On the way to work this morning Sophie was reading my email out of the corner of her eye as she often does on the train (clients: do not be afeared I never let her spy on confidential things, I wait till she’s asleep or doing complicated make-up manoeuvres before I write ‘those’ emails). Anyway she noticed that I was using the word “we” in a way that she approved of. In a business context not a relationship one.
An interesting discussion followed about how we both really hate it when people do the whole. Me, my, I, mine thing when talking about the work that a team of people are doing. And how it’s so much nicer when someone uses words like we, our, ours and so on.
My personal pet hate – and it is mine not ours, actually, it might be ours, I need to check – is when people talk about ‘my team’ or even worse ‘my designers’ or even even worse ‘my account man’. Those people should be hung for intent to commit slavery.
Of course one is allowed to have a personal opinion or do stuff on their own, so sometimes ‘I think’, or ‘I’m going to sort this out today’ is totally appropriate.
This may appear a bit pedantic. But if you were on the receiving end of someone claiming that you’re ‘theirs’ you might feel different.
Anyway that’s what we think.
