The 6 things everyone's heard someone say in the last 24 hours.

Today you probably did something very silly, and went ahead and asked someone how they were going.

No.

It’s the wrong time of year for that nonsense. 

They inevitably began yelling, while waving their hands furiously above their head: “BUSY, busy, busy, BuSy, bUsY… BUSYBUSYSYBUSYUSYSBUYS, BUSY I’M SO BUSY DO YOU UNDERSTAND OR NO.”

Holy goodness Ma’am, please. I was simply trying to be polite. 

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It’s not that I don’t believe people are busy. I have no doubt that “work has just been madness” during the “final stretch” and everyone just needs to “get through this week and things will calm down”.

It’s just that we’ve all been having exactly the same conversations for a month now and it’s time for us to acknowledge it.

Here are the five things you’ve most certainly heard someone say in the last 24 hours.

        1. “Just limping to the finish line!”

Why is that once we enter December everyone starts speaking exclusively in sporting analogies?

People started referring to the ‘finish line’ in late November which is – I think we can all agree – far too early.

Offices around the country are filled with people dawdling to the toilet and back, and giving themselves pep talks before they do the most basic of tasks.

Meetings are silent. Lunch breaks are… longer. Alarms are snoozed.

How are we still at work it’s been ending for 19 days now.

        2. “Where did the year go!!?!!!?”

WHERE INDEED.

Posed as a genuine question, it’s unclear how anyone is expected to answer this frankly ridiculous query.

You see, the nature of time is such that every minute you live is shorter than the next, simply because of its proportion.

Think about it. When you’re five, one year makes up one fifth of your life. That’s such a long time! Christmas is so rare!

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But when you’re fifty, one year is only two per cent of your life, meaning it feels shorter. Christmas will keep coming faster and faster until you die.

Something tells me, however, that that’s not the answer people are looking for.

So, yeah. 2019 did go particularly fast. Weird!

      3. “Nah. I seriously need to give up alcohol.”

We’ve not even reached Christmas. Or New Year’s Eve. And already a bunch of people are a little bit sick of drinking.

There was the work Christmas party. And then farewell drinks. And then dinner at your mate’s house. And then a family Christmas. And then it was Tuesday and I guess we just drink every day now?

      4. “What a year…” Followed by a deep exhale and slow shake of the head.

Did you… did you… kill someone?

Everyone appears to have been through some shit in 2019, which they’re not particularly interested in divulging. Instead, they just laugh knowingly to themselves, and mumble about how 2020 will be different.

One minute, everyone’s going on about how quickly this year went and the next they’re overwhelmed by how much has happened since this time in 2018.

“It feels like a lifetime ago…” they say while looking into the distance, and seriously, did you kill someone?

       5. “I’M SO BUSY I CAN’T BREATHE.”

There are few things less productive than no longer breathing.

No one can even DEAL with how busy they are at this time of year… but they’ve been saying how busy they are all year… so now they have to find language to reflect how they were busy before but definitely even more busy now.

“I’m all over the place.”

“I’m just slammed/swamped at work at the moment.”

“Work’s just been mad.”

“I’m so busy that I haven’t urinated in a week and a half.”

       6. “We’ll revisit that in the new year.”

Everything.

Everything that most of us need to do before work finishes for the year will definitely still be waiting for us at our desks in 2020 because we cannot be f*cked.

You can’t even begin a sentence at work anymore without someone interrupting: “WE’LL ADDRESS IT IN THE NEW YEAR, YOU HEAR ME.”

We’ve all just had enough.

Oh… and have we mentioned how busy we are?

Feature image: Getty.