Reader question:

Please explain “didn’t get the memo” in this passage:

We’ve all been there: it’s Friday, the weekend is just around the corner, but your to-do list is acting like it didn’t get the memo. Instead of winding down, you’re staring at a mountain of tasks that somehow decided to multiply during the week.

My comments:

Okay. First, let’s take a collective breath.

Your to-do-list is a list detailing all the things you need to do during the work week, i.e. from Monday to Friday. And all of those things should be done by the end of Friday, so that you can have a restful weekend – a weekend to rest, recover, recharge your batteries, so to speak, in order to be able to wake up on Monday morning feeling refreshed, rejuvenated and raring to go again.

That’s the idea.

Or ideal.

What actually happens, and to all of us, though, is that on Friday, we often find our to-do-list, instead of getting slimmer, growing longer. In other words, we have more tasks to complete, not less.

So?

So, our weekend is shot, basically. We can forget about a restful and relaxing weekend.

Hence the conclusion: “your to-do-list (likened to a person) acted like it didn’t get the memo.”

In other words, it didn’t know that week day tasks should all be done and dealt with during the week, i.e. from Monday to Friday.

That’s the message (Phew!). And that’s the message your to-do-list didn’t get. That’s why it failed to slim down.

A bit more on “didn’t get the memo”.

The memo is short for memorandum. This is a business term. After a business meeting, a memorandum or memo is usually written and passed around detailing all the important points of the meeting.

It is a short note, easy to carry around and remember.

If one gets the memo, one gets the memorandum and, hence, gets the message.

If one doesn’t get the memo, on the other hand, one doesn’t get the message; one doesn’t get the information all others apparently get.

For example, a memo is passed around after a Monday meeting that all staff need to dress formally for the rest of the week because there are visitors coming. But you keep wearing jeans and T-shirts and making a fool of yourself because you never get the memo or message.

All right?

All right, here are media examples of people who fail to get the memo:

1. Love Island has new rules, but it seems not every contestant has got the memo. The Mallorcan villa has a resident, a bad boy hiding in plain sight.

The ITV2 dating series returned earlier this month for its 10th season, with a new group of singles competing to find love and win the ￡50,000 prize.

In Wednesday night’s episode (15 June), 24-year-old semi-professional footballer Tyrique Hyde and 27-year-old Leah Taylor have a lacklustre conversation where Leah gets absolutely nothing out of Tyrique, apart from a few flirty remarks.

Tyrique is currently coupled up with Leah, but is also getting to know Glaswegian model Ella Thomas, whom he was previously paired up with. As both girls put pressure on Tyrique to make a decision and pick one of them, he has attempted to remain mysterious about matters of the heart. Unfortunately, it’s been coming off in the worst possible way.

In one scene, Leah asks Tyrique where his head is at – Love Island speak for, “what are you thinking?” He shuts down the conversation with a blunt: “Nah.” When Leah applies more pressure for a fully-formed response, he answers back: “Look at you getting a backbone!”

This seems to be a classic example of negging, a flirting technique where a person deliberately gives a backhanded compliment to undermine someone else’s confidence.

Tyrone later turns his attention to Ella by the fire pit, having fobbed her for the entire day. Yet, he tells the islander that she is his “priority” and denies ignoring her. Ella appears relatively calm during the conversation, but he accuses her: “All you do is shout.”

In the short history of Love Island since its first episode in 2015, there has been a willingness to let foul play slide in favour of drama-filled antics. Slowly, though, there have been calls for change.

In 2018, Women’s Aid issued its first statement about emotionally abusive behaviour being presented on Love Island (the charity has done this again since). This year, ITV has made further provisions to root out foul play on screen, with contestants trained in unconscious bias and recognising coercive behaviour in the villa, and in an afford to equip them with some aftercare, lessons on how to handle their finances after they leave.

- Love Island has new rules, but not everyone got the memo, Independent.co.uk, June 15, 2023.

2. Workers have long subscribed to an unwritten office playbook, including not discussing wages with others and never telling your boss how you really feel about them – but Gen Z hasn’t got the memo.

Instead, the youngest generation to enter the workforce is opting to ring in an era of brutal honesty to the workplace – including telling their managers exactly what they’re doing wrong.

Adobe surveyed over 1,000 U.S. Gen Z workers – those born between 1997 and 2012 – who have been employed for up to three years and concluded that they’re “not shy about using their voice”.

In fact, nearly three-quarters of the young workers said they’re completely comfortable giving upward feedback to their supervisors. This jumps to 90% when it comes to dishing out criticism of their peers – and around the same percentage of respondents said they are comfortable with discussing their job satisfaction (or lack thereof) at work.

What’s more, the majority of respondents also said they didn’t mind talking about historically taboo topics like money, with nearly eight in 10 revealing that they are comfortable with talking about their wages.

…

Long gone are the days of working 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for one employer. Instead, Gen Z workers would rather work from 6 p.m. onwards and take on multiple contract gigs to cater work around their lifestyle. At the same time, they want stress free jobs with little responsibility, calling time on hustle culture.

Even the office chat is evolving to cater to young workers, with phrases like “menty b” and “cozzie livs” becoming ever more present in water-cooler conversations.

Although, it’s easy to write off the looming threat of a complete overhaul to workplace tradition while Gen Z still represents a relatively small minority group.

Ignoring these slow but steady changes to company culture could be a huge oversight, after all, Gen Z will make up 25% of the workforce by 2025.

- Gen Z workers aren’t afraid to broadcast their salary – or tell their boss what they think of them – new research shows, Fortune.com, October 3, 2023.

3. It has been quite the week for women closely associated with Donald Trump. While one gave testimony in a New York courthouse detailing how she allegedly spanked the former US president with a rolled-up magazine in a penthouse suite, another was booed in Congress as she tried – and failed – to oust the speaker of the House. (Yet another was forced to continue to defend killing her dog with a shotgun.)

The booee, and the focus of this column, was Marjorie Taylor Greene, the CrossFit-coach-turned-conspiracy-theorising-congresswoman from Georgia otherwise known as “MTG”. Just ten fellow Republicans backed her “motion to vacate” Mike Johnson from the speakership, a humiliating defeat.

“Moscow Marjorie has clearly gone off the deep end – maybe the result of a space laser,” one congressman told reporters. (The laser is a reference to Greene’s suggestion that California’s 2018 wildfires might have been caused by “space lasers” funded by the Rothschilds; “Moscow Marjorie” alludes to her opposition to military aid for Ukraine.) “Most of us, by the time we turn 12 years old, figure out that tantrums don’t actually work and apparently, not everybody in Congress has got the memo,” said another. “She’s uninformed, she is a total waste of time,” said a senior senator.

- Is Marjorie Taylor Greene too Maga for Trump? FT.com, May 12 2024.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：張欣  編輯：丹妮）