Today we were working on customer service, how to empathize with the client, make them feel appreciated etc. They gave us an exercise where we had to read a short piece of writing and respond. I was absolutely sure the point of the assignment was to explain how we empathized with the main character, who was in a scary situation. There were two glaring SPaG errors…two uses of it’s/its, both wrong for the context.
I’ve spent years at the Desk of Doom, using LJ to rant about the atrocious grammar and usage I was forced to deal with. I didn’t want to say anything that would get me branded as a smart-ass or trouble-maker. Clearly someone at Amex wrote that passage and didn’t think there was anything wrong. Why the hell would I make my new company look bad, right?
But it was bugging the living shit out of me. Sooooo…..I made a joke that it was bugging my inner English teacher because of the mis-use of it’s/its. Then I went on to talk about the creepiness etc, but honestly thought I might be kissing my brilliant future at Amex good-bye.
It turned out that the point of the exercise….WAS TO NOTICE THE SPELLING AND GRAMMAR ERRORS. (I’d only mentioned the it’s/its, but there were others.)
According to the trainer, in the entire time they’ve been using that test, I’m the only one who ever got it right.
Maybe I was just the only one with the balls/stupidity to say anything.
