whiteboard when they brought me to an abrupt halt. I turned around and reread the comment, just in case I had misread it the first time. I hadn't.

I quickly glanced about the immediate area. No one was around. I stepped to the whiteboard and picked up the red marker that was just below the board. I circled the word "affect" and then from the circled word, drew a line to an open space on the whiteboard. In the open space I wrote; the proper word is not "affect", it is "effect". EFFECT!  I'm sure I was grinning when I used all capital letters and the exclamation point. I then left my initials to indicate the author of the observation.

That was late yesterday afternoon. I thought today I might hear something from Ron concerning yesterday's impromptu bit of correction, but my workday is now over and I never heard a word. I had imagined Ron confronting me about it. I was planning to reply with something like, "Gee Ron, I thought that when it came to the English language, you never made no mistakes."