Wednesday 6 February 2013

Issues

London Underground has come up with a new form of words to explain (or not) 'minor delays' on its lines: they are invariably 'due to operational issues'. You don't say so! The phrase really doesn't add an awful lot to our understanding of the situation, does it - indeed, you might well say that the 'minor delays' are themselves the 'operational issues' here. 'Issues' is invariably a word used to - well, actually, to dodge the issue. 'Issues' sound somehow easier to deal with than problems or difficulties or (often the reality) cockups; issues can be 'addressed', they can be 'explored', and they have that endearing habit of clustering 'around' things. I find it's a sound rule that, whenever you hear someone using the phrase 'issues around', they have nothing useful to say on whatever those issues are so companionably surrounding. Meanwhile, I don't think anyone would feel they had been short-changed if London Underground were just to report that there are 'minor delays' and leave it at that.

9 comments:

  1. Once you have explored issues around things, you can always set a date many months hence for a meeting to explore how to address them. By that time, you'll have forgotten the issues around those things so you can explore them all over again, and set another date to discuss ways to address them. That way, many explored issues can remain, thankfully, unaddressed for years.

    Your post made me laugh a lot. The issues you address in it are so gruesomely familiar.



    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Mary - I realise now how many 'jobs' involve precisely the process you describe. Not mine, happily...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Everyone is always around-ing things these days, it is particularly irritating at work. Let's have a meeting around issues around diversity, that sort of thing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Whats really needed I'd suggest is a few clips 'around' the ear.

    I find I sound more like my dad every day.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Everyone is always around-ing things these days, it is particularly irritating at work. Let's have a meeting around issues around diversity, that sort of thing."

    It's very, very annoying - I suspect it originates from scribbling 'ideas' down on flip charts in 'workshops' (not workshops where anything is made or people get their hands dirty of course).

    ReplyDelete
  6. There's only one thing for it - we're going to have to have a meeting to address some of the issues around the issues raised in this post.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Can we just run through what were they again?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sorry Mary, I have issues around that - we'd best have a pre-meet to address them...

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'll bring the chocolate hobnobs.

    ReplyDelete