Comments on: Poison Phrase ~ This is better than your last one

By: Sharon Campbell

Sharon Campbell — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:56:13 +0000

The person who was excited at learning something could easily been refering to other classes s/he has taken from other instructors, too.

By: merylrunion

merylrunion — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:24:30 +0000

Great points. Susan, what a great Poison Phrase! And it was clearly meant as a compliment!

By: Susan B

Susan B — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:39:24 +0000

This poison phrase reminded me something that made me laugh. After a haircut as a child/teen, my dad would always say “That looks better.” This could be interpreted as still not good, but better or I still hate it but not as much as before! Not so good for the self-esteem of young girls, so quite the poison phrase. When as a teen my sisters and I realized that some men have no sense of fashion or style (as was the case with our dad), it became a big joke and we would beat him to the punchline, saying “Does this look better?”

By: Susan

Susan — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:46:29 +0000

I am an I.T. trainer and have taught many very good classes over the years at this company. Last week, however, at the end of another very good class, someone excitedly said: This was such a great class – I actually learned something this time! Ack!! My first panicked thought was – Oh my gosh, have they not learned anything in my previous classes?? I then started to rehash and think back through many of the previous classes trying to reassure myself that I had done a good job in those classes and that the users actually learned something. I later calmly told myself that this person was not knocking my previous classes but instead not speaking clearly or rather speaking spontaneously out of emotional excitement of having learning something brand new. I then took it as a nice compliment and let it go. If all my past classes had been bad, I would have heard about it from my supervisors or in my reviews and that never happened.

By: Nik NIkkel

Nik NIkkel — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:44:41 +0000

if the boss really like the last one, this is a compliment. If he hated the last one, this is a backhanded sneer. If he was lukewarm to the last one, then is is still a compliment, but without much power. Context is needed.

Not all of us use “awesome” for mediocre, “incredible” for better than average, etc.

Nik

By: Judy

Judy — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:38:44 +0000

I agree… even if he had said something like, “This is your best work yet” might be better, as it wouldn’t single out his last proposal as being “weak” or not as good, while still giving adequate praise for this job well done.