The Diatribe * net

I have a lot of pet peeves.  Grammar mistakes, both spoken and written, are among the worst in my book.  Someone taped a note up in my building stating that “…the carpets are going to be ripped up and replaced with the week.”  Well, that sign went up at the beginning of this week.  It’s now Friday evening.  The old carpets are still out there in the common areas.  There seems to be an epidemic of people using “within the week” rather than “within a week.”  There’s a big difference between the two and most people seem to neither notice nor care.  Within the week would have meant that the carpets should be ripped up by now.  Within a week means that the management company still has a few days to make good on their claim.  This type of sloppiness comes into play in my job once in a while, too.  If someone requests something of me “within a week,” then I make damn sure to clarify their timeframe because the people that use both terms interchangably are the same people that will nail me for not reading their mind and not doing something within the (five-business-day) week instead of within a (seven-day) week. 

After a long layoff, it feels good to be back at the old complaint department.