I must not have been paying attention. Somewhere along in my business career, I seem to have suffered some sort of loss of ability to understand the language of business. My Business Language Deficit Disorder or, BLDD for short, manifests itself when I interact with business people who use words that don’t seem to fit into the sentences they are a part of.

It started with small things, like when I would say “thank you” to a store clerk for their assistance. Instead of the customary “You’re welcome” response; the answer today is “no problem.” What in the world was there no problem with? Was the problem that I asked for assistance? Or was I thanking them because it wasn’t a problem for them to do what they were being paid for? Or was I thanking them because I wasn’t as much of a problem as I could have been? Next time, maybe I should be more of a problem so that their answer will be more logical.

But it gets worse. The other day, when I contacted a company to get some information on their product, a nice sales associate thanked me for “reaching out to her”. Well, somewhat flustered, I said “you are welcome” because that is what I learned to say when someone thanks me. But, “reaching out” to this woman is something I did not recall or even comprehend. The last thing I remember reaching out for was the ladder that slipped away from me when I was painting the house last summer – and I missed. And not to mention that the idea that I go around reaching out to random women might not sit well with the wife of the PeeMan. Maybe, I should have just said “no problem.”

Then, after I told the nice sales associate what information I was looking for, she told me that once she had gathered the info she would “circle back”.  This time I did say “no problem.” But that was a lie. Now, I knew I had a full-blown case of BLDD. My mind was receiving the signals but was unable to convert them into words I could understand.  I can remember the Lone Ranger and Tonto “circling back” to find the trail again or to get behind the bad guys, but what was this nice lady planning to do. I felt like I needed to be looking over my shoulder even though I knew she and her company were 2000 miles away. No problem, I guess I’ll know what it means when it happens.

So, I had lunch with a businessman friend the other day and he was telling me he needed to hire a new marketing person, but was having trouble finding someone with enough “bandwidth” to handle the job. It sounded like it had something to do with being fat, maybe like a “fat cat marketing guy”. That sort of made sense, but I realized through the fog of my BLDD that it probably wasn’t what my friend had in mind. I had heard the word before, but it always had something to do with computer or internet stuff. So maybe he’s looking for a fat marketing guy who is good with computers. I told him I’d keep my eyes open, no problem.

And just today, I have been chasing a quote from a supplier and this is what the company representative told me word for word:

“I am still waiting to hear from our production team. I will revert as soon as we have an update.”

Uh oh. Now what have I gotten into. All I wanted was a quote. I wonder what she is going to revert into? No problem.

Until I find more words(that I can understand). . .The PeeMan