My latest bank statement from Macquarie Bank has at the top of it the new words ‘Relationship Banking’ Presumably this is meant to imply friendly personal service, despite the fact that all my interactions with Macquarie take place online. The only ‘relationship’ involved is between me and the Mac.
Then again, Relationship Banking could be a new product, where you put all your relationships in the bank, until later when you need them. Something like a seed bank or ‘Self Storage’
There’s also a letter from American Express. It’s one of the drab new terms and conditions sort, rather than the glossy You deserve privileges sort. There is a new term and condition called called ‘Liquidated Damages’, which on close inspection means simply ‘We’re gonna sting you and extra $30 if your payment is overdue’.
I go to the hardware shop and buy a couple of new terracotta pots, in which I plan to plant marigolds.
There is a sticker on each pot which says ‘Lifestyle Pot’. I’m not making this up. How a Lifestyle Pot differs from an ordinary plant pot, one can only imagine...
My old dentist at Noosa Junction did a big makeover on his premises a few years back - smart furniture, new receptionist with groovy hairstyle etc. And a new logo saying ‘Your Lifestyle Dentist’ Like, what, he only fixes lifestyles, you’ll have to find someone else to do your teeth? Or maybe going to the dentist actually is a lifestyle?
Lifestyle : What a sleazy, shallow pathetic excuse for a word! What a pretentious, unimaginative, vacuous, meaningless overused crap word!
Still, I reckon Lifestyle is just about at the end of it’s run - It started off attached to exclusive property developments where couples in white clothes sipped champagne by their spa pools, then spread to dentists, and is now plastered on lowly pot plants, and every other unpresteigous item in the marketplace.
Who cares about the demise of dreary old ‘Lifestyle’ - it was a phoney from the start.
A much worse affront is the dumb abuse of lovely, once-meaningful words like ‘passionate’ and ‘awesome’
Words once used in connection with great love affairs, or crimes, or gods or erupting volcanoes, or piano concertos, are now applied to tacky real estate and new colours in nail polish.
There is always more on this aggravating subject. I’d better stop, before I get on to how ‘teaching’ has become ‘delivering curriculum’; and executing a plan has become ‘rolling out’ and evaluating something has become a matter of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and...
Yes ‘ I’d better stop and get back to that mess on my desk...grumpy grumble... mumble...
2 comments:
Couldn't have put it better myself. And where can I buy this lifestyle pot? Wasn't called that in my day.
btw awesome mosaic
Lifestyle is also the word people up here and all over use as an excuse to rape, pillage and plunder the sea, the bush, the earth and naught else matters as long as the 'lyfestyle is protected!
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