The power of language

The other night a parent of our school and I were having an email conversation about a fund raising event. She sent me a proof of the advertisement announcing proudly 'I'm wasted, you know.' Well, I got it - really, I did. I understood she meant that on a Wednesday night surely she had better things to do and that really she should be employed by someone to be this creative (and she should - she's very clever!) Anyway after about 10 minutes I received another email frantically informing me that she wasn't drunk - she didn't mean 'that wasted'. I couldn't stop laughing for 10 minutes.

Then, this morning Mark (our Schools Officer) requests an urgent meeting and informs me that a cleaner had fallen off the top of a fridge and caused some damage. He then started whizzing through photos of other workplace health and safety concerns he had taken while I'm trying to envision Robyn, Marylin, Craig or Allan falling off the fridge. I asked 'what was a cleaner doing on the fridge?' He replied 'well, that's a good question!' I was actually aghast. We were then interrupted by the school photographs and I had to run off to the oval. (Mornings are completely silly in our school!)

After the photo I told everyone that we had an injured cleaner and everyone needed to clean up their kitchens and comms rooms to ensure we wouldn't have any more incidents. Out of the corner of my eye I could see all our cleaners standing there - none with any injuries! And then it dawned on me! Mark meant that a vacuum cleaner which had been put on top of the fridge had fallen off.

The power of language, and how we can be so easily misunderstood. The lesson is you just have to ask more questions - otherwise you'll be wasted after falling off the top of a fridge!

Have a great weekend, everyone!