Disappointed? Inappropriate!

As I mentioned in my last, I am on holiday, and although I’m off to the U.K. next week for a bit, I’ve just been enjoying the unseasonably cool weather we’ve been having, and occupying myself by writing a couple of quizzes. One of them is for use down the pub sometime in the autumn, and the other is to be presented using Microsoft PowerPoint, to a number of groups of students at the Centre, who are doing the July summer course. This is voluntary extra work, and is paid accordingly, and although I have spent some twelve hours in total getting the thing together, I’ll be able to use it three or four times and receive the princely fee of 40-odd euros every time. The first run is at ten o’clock this morning (I’m writing this while I cool down from my shower at eight o’clock, even though I won’t finish it or post it till later on).
Some of my colleagues find it strange that I don’t mind going in to my place of work during what they regard as a great opportunity to forget the place entirely, and at one time I thought like that, but now I don’t mind. In fact I went in a few days ago, as I had applied for a non-teaching rôle on the August course, a post I have had a number of times in the past, which usually involves overseeing the school library, or helping people out with the computer system, or both. To my surprise, one of the trendy new thirty-something "managers" that we have rather a lot of, presented me with an application form written totally in what is known by those of us who dislike it as ‘management bollocks’; it certainly wasn’t English, and we are supposed to be an English-teaching organisation, too. I filled the thing in as best I could, and was then interviewed by two more of these characters, one of whom is a close friend of mine. They behaved as though they hadn’t met me before, and proceeded to read a number of questions which they referred to as "competencies" (I thought the word was "competence", and didn’t admit of a plural form, but still), which were also written in management bollocks, and which I made the mistake of answering in English.
Yesterday the thirty-something trendy phoned me to say he was very sorry, but I hadn’t been selected, and if I liked when we next met he’d give me some tips on form-filling and being interviewed. I thanked him but said I didn’t think I could cope with learning a new language at my age.
But I was disappointed. Not because I didn’t get the post; I’ll be teaching instead and that will be all right, and the money will be exactly the same, but I do not feel happy about the clear implication that unless you are prepared to go along with all this management rubbish, then you are never going to be considered for anything, and unfortunately, though I says it as shouldn’t, my English is too good to be able to make use of this kind of language, even as a pretence. I just cannot stand it.
So, disappointed is what I am this morning, and so, I see, is Chelsea’s Very Wonderful Peter Kenyon. He is disappointed, he says, that Charlton have protested about the business of Carlton Cole not coming back to us for another season on loan, as was agreed as part of the Spotty Parker deal. Cole is off to Aston Villa, one of our closest rivals, instead. Clearly Kenyon is a great believer in Chelsea doing whatever they like, and, like General Franco in the old days here, doesn’t expect anyone to complain.
But of course he isn’t disappointed. He is, maybe, irritated that Charlton haven’t rolled over quietly, as they are supposed to do, being a small club, and let the big club do what it likes. But he isn’t disappointed.
I’ll tell you, and Mr. Kenyon, what disappointed means. It is the feeling we Charlton supporters had after our team lost 4-1 two seasons ago after being unexpectedly required to play Chelsea away on a glorified sandpit, and then the feelings we had when Chelsea had to pay a paltry £5,000 fine, which didn’t even go to Charlton, either, and the result stood, the League not being interested at all, as they won’t be in the Cole affair, you watch.
Disappointed is what we Charlton fans were after Chelsea, seeing us coming up hard behind them in late December, decided to unsettle our best player, which settled our hash nicely, as I have said before.
So, Mr. Kenyon, not disappointed; you seem not to know the meaning of the word, but then, management types no longer know English, having developed a language of their own, which entitles them to say what they like and then deny that it meant anything at all. Their favourite expression is to say that something, usually something you want, or want to do, is ‘inappropriate’. This doesn’t have its dictionary English meaning of course. In management bollocks, saying that something is inappropriate means that they aren’t going to do it, or let you have it, or let you do it, and that what they are saying is final, and of course that they do not expect you to complain about it. Watch for Mr. Kenyon using it in a few days if this Cole business goes on for a while.
PS, now lunchtime Friday, and the quiz went very well, even the big boss (who uses ‘inappropriate’ all the time) enjoyed it, even though I delivered it in English, so maybe there’s hope for us English speakers yet...