Not Going to Miss It

I’ve been thinking about all of the things I’ll never need to say or do again after I retire.   The thought hit me when we were in a directors meeting yesterday and a colleague said “pre-brief.”  OMG.  Who in the world outside of the military says “pre-brief.”  Yet no one batted an eye because this is part of our lexicon.  Of course that means I also won’t have to use the words “brief” or “back brief” either.  Honestly, these aren’t even near the top of my I-don’t- want-to-hear-that-word-again list.  I’m not sure what will make the top, but contenders are:  tasker and coordinations, which always make Word spellcheck go crazy because I guess they are not real words.  Word suggests “tusker,” which means an elephant bearing tusks or a male wild boar….but I won’t go there right now.

I’m also not going to miss the terms:  packages, tabs, attachments/enclosures, Action memo/Info memo, EXECUTIVE SUMMARY!! (this might be #1), strategic planning, metrics, issuances, working group, budget execution,

I’m not going to miss the acronyms:  SACCP, DTS, TDY, OGC (no offense – I actually like our OGC), USD, ASD, PDUSD, PDASD, DASD, SECDEF, DEPSECDEF, NSP, SES, GAO, GSA, CAEP, ULB, FY, NDAA, HASC, SASC, NAF, APF, POM, O&M, MILCON,.....

I’m not going to miss CATEGORIZING everyone.  She is an SES, he is a 15, an O-6, etc…

I'm not going to miss the formatting.  I mean the whole government will be decimated if we don't pay enough attention to formatting.

I’m not going to miss the emails from Pretty Pretty that say "Call Me."  I know that's not a good omen.