The shift from Sarcasm to Sass

Lucie the sheep is sticking out her tongue while saying baaaa.

It's probably best to start by telling you that for me, this year has been all about learning and growing - both personally and professionally. It is 10 a.m. and even as I set out a couple hours ago to write this blog post, I've learned so much about the technology I use to write these posts (more on that in another post).

Funny backup story redirected to sass!

I originally thought todayā€™s post was going to be an incredibly ironic and funny story of how my team and I wasted quite a few hours yesterday because of a mistake I made that, gosh darn it, was easily preventable. As I reflect back, I could continue to beat myself up on the ā€œwastedā€ time, or I could choose to look at the fact that us all spending the time rebuilding the site back to where it was a few days ago gave me the inspiration and nudge on exactly how to write a post about my favorite tool to back up our WordPress sites, the importance of having backups of backups, AND a perfect unfolding of how to finish this blog post on sarcasm. BONUS!

So why did I shift from the funny backup story to this one? While starting to collect my thoughts about my approach to the funny backup story, I paused to catch up on text messages from the day before. Well, the Universe gave me one of those ā€œyou canā€™t make this shit upā€ moments to point me back to this blog post in the funniest of ways (read on)!

Choosing the post title

When I have an idea for a post, I often start with a bulleted list of potential blog post titles. I find it helpful for work-related posts to give my staff an easy way to vote on the title that most resonates with them. For personal posts, it allows me to ā€œsimmer the sentimentā€ until I get the clear direction on which way to go.

I had no idea HOW I wanted to talk about my shift from sarcasm when I wrote the first bullet on the list of ā€œpotential titlesā€ (which ended up being the only one on the list before I felt the inspiration to start writing). I only knew I needed to write a post on sarcasm because of a recent interaction I had with a dear friend.

What exactly is my shift from sarcasm?

Well, Version 1 of my Hot Mess post had this paragraph:

I was raised in a small town in the Ohio Valley, where it was normal to go out of our way to say mean things to each other. And while I've certainly been known for doing my fair share of cutting people down, it has taken me many years to get to the point where sarcasm is no longer part of my lexicon.

Iā€™ve come to realize that I just donā€™t enjoy sarcasm any more. I donā€™t enjoy receiving it and I donā€™t enjoy dishing it out. Something happened in January to bring awareness of just how much I donā€™t enjoy dishing it out.

As an example, my cousin and I have a long history of bantering sarcasm back and forth. Instinctively, I saw and immediately seized an opportunity to dive in with some strong sarcasm, calling out my cousinā€™s ā€œchirpingā€ (as I started calling some of her bantering). About 10 seconds after hitting send on the group text message, I distinctly remember the empty feeling of regret. I will not soon forget how many days I reflected upon that regret.

Gatekeepers of the mouth

I saved a meme of the three gatekeepers of the mouth years ago, because it really struck a chord with me. It is possible that pondering this sentiment before quickly responding is a possible formula for reducing the amount of sarcasm coming out of my mouth.

You canā€™t make this shit up!

Soā€¦ this morning at 1:39 a.m. my time, I received a text message from my niece with two pictures of sheep (one of them included here) with the text ā€œwhich sassy sheep do you prefer?ā€ It was at that moment that I KNEW this blog post was the next one to be written AND that there was no need to brainstorm any alternate titles. I canā€™t wait for my niece to read this post and for her to share a comment below on the thought process leading up to her asking me such an odd question today of all days!

If you would like to purchase this sassy sheep on a T-shirt from my niece, you can do so here.

Mike Wozniak

About the author

For more than 30 years, Mike Wozniak has used his passion for finding innovative ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of businesses through the use of technology to redefine the way things are done. Mike is the founder of SoftwareKey.com, a cutting-edge software licensing technology provider, and the inventor of ArrivalOSā„¢ and EnRouteā„¢ by Floqque, a Predictive Queuing Platform. When he isn't working, he likes to travel and do burpees! Why do burpees on vacation? Just Because He Can!

Mike Wozniak

  • Haha! Well the time difference explains why it showed up in the middle of the night…and as far as reasoning goes: I donā€™t have any explanation other than I thought the playful pun on Bye Felecia was worthy of illustration šŸ˜œ

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