Context: I was Head of Department and one of the young officers aboard ship was not quite the brightest and unfortunately did not quite realize this. The young gentleman was attempting to supervise a working party of sailors under the eye of my Chief of Department and was making a royal mess of things. Before I could step in, the Chief took him aside and whispered a few things to him. The young gentleman left soon after.
I asked the chief what he said and the response was, “The young Sir makes excellent coffee. I told him that he should go enjoy a mug in the wardroom.”
Ever since then, when describing young officers that do not quite measure up, it’s always been “they make excellent coffee”.
I worked for a community college for a few years, and we had pretty high turnover in our department, and they had a rather strict ‘no rehire’ policy for people having worked there (so new people could come in and learn too), and it was always funny overhearing my manager explain that for everyone, but the positives he gave after were night and day. For good techs he’d tout their actual abilities, but for the trogs, they’d get something like good attendance or always on time. The sorts of answers that are technically true and a positive quality, but the person on the other end hears ‘this dude sucks and this is the best I can say about him’.
I remember a friend of mine told me that the goto backhanded compliment gay men have for women is “she’s really pretty,” as in, “I can’t think of other redeeming qualities she has” lol
Context: I was Head of Department and one of the young officers aboard ship was not quite the brightest and unfortunately did not quite realize this. The young gentleman was attempting to supervise a working party of sailors under the eye of my Chief of Department and was making a royal mess of things. Before I could step in, the Chief took him aside and whispered a few things to him. The young gentleman left soon after.
I asked the chief what he said and the response was, “The young Sir makes excellent coffee. I told him that he should go enjoy a mug in the wardroom.”
Ever since then, when describing young officers that do not quite measure up, it’s always been “they make excellent coffee”.
Backhanded compliments like that can be fun.
I worked for a community college for a few years, and we had pretty high turnover in our department, and they had a rather strict ‘no rehire’ policy for people having worked there (so new people could come in and learn too), and it was always funny overhearing my manager explain that for everyone, but the positives he gave after were night and day. For good techs he’d tout their actual abilities, but for the trogs, they’d get something like good attendance or always on time. The sorts of answers that are technically true and a positive quality, but the person on the other end hears ‘this dude sucks and this is the best I can say about him’.
I remember a friend of mine told me that the goto backhanded compliment gay men have for women is “she’s really pretty,” as in, “I can’t think of other redeeming qualities she has” lol