Who taught: Zac and Jean

Project management is one of my main responsibilities as an applications engineer. To manage projects, I have to be in so many conference calls. About 40 to 50 % of my daily hours are dedicated for calls with different customers. There are some of the expressions I have heard so many times in the calls.

1. At the end of the day : It means “When everything else taken into consideration.”  Similar expressions would be “eventually” or “in the end.”

2. Takeaways : any piece of information learned from a lecture or discussion. For example, as the conference call is getting closer to an end, you can say, “So, takeaways from today’s meeting would be, ‘You guys should listen to me!'” 🙂 Hey, I am joking here. You know it, right?

3. Elephant in the room : Frankly, I have never heard of this one in meetings or calls yet. But, this is definitely an expression which would be used in meetings. It means an issue which is important and everybody knows it but no one actually wants to talk about it. Look at the picture! How can you not notice the elephant in the room? But, also, if you take a look at the picture closely enough, you will notice that all of the people do not look at the elephant. They almost look like trying not to see the elephant. So… what would be a good example of the elephant in the room these days? How about immigration issue?

Speaking of elephant, Jean, today, also taught me another expression with elephant in it which I really like.

“Seeing pink elephant.”

I personally like pink color and it has a meaning you would never figure out by just hearing it. Here is the definition!

a euphemism of drunken hallucination.

Simply, it means “drunken.” The origin of this expression goes back to 1913. Based on Wikipedia, Jack London used this expression to describe a sort of alcoholic. I am very curious why he used “PINK” elephant for the purpose of describing drunken but I guess I would not be able to find out ever. Then, later, one of the Belgium beer brand, delirium tremens, used pink elephant as its label.

So, next time if you are out with your friends in a bar. You should do the followings.

1. Order a bottle of delirium tremens. It is actually pretty good beer and has high ABV (Alcohol By Volume).

2. Then drink as fast as possible until you feel drunken.

3. Once you feel you are drunk, say, “I think I am seeing pink elephant” instead of “I feel like I am drunk” to your friends. They will think you are so hip. 🙂

Good luck!