PMA
Positive Mental Attitude. Dontcha just love acronyms? My last job was so full of acronyms that you couldn’t have a conversation without sounding like a hyperactive corporate executive on a mission to confuse. ‘Clare, who are the VFs on the next FEH trip? We need someone who can do ICCE and ECCE, and probably some BS aswell’ . It used to take people weeks to get to grips with the goings on in a normal team meeting. This is a world where VIP stands for Visually Impaired Person. That one had me flummoxed for months.
It’s the same here. We have the RACOC, the CACOC, RACE, MoSSH, MIB, NGO, CBO, NACOP, NANASO, AAC, etc. etc. It still doesn’t seem right to be referring to actual people as OVCs (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) or PLWHAs (People Living With HIV and AIDS). Talk about depersonalising everything.
As you might be able to tell, at the moment, as far as I’m concerned, PMA stands for Pre Menstrual Anger. I am feeling evil.
My colleague in the corner has just discovered the RealPlayer on her laptop, and has borrowed half a million R’n’B CDs from our new receptionist.
I hate R’n’B. I can’t help it. It prompts some kind of chemical reaction in my brain that short circuits the usual neural pathways and turns me into Tension Lady – She Can Break Computers Just By Looking At Them! (TL - SCBCJBYAT!) It took me almost a minute of strenuous thought to remember the word ‘acronym’ just now, because some woman is warbling tunelessly about her baby at a volume not quite loud enough for me to hear properly.
I can’t ask her to turn it off, because she normally puts up with my music without complaint. Today, however, I’m sorely tempted to ramp up the tension by putting on the Killers. And then running amok with a sharpened pencil.
I have to get out of here before my head explodes.