[To me, nothing’s more funny than something that’s not supposed to be funny, and the more serious it is, the more I laugh to myself. I have to laugh silently, though, because these events almost always take place in public. Usually, there are no names given for these quotes, either because I didn't know the people who said them, or because I did.]
OVERHEARD AT THE CORPORATE LEVEL: On the state of the company: “I think we are not tackling as many things that we should not as perhaps we were two years ago.” "We have a lot on our plate, so we're not eager to throw another log on the fire." "We were staring down the barrel of lost market share." "The revitalization of our company is vital." On the changing state of the world: A plea for contributions to the United Fund: On gender equity: On Human Resource matters: "We feel the sum of the parts is greater than the sum of the individuals." "Their investigation covered the whole gambit." On the Information Technology system: OVERHEARD FROM COLLEAGUES: An engineer describing a destructive test he was going
to conduct by squeezing a metal part in a press: Noon in the lunchroom: someone was railing about the
"Rev. Louis Tarragon." Also in the lunchroom, I heard about the behavior of
another engineer having after-work drinks at a local bar
on Friday afternoon: Memo from a colleague: How to write a sign: the company's Material Sciences
Lab is located in another suburb, and we have private
Shuttle Bus service between the two buildings. A sign in
our building reads: A handwritten sign in the tray pickup area of the
company cafeteria: From an internal engineering report: OVERHEARD IN RESTAURANTS: Two house painters, an old one and a young one, eating
lunch at a fast food restaurant: Two women in their late 20's in the next booth at a
delicatessen; the louder of the two came up with two
keepers during the course of their conversation: OVERHEARD ON VACATION: For years, I've been listening to male colleagues who
are going through divorces tell me, "My wife is turning
our children against me." It's been such a constant
theme in the male divorce line that I sort of discounted
it, figuring that surely not all those wives could be
sitting around turning those children. So I wasn't
prepared for this conversation, at a campground: We were camping in the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming,
and went into Buffalo for provisions and to wash our
clothes at the laundromat. The only other people there
were a cowboy type and a woman with her daughter, who I
judged to be about 5 years old. The woman was obviously
shopping for a man, as she had struck up a conversation
with “Jim.” (I don’t remember his real name). OVERHEARD ON PUBLIC RADIO: From an interview circa 1992 with Richard Secord about
his new book on a Reagan era scandal called the Iran-Contra
Affair: Minnesota politicians are very big on using ethanol in
gasoline. Here’s a sound bite of one from one of our
state legislators (I unfortunately missed his name): A short interview with somebody who witnessed a couple
of Minneapolis policemen who threw two Indians in the
trunk of their police car to transport them to the
police station. The interviewee said that the police
were using "racial epitaphs." A politician speaking of church burnings: Interview with a lady who was punched out on a freeway
entrance by a guy in a white BMW convertible: For 6 short years, Minnesota had Jesse Ventura for
governor, a retired wrestler and priceless source of
quotes. The following three are from a single radio
interview: From All Things Considered, Nov. 30, 1992: Jan. 12, 1993: Terry Gross, interviewing Jimmy Carter,
asked about Bill Clinton's ability to break up Capitol
Gridlock. Jimmy's reply: May 14, 2013: Local announcer: "Minnesota becomes the
12th state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage
in Minnesota." OVERHEARD ON TELEVISION: Advertisement for a public television program about
backyard birds: A business news commentator: OVERHEARD IN THE NEWSPAPER: Gary Suddeth, president of the Minneapolis Urban
League, quoted in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune,
8/5/1992: OVERHEARD HEALTH ISSUES: One summer, Minnesota was plagued by odd types of well-water pollution: A TV news story reported that the Rush City water supply (I went to high school there!!) contained "E. Cola," which must be a new type of soft drink. Another TV newscaster talked about pollution by "chloroform" bacteria. They'd be useful in the operating room. And, at Nerstrand Woods State Park in southern Minnesota, there was a sign telling us not to drink the water. I asked the park ranger about it, and she said it was due to "chlorophyll" in the drinking water. I mean to tell you, I just turned green. |