Scott A. Wilburn

There are many things I hear each day, but there are some words and phrases that I often hear which I would love to hear much less often:

• Traditional marriage – This term is used almost exclusively by the religious right as their argument of why two people of the same sex should not be able to marry.  They claim same-sex marriage will “destroy traditional marriage”.  I have news for you… divorce destroys traditional marriage, not loving gay and lesbian couples in committed relationships.  In the last election, I find it interesting that the county with the highest divorce rate (Lincoln County, WA) that 75% of the voters rejected Washington State’s Referendum 71.  So much for the “traditional marriage” argument.
• Let’s take this offline – This phrase belongs in the long list of corporate bullshit words and phrases, some of which include “Are we on the same page?”, “Think outside the box”, “at the end of the day” and “out of the loop”.
• Let’s get together sometime – If I had a penny for everytime someone used this phrase in Seattle, I would be wealthier than Bill Gates.  This has to be the most non-committal statement I have ever heard.  Out of politeness, people use this phrase but often have no intention of ever getting together.  The next time someone says this to me, that person can expect a call within three days to plan our get-together.  “Get together sometime” will no longer mean “never”.
• That’s so gay – I often hear this phrase from teens and younger people to describe something they don’t like.  Bottom line, kids… it’s homophobic, stop it!
• Playdate – When I was growing up, I would go over to the neighbor’s house and go play with the neighbor kids whenever I wanted.  Now, parents schedule a “playdate” for their children with other children to play.  How busy have our lives become that we actually have to schedule playtime for our children?  Is it because parents have their child so scheduled with soccer, karate, cub scouts, etc. that they have to schedule play for them too?  I’m single and childless… how come I never get to have a “playdate”?
• The site is down – This really has nothing to do with the message or the messenger, but more to do with the fact that a human is notifying me of this fact.  Web sites can go down unexpectedly and for multiple reasons.  The problem is that they only go down when I’m in bed, on a plane or using the toilet.  Once decent monitoring is in place with the help of RightScale, I hope to get notified by an automated alert before a human even discovers that something has failed on the site and calls me to utter this annoying phrase.
• You need to be more positive – I hear this phrase from both pessimists and optimists… probably because I am neither… I am a realist.  For example, if the dog had an accident on the floor, the optimist would say, “Look on the bright side, at least the dog didn’t have a bowel movement on your pillow”, whereas the pessimist would say, “Shit!  The dog shit on the floor.  This is a really shitty day”.  I would say, “The dog pooped on the floor”.  I state what is true.  You don’t have to like that I state things the way I see them, but just because something is real, doesn’t mean it’s a negative thing.  It is what it is.