One of my close friends was recently iterating a story of what happened in a meeting at his office. He was talking with his boss and said something to the effect of "I guess we should sweep this under the table" to which his boss retorted "WHAT table?" Days later neither of us can think of a good response to that question and we're two pretty sharp individuals. It got me thinking that this was really an ingenious way of thinking on the part of his boss and may in fact be one of the secrets of making it into upper management. Don't attack the argument. Don't attack the point of view. Don't attack the facts. Don't attack the person. All these things can be responded to and refuted. Attack the metaphor. There is no comeback. One of my friends at work and I have been busily attacking metaphors and we're quickly moving our way up the corporate ladder. Examples:

• Let's start off with a clean slate. WHAT slate?
• Let's pick up the pieces. WHAT pieces?
• Let's close the gap. WHAT gap?
• It's a new ballgame. WHAT ballgame?

You should attack some metaphors today. It'll make you feel better!

Whilst I'm being cynical, I thought of a really good answer to the question "What do you think of my girlfriend?" if a friend is asking you and you really don't like the girl he's seeing. You should say "I think she would make a wonderful ex-girlfriend." That's also a pretty good conversation killer now that I think about it.

I almost forgot to mention that one of my best gal pals, Jess, just got engaged too! Her and I almost got engaged at the same time. I'm not sure if that's called a cross-engagement or a dual-engagement or what, but either way I'm pretty sure it's good. Congrats Jess!