Floccinocinihilipilification
If you didn't know yet, this is one of the longest words in English. It means to estimate things to be small or usless. I've heard of antidisestablishmentarianism too, but what i want to write today has more to do with flocci....
What I want to write is about the opposite of flocci... i.e. estimating things to be big or very important than they actually are. Two years ago around the same time of the year I got into a high and preached the value of time spent with the family to all the married people in my office and particularly to the ones with kids. I did that because I saw that these people valued their jobs more than their families. On average people left office only by about 9pm. Well you could have pardoned them if they really had that much work. But the truth was that there was hardly 8 hour worth of work. Without execption everyone wasted about 4 hours of their time in office chit-chatting over coffee or cigarettes. I don't claim to be an exception but I had a valid argument - I was living alone so it didn't matter when I went home. Everyone agreed with my observation but didn't want to change what they did.
Last week one of my colleagues who had been with the company a long time and was respected by all, left the organization. He was one of my targets during my rambling about putting life before work. A hardcore workaholic he did not even listen to what I had to say, or it appeared so. But when he left he admitted that the principal reason for his decision to quit was to find a less demanding job so that he could spend more time with his only daughter of 5. When he said this to me I thought he was just giving me a reason I would love to hear. But it was true ( how i verified that is another story).
This morning over our first cigarette break another colleague to whom I had preached decided that he would quit drinking and spend that time with his family. "First is my health, second is my job, no sorry, second is my family and third is my job," he said. I second that. First is my health, second is to build a family and third is my job. I shall not floccinocinihinipilificate the first two in favour of the third. There, I managed to provide you a example of how to use one of the longest words i the english language.
What I want to write is about the opposite of flocci... i.e. estimating things to be big or very important than they actually are. Two years ago around the same time of the year I got into a high and preached the value of time spent with the family to all the married people in my office and particularly to the ones with kids. I did that because I saw that these people valued their jobs more than their families. On average people left office only by about 9pm. Well you could have pardoned them if they really had that much work. But the truth was that there was hardly 8 hour worth of work. Without execption everyone wasted about 4 hours of their time in office chit-chatting over coffee or cigarettes. I don't claim to be an exception but I had a valid argument - I was living alone so it didn't matter when I went home. Everyone agreed with my observation but didn't want to change what they did.
Last week one of my colleagues who had been with the company a long time and was respected by all, left the organization. He was one of my targets during my rambling about putting life before work. A hardcore workaholic he did not even listen to what I had to say, or it appeared so. But when he left he admitted that the principal reason for his decision to quit was to find a less demanding job so that he could spend more time with his only daughter of 5. When he said this to me I thought he was just giving me a reason I would love to hear. But it was true ( how i verified that is another story).
This morning over our first cigarette break another colleague to whom I had preached decided that he would quit drinking and spend that time with his family. "First is my health, second is my job, no sorry, second is my family and third is my job," he said. I second that. First is my health, second is to build a family and third is my job. I shall not floccinocinihinipilificate the first two in favour of the third. There, I managed to provide you a example of how to use one of the longest words i the english language.
posted by supramenta at 11:40 PM
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