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I'll do my best.
July 24, 2015 at 11:04 pm
When someone wants you to do something you haven't done before, the best, most honest thing you can say is "I'll do my best". Yet somehow some people see it with a negative connotation. They don't want to hear that you'll do your best. They want to hear you say you'll do it. As Master Yoda says "Either do, or do not. There is no try". When did this start? Why is "I'll do my best" not good enough for some people? Does anyone else find this odd? Annoying?
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RE: I'll do my best.
July 24, 2015 at 11:29 pm
Somewhere along the line it picked up a "don't blame me if it doesn't turn out perfect" connotation. Don't know where.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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RE: I'll do my best.
July 25, 2015 at 12:29 am
(This post was last modified: July 25, 2015 at 12:29 am by Minimalist.)
Probably when stupid managers started giving stupid orders to the wrong people.
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RE: I'll do my best.
July 25, 2015 at 12:39 am
Flip side of that, IMO, is the Hawthorne Effect.
I've used it deliberately, with full knowledge beforehand that whatever I am attempting that occasion will fail, and/or be ineffective in fixing whatever is broken/wrong/screwed up.
And I have had almost universal positive results.
Of course, you never tell the victi, er, pigeo, um, client you're relying on the Hawthorne Effect to make them happy.
The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.
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RE: I'll do my best.
July 25, 2015 at 2:31 am
(This post was last modified: July 25, 2015 at 3:35 am by ignoramus.)
I'll do my best to answer this question!
Nah, just kidding, I'll answer it exactly!
When the wife says: hon. I've got a flat tyre, can you look at it please.
You don't say, I'll do my best? You just "fix" the bloody thing.
Or if a patient asks the doctor? The doctor doesn't say: OK then, I'll do my best to keep you alive.
It's come about when people (read friends, managers, relatives, etc) bust you do go beyond your comfort zone.
Mother in law: Jim, my central heating isn't working, you're pretty good at all that stuff (computers?), can you please go up the manhole and see if you can find out what's wrong?
Yeah, of course Lizzy! I'll do my best! (I've got nothing fucking better to do!)
No God, No fear.
Know God, Know fear.
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RE: I'll do my best.
July 25, 2015 at 3:13 am
(This post was last modified: July 25, 2015 at 3:17 am by Thumpalumpacus.)
(July 24, 2015 at 11:29 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: Somewhere along the line it picked up a "don't blame me if it doesn't turn out perfect" connotation. Don't know where.
I don't think the connotation is "don't blame me" -- I think it is "my best may not be enough". That's a fair thing to say, but in business, the motto is (boiled down to its essence) "Make it happen".
Failure is accepted after the fact so long as there is a substantive explanation, but in business, any hint of foreseeing the failure of corporate dicta is viewed as "not being a team player."
I made the mistake one time of telling my regional manager that "I'll jump through the hoops" -- gods above, I got about ten minutes of lecture for not being fully aboard a program I knew wouldn't work in my district for demographic reasons.
"I'll do my best", in corporatespeak, is admitting a priori that one's best may not be good enough.
Be advised that corporatespeak is not standard English.
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RE: I'll do my best.
July 25, 2015 at 4:41 am
(July 24, 2015 at 11:04 pm)Chad32 Wrote: When someone wants you to do something you haven't done before, the best, most honest thing you can say is "I'll do my best". Yet somehow some people see it with a negative connotation. They don't want to hear that you'll do your best. They want to hear you say you'll do it. As Master Yoda says "Either do, or do not. There is no try". When did this start? Why is "I'll do my best" not good enough for some people? Does anyone else find this odd? Annoying?
Yoda said a lot of stupid shit, the muppet.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
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RE: I'll do my best.
July 25, 2015 at 7:14 am
On a barely related note, it has been calculated that Yoda used about 25 horsepower to lift Luke's fighter from the swamp. With current electricity consumption at around two terawatts, it would take nearly one hundred million Yodas to meet our demands. So, using Yodas to generate power probably isn't worth the switch.
But it would definitely be green....
Boru
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RE: I'll do my best.
July 25, 2015 at 7:19 am
(July 24, 2015 at 11:04 pm)Chad32 Wrote: When someone wants you to do something you haven't done before, the best, most honest thing you can say is "I'll do my best". Yet somehow some people see it with a negative connotation. They don't want to hear that you'll do your best. They want to hear you say you'll do it. As Master Yoda says "Either do, or do not. There is no try". When did this start? Why is "I'll do my best" not good enough for some people? Does anyone else find this odd? Annoying?
It's one of these empty phrases, that's why.
I for one get annoyed when being asked how are you? Everyone knows perfectly well that the one asking usually doesn't give a shit about how you really are.
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RE: I'll do my best.
July 25, 2015 at 7:46 am
I never meant it as an empty phrase, but I guess some people don't see it as the "110%" they want to see.
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