My office recently changed its email program from Groupwise (which I had never even heard of) to Microsoft Outlook 2003. Hello, year 2002!! There were many, many hours of staff training behind this conversion. Ridiculous.
After one grueling training session, the young Kiwi male facilitator approached me. "You probably already know all this?" Well, since you asked... "Yeah, and 2003 isn't the most recent version of Outlook." I didn't realize how snotty this sounded until it was already out of my mouth. Luckily, he found it funny and not offensive. He explained that they have to use the 2003 version because some computers are still operating on Windows 2000. We shared a laugh over his country's backwards business practices.
Despite my above-it-all attitude, I'm really endearing myself to the Kiwis. I do next to nothing at this job, but the Kiwis think I'm super-productive. A little American work ethic goes a long way in New Zealand! I could have held down this job when I was 11... and email didn't even exist when I was 11. The most challenging part of my day is remembering to speak slowly and use Kiwi English. Everyone found it sooo funny that I told my boss to call his mom instead of his mum. If I was in America, I'd tell this guy to cut the apron strings and get back to work.
Watch your back, Helen Clark!* If I stayed in the NZ government, I could easily rise to the ranks of Prime Minister within a decade. Come to think of it, I'm pretty much qualified to run for VP of the US these days too. Sarah would surely agree that kissing a Kiwi counts as foreign policy experience.**
* Pay attention to paragraph 3 of the "early life" section of Helen's bio. You cried throughout your wedding ceremony because you had a headache? Really now??
** Not that I have or have not been involved in such activities.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment