# "If you think about it..." "oh just GTF out of here" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 28, 2006, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447 "2006-06-28T04:27:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![deevee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@deevee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deevee)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/41 "2006-06-28T22:55:00Z")
I’m guessing the OP has more plastic pocket protectors than friends. With your winning ways you should be teaching. You’d have even stupider people to fuel your rants. ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/42 "2006-06-29T00:35:33Z")
I’ve tried three times on two different computers (at work and at home) to read the OP, and my eyes still cross every time. Which if you really think about it, isn’t a very good thing… ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/43 "2006-06-29T00:48:48Z")
> [@Ensign Edison](#): > > Can someone tell me what it is the guy thought the OP should think about so I can judge who the real asshole is? I was going to ask _you_ if he ever got around to saying it. I guess he didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/44 "2006-06-29T01:14:35Z")
Much vitriol, little conveyance of the meaning behind it. Credit for the imagery, though: Who else has ever invoked precambrian molluscs (and sabretoothed ones at that!)? I give it about a 3.5 ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/45 "2006-06-29T02:35:36Z")
I can’t figure out how to **gasp** a concept, and I don’t understand what you’re saying here either. I’m sure there are a number of wonderfully punctuated and coherent sentences in this rant, but I leave them for a more talented Doper than I to pick out. ---
**Author:** ![kevegan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e68b1a/32.png) [@kevegan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevegan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/46 "2006-06-29T03:49:22Z")
Got to take your hat off to a guy who can get 45 responses to something that scarcely anyone admits to reading. Mind you, responding to someone you’re not listening to is always that much more fun. ---
**Author:** ![Roland\_Orzabal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@Roland\_Orzabal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roland_Orzabal)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/47 "2006-06-29T06:39:30Z")
It’s at times like this, after reading the OP’s rant, that I contemplate in quiet reflection the misquoted words of Thom Yorke: _Comma police Arrest this man He talks in maths, he buzzes like a fridge He’s like a detuned radio…_ ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/48 "2006-06-29T07:12:11Z")
I once saw an engineer use either that phrase, or one very similar, when talking to the machinist milling his part. The look of “I’m going to pull your pancreas through your nostrils” coming from the machinist was priceless. He told the engineer, and I’m paraphrasing here, “You’re a smart guy, maybe you heard of this other smart guy with a cat. He said something about not knowing where exactly his cat was. Your design makes me think you should find his cat, then ask it what to do. [sub]Dumbass[/sub]” I guess his tolerances were way off, and his notes contradicted his specified dimensions. I got two sentences into the third paragraph. Meh. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/49 "2006-06-29T14:42:12Z")
I don’t have a CLUE what that whole cat business is about. That makes no sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/50 "2006-06-29T14:44:49Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > I don’t have a CLUE what that whole cat business is about. That makes no sense to me. I believe he is referring to Shroedinger (Sorry, I’m too lazy to look up the spelling.) ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/51 "2006-06-29T18:08:30Z")
**NaturalBlondChap** - Your post would be better, by at least twicer If you learned to write nicer ---
**Author:** ![Aholibah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Aholibah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aholibah)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/52 "2006-06-29T20:58:31Z")
Like the others here, I had a tough time following this rant. But I thought I detected the inklings of both sense and potential entertainment value hidden beneath that wreckage of haphazard punctuation and phrasing. So, I hope you don’t mind, **Chap** , but I took the liberty of imposing some order and structure on your rant. In so doing, I came to understand it better, and, I think, appreciate it more. I post my results here, so that others might have a second chance to judge your work. > [@](#): > > “If you think about it.” > > Just fuck right off, dumpbrain! What kind of fetid ring piece ever uses that phrase in any kind of normal discussion? > > So there we were in a design review and, after a short presentation by Junior Squirrel, some feedback is provided, to which dearest rodent retorts, “Well, if you think about it . . . [Insert justification for thinking process that would have a precambrian mollusc rolling its frigging eyeballs skywards (if it had eyes. Well, ok, large sabre teeth then)].” > > “If you think about it” basically posits that the other party has not thought about it at all, and maybe does not posses the mental faculties to grasp apparently simple concepts that even a terminal syphilitic monkey with the mental agility equivalent to a three-legged donkey with a hard-on strapped down to its hind leg could comprehend. > > “If you think about it.” > > Of course I fucking thought about it! > > OK. So I can understand that you may believe I don’t possess an iota of a clue, and that others of my ilk are so closely related to decapitated reptiles as to be unable to grasp the finer points of your astoundingly poor work. I can accept that. I’ve got thick skin, part of the territory, and all. > > However, WTF, WTF, WTFinginallthatissacredF! How did you even think that this was a good phrase to use to the other three engineers there?? Three people who have experience, intelligence, minds just oh-so-sharper than yours and, above all – just so stratospherically and incandescently high above all – grace and respect. > > “How so?” you may ask with that “I just graduated from ‘total-fucking-liability’ status to ‘fabulously-dangerous-if-left-unattended’ status” superior look on your face. > > Allow me to try to explain. After you finished your exposition, they paused, thought, and then, managed to refrain from exclaiming, “Oh, dear God! You mindless twerp, did we really have to sit through an hour of this shit to find out that either: > > A) you have suffered a rectal prolapse and are trying to pass the deposits off as a design study; > > B) you actually are a bushy tailed vermin (I know we call junior engineers ‘squirrels’ in a friendly fashion, but is it possible that the apparent alert look in your eyes and all the dashing around you did that we thought were signs of intelligence and keenness were, in reality, just indications that you had forgotten where you had put your winter store of nuts?); or > > C) you failed to review basic engineering principles and, clearly, in your universe the laws of physics have stepped out for a long smoke of something heavy; and did you even bother to do a literature search to find out that others with significantly more intelligence have tried similar approaches and found that success popped out to join the LOP for a hefty toke?” > > Did they say these things? No, they did not. Suggestions to work through some of the numbers outside the meeting as perhaps they might have missed something? Yes. Pointers to some similar papers that you may find relevant? Yes. Attempts to publicly humiliate you, and suggestions and similes involving your mental capabilities, donkeys’ erections, amputated limbs and duct tape? Notably absent. > > So, in the name of all that is untainted by your gross crassness, why, oh why, do you feel the need to call everybody a fuckwit with three mentions in dispatches and a bar of that one little phrase: “If you think about it?” > > The only thing you are demonstrating is that you don’t have the mental capacity to pause for a minute and actually consider what was said, outside of your limited grasp of the situation at hand, and that you could not escape from your rigid and limited view of the world long enough to understand that maybe, just maybe, what was said had merit. Perhaps it is another way of approaching or describing the issue; maybe you should consider who they are and take on board an idea or two; perhaps there is an inkling of a clue in there. Even if the person you feel the need to say this to clearly has got the wrong end of the stick or clearly has not appreciated the full scope of the problem, how the hell is calling them a total fuckwit to their face going to motivate or help in the situation? If you want to call someone a rectocranially-inverted, lobotomized ferret, then just out right with it! Don’t dress it up in a pathetic attempt to feign politeness. > > “If you think about it.” > > A phrase as tactful as squeezing the pustules of my ingrown toenail into their cup of coffee. > > One day, chipmunch, you may be useful. Hell, you could shortly rise to (as the great man puts it) “mostly-harmless” status! And one day you may make it to be a good – nay, I predict --excellent engineer ranking. > > That is assuming of course you learn some of the grace, tact and politeness demonstrated by your mentors and peers. Should you choose to use the phrase “if you think about it” again, I swear I will make a paper mache 10-inch dildo out of a shredded copy of the field engineering design manual and force you to deep throat it until you gag and expire on the knowledge contained within. > > I understand that this is not an appropriate motivational technique, guaranteed to enhance certain desired behaviours. Drucker, Roach and all the other gurus probably disapprove, and adult learning specialists may question the effectiveness of ingesting the preworked examples contained within. Hell, HR may even make me undergo “motivating the employee for excellence” training again. But – help me please dear Pit – help me understand why in the name of all creatures that have opposable thumbs do people need to be told that this phrase is just simply not ever – not even fucking maybe ever – a good phrase to let past one’s lips? > > Then, oh then just too soon later, what the hell did the goat-abusing, bile-felching, rectal mucus lining of a sales manager say in a discussion with three client experts? There we were, just trying to work through a particularly intractable problem that we may or may not have had a solution for, and what does the spongiform-enchepelitic-brained rat’s woody say to them?? I could have leapt across the table, torn out his wind pipe and poured burning oil down his throat! (This would have helped two fold, by providing some recompense for the recently insulted clients and by serving as a human torch to be used to light our way through the dark corners of the problem.) > > “If you think about it.” > > A phrase with fewer redeeming values than a Wookie’s furry cum repository, and applied in professional situations by people who deserve to spend eternity sucking the marmite-covered scrotal sacks of some of Satan’s less hygienic little helpers. > > If it would please the court of the Pit, I request admission for this phrase and those who use it, that may they be sodomized by rabid goats for eternity. That, or I better shuffle off to MPSIMS. > > The case for the prosecution rests. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/53 "2006-06-29T21:09:58Z")
**Aholibah** , it’s a bit of a nitpick, but the rules of quoting require that words within attributed quote tags not be changed beyond fair use standards. In the case of changing someone’s words to make a point, unattributed quote tags should be used, or with a clear attribution describing what you’re doing. I went ahead and removed the attribution. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/54 "2006-06-29T21:28:33Z")
Well, OK, I guess I get that, but…WTF? Why would he ask Schroedinger’s cat about his building plan? That sounds like a really awkward and unwieldy line even if it did make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/55 "2006-06-29T21:35:38Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > Well, OK, I guess I get that, but…WTF? Why would he ask Schroedinger’s cat about his building plan? That sounds like a really awkward and unwieldy line even if it did make sense. Well, what do you expect from a machinist? They’re all dumb. \ ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/56 "2006-06-29T21:45:51Z")
> [@Lazlo](#): > > Okay, now I’m starting to feel insecure. I was able to breeze through the OP without any issues and was actually quite entertained. Now _I’m_ feeling insecure - I consider myself a very good reader, and I am just completely not interested in wading through the OP (even your thoughtful rendition, **Aholibah** ). Maybe it’s just too long. Ooh, shiny! ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/57 "2006-06-29T21:47:07Z")
And I don’t understand about the sabre teeth on pre-cambrian molluscs, either. ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/58 "2006-06-29T22:08:17Z")
It’s strange, the OP actually resists being read. It is like it gives off cosmic rays of distraction making even a floating piece of lint more interesting. By the second paragraph it required an iron will to forge ahead. I didn’t make it to the third. This did give me an idea though. If we could get the OP to write all of our secret documents then we would no longer have to worry about security. We could just put them all out in the public domain and not have to worry about anybody reading them, or at least not understanding what they are about. It is a whole new field of cryptology! ---
**Author:** ![Aholibah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Aholibah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aholibah)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/59 "2006-06-29T22:28:31Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > **Aholibah** , it’s a bit of a nitpick, but the rules of quoting require that words within attributed quote tags not be changed beyond fair use standards. In the case of changing someone’s words to make a point, unattributed quote tags should be used, or with a clear attribution describing what you’re doing. I went ahead and removed the attribution. **Giraffe** , thanks for the gentle reminder. I was aware of that rule, but didn’t take into consideration its bearing on my little copy-editing project. I intended no malice toward the OP, and I will go forth and try to sin no more. ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2006, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447/60 "2006-06-29T23:00:39Z")
Wow. I got about three quarters of the way through this time, before my brain started to melt out of my ears. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-think-about-it-oh-just-gtf-out-of-here/362447.md?page=4)