Meet "Literal Larry"

Dear Diary,

Did you notice that I highlighted the word "literally" in my post yesterday?  Good job, Diary.  I knew you had eagle eyes.

Diary, I would like to introduce you to "Literal Larry."

I call this guy "Literal Larry" because he feels that it is necessary to use the word "literally" in the most sentences possible.  His record, which is solely from the times I heard the word, is 13.  He said "literally" 13 times in one day.  That should be illegal.

The other thing this guy does is he qualifies everything before he starts talking.  For example, he and I are having a conversation about some numbers.  Obviously, we are brain storming and none of the numbers are real.  "Literal Larry" feels that it is necessary to say something like, "I'm just making this up, but..."

Listen dude.  I'm not going to hold you accountable to a number if we are having a brain storming session.  It's okay to use a fake mortgage balance of $100,000 instead of someone's real balance of something like $367,393.  It makes the math easier to use nice, round numbers.

One day I'm going to throw his words right back at him.  I'm thinking something along the lines of, "I'm just making this up, but I literally want to kill you and bury you in a shallow grave if you say the word 'literally' again."

Of course, I'm joking.  :)  But seriously.  :|  Stop it.  One day "Peet's Matt" might get a hold of you.  And if that happens then you'll be the feature clip on "When Animals Attack: Part 29."
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I'm the Grammatical Barney Fife

Dear Diary,

Effective December 17th at 3:20 PM I instituted a "Bad Grammar & Punctuation" policy.

The policy is simple: use good/decent grammar and punctuation when you e-mail me.  If you e-mail me and I determine your e-mail has violated my policy then I will not respond to you for at least 30 minutes.

The genesis for this policy was a poorly written e-mail to me from someone in the office.  This person constantly writes grammatically horrific e-mails and I am tired of it.  Not only are you asking me to do something, but you are making me do work to understand what work it is that you want me to do.

For your viewing pleasure, Diary, I will post verbatim the e-mail that set me off:

??? No I beez more confused---Is there any other codes in any of the other fields from the initial email otherwise I am thinking we need to get on the phone with them and find out how we can best organize checking what is going on (if possible) in the data---for delq accounts (it may not be because of the way it is gathered)

Is this a sentence or a paragraph?  I can't tell because there is not one period (.) in it to help me understand.  I must have read this e-mail at least three times before I finally understood what this person was talking about.

I better go Diary.  Ironically, I "literally" just got an e-mail from this very person.  I need to go start his timer.

Please note that this policy is not effective for anyone that controls:

• my employment status
• my salary, or
• my year-end bonus (if applicable)

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Let's Meet for Coffee

Dear Diary,

Sup D?  I know it has been forever since I've talked with you.  As you might recall, on July 31, 2008 I left [...BEEP...] to start working for a new company.  What's interesting is that [...BEEP...] is now bankrupt too.  Just like Bankrupt [...BEEP...] is.  To date, that means I have worked for five companies all of which have gone bankrupt.

On August 1, 2008 I started working for a private-equity firm (I have not come up with a fancy nickname for them yet).  I have been in observation mode for almost five months now and I think it is time to start sharing with you again.

When would you like to start meeting again?  After Christmas?  Sounds good..