passive-aggressive *feh*

[applecameron]

Oh, not *me* being PA. No, no.

So, if I come into work and read an email from a co-worker who says she left a banana on her desk and someone ate it overnight and she's a titch peeved because she was going to eat it for breakfast today, but doesn't SAY it that way, and instead writes an email to the whole department telling that --

'Once upon a time' an employee brought a banana to work, and having not eaten it, left it on her desk, only to find the next day that her banana had run away during the night, and did not return when called, only to find even later that day a banana peel, and not only does the 'employee' in the story wonder aloud if 'magic during the early evenings and into the night now causes bananas to run away', but the employee/author then says the moral to the story is to tie bananas down when leaving them overnight --

I'm well within my rights as a take-charge, straight-shooter kind of gal to find that not at all amusing, but, in fact, rather irritatingly passive-aggressive, however cleverly performed?

Right?

If someone stole my banana, I'd walk in and say "Hey! What turkey took my banana last night?!", and then accuse the offending party, if revealed, of being a noodle, or perhaps stick my tongue out at them, or claim the right to enact some dire punishment to be specified later (all this depending on the quality of our working relationship, of course), or say nothing at all. It's only a banana.

But passive-aggressiveness always claims to be uninjured in a way as to communicate deep injury. It *grates*.

Comments

[minkboylove.livejournal.com]

'Once upon a time' an employee brought a banana to work, and having not eaten it, left it on her desk, only to find the next day that her banana had run away during the night, and did not return when called

I'm sorry, but that is so incredibly, nose-bleed-inducingly annoying that had I been in your place I would have confessed to masturbating with the banana just to piss her off.

Passive aggressive behaviour invariably makes me see a strange red mist behind my eyes anyway, but when combined with cutesy e-mails anthropmorphising a sodding banana...well, watch it.

Well, in the plus column

[applecameron.livejournal.com]

Apparently, other people felt similarly, because someone masking their email posted to the department as a "Militant Gorilla" (complete with a little gorilla icon) and claimed responsibility for the banana-napping, warning the banana's 'parent' not to contact the authorities, or they'd never see their precious banana again. Banana splits were threatened.

Now *that*, that was amusing.