Taking the Piss, Wearing the Pants

What inspired me to get rhubarb yogurt? Now I’m stuck at my desk with this poor selection and nothing else to eat. It is vile—I mean it. Rhubarb is stringy. My yogurt is stringy.
Today it is foggy in Dublin. There are windows all around the office, but it looks as though a huge man in a white coat is giving us a big hug, cuz I can’t see anything at all. It’s pretty….until I gave it that analogy, I guess.
So I definately had an embarassing American moment yesterday. Something I said to my boss definitely got lost in translation.

Tom, the CCO, had a meeting scheduled with me at 4. He came over at 3 and asked if we could push it back. My reply was, “Yes. Just grab me when you need me.” Tom got a little smile across his face and just BLUSHED, then walked away. I wanted to crawl under my desk—I had just propositioned my boss.
This comes in a long line of awkward non-translating things that Kate has said to her superiors. And because over here I’ve always worked with executives, it’s always a puffy old proper Brit or Irishman with like a pipe in his mouth and a monocle and a three-piece suit. Like this guy:

Or this guy:Lol, that's Monsterpiece Theatre! I had to do that.

Here’s the list of uncomfortable language-barrier moments I’ve had in the office:

After a board meeting once, Dan [Director of the company, my old boss] asks me how I’m doing this morning. I say, “Not so great. I up and fell on my fanny walking into the office.” He immediately turned bright red and gasped/coughed/laughed. Over here, “fanny” is the most vulgar way to say “girl parts”. It’s like 10x worse than c*nt, if you can imagine that. And I just said it to the head of the company, without clarification, because I didn't know I had said anything wrong. To this day I'm sure he still thinks I said that I did the splits. LOL

When autumn came and it cooled off, a bunch of execs and I were talking about how nice the change was. I said, “It was great finally wearing pants around all weekend.” Unfortunately, over here “pants” means “undies”. I had just told the executive team that I was finally wearing underwear.

Once when I needed a signature from James, the director of another company, I marched into his office and said, “James, I just need your James Hancock right here.” He says, “You need my James WHAT?” He’s an Aussie….I guess he’s never heard the story about the Declaration of Independence.

So my comment to Tom is just one in a list of many. I’m basically mortified of what I’ve said on a daily basis over here. It’s ridiculous that I can’t say “pants”, but if you say “Can I scam a fag?” you’ll straight up make friends. And did you know that they call BMW’s “BM’s” for short? LOL. Yesterday Fiona says “Oh look at that tan BM over there!” and I was like “Sick! Where?!”

And “taking the piss” means someone’s making fun of you. Like if someone says something that seems like they’re trying to trick you you can say, “Are you taking the piss?” Personally I don’t say it because it sounds awful, but people do.

It is a slow learning curve, picking up all this lingo. I know I’ve got to be careful asking for a “ride” from anyone—that’s something entirely different, so you have to say “lift” if you’re not propositioning the guy.

And did you know that people have been thinking I’m butch because I watch Friends? FRIENDS! Over here it’s a guys show, I’m told because Chandler and Joey are just like how “mates” or buddies are over here. So usually if you watch Friends with a Brit or Irish guy, they’ll recite every line before the actor. They know every single episode. So Fiona thought it was really manly of me to watch it. I was like “What about all the relationships and romance?” and she was like “Yeah, I guess there’s that.” Not even really thinking of it.

LOL Okay, I'm a dyke. Whatever.

So hunker down on your FANNIES Americans, watch some GIRLY Friends, and if you feel like taking a RIDE in your car, you just go on and do it—and think of me over here, scamming a fag, taking the piss, wearing the pants. :)