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Working healthcare, I tell all other healthcare / first responders "I hope you have a boring shift" (every once in a while a younger person objects, but they are almost immediately hushed / corrected by their senior coworker).

But it occurs to me that many office / sedentary workers might not find this to be a blessing. What would I say to a desk worker that might be equivalent?

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[-] EarWorm@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago

Working in maintenance, automation to be specific, and I always leave the site with "I hope I never see you again!" to the client.

[-] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago

I tell this to my Psych patients too (depending on rapport obvs).

[-] LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 day ago

What area of the world do you live in? In my neck of the woods wishing a "boring shift" or a "quiet shift" is considered a curse and will bring about all the crazy cases.

We typically wish each other a "safe shift" instead of a "quiet shift" here.

[-] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I would never say quiet, hence boring. Also reminds people that a shift that drags a little is better than an interesting one.

[-] bluesheep@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Working in a restaurant the word quiet will not leave my mouth as long as I'm working, and the moment someone else says it I know we're about to have a horrible shift

[-] JohnJohnJohn@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

"Hope there are no notes." Audio Post-production before client playbacks.

[-] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

I mean the classic is actors saying "break a leg" - which actors actually take very seriously.

[-] GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

One that my DM and I came up with was a common farewell in Orc and Hobgoblin culture. "Fight well!" "Die better!"

[-] Jerb322@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

"Don't let your knuckles be whiter than the clouds below you."

I climb communication towers, and let the new guys know not to over grip the tower. Trust in your harness.

[-] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

What's the downside of over gripping?

[-] Jerb322@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Muscle fatigue in the forearms and hands. And it also means, don't be scared. Trust your training and gear.

[-] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 1 points 4 minutes ago* (last edited 4 minutes ago)

Ah, makes sense! Perhaps a dumb question, but I was curious for an answer from someone with experience vs assuming, so thank you :)

[-] nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago

not at all qualified to answer but id imagine it tires your hands out worse which is a problem with the hundreds of rungs they need to climb

[-] Erusset@slrpnk.net 14 points 2 days ago

Not officially, but I've definitely said to coworkers "I hope your meetings are cancelled"

[-] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

good luck fuckface!

I worked in an ironworks and that's how most shifts greeted each other.

[-] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 38 points 2 days ago

May your code run on the second try. Because if it works the first time, that's suspicious. And if it fails the second time, that's frustrating.

[-] ProfessorScience@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago

Unless you didn't change anything. Then it's unsettling.

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[-] RustySharp@programming.dev 11 points 2 days ago

If it fails the second time, that's reproducibility.

If it fails randomly then starts working again the next day without any changes, that's when you get yourself a headache. And it took someone's wife, a year later, to figure out the failures only happen on Tuesdays.

[-] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago
[-] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

That was a FASCINATING read, thank you.

[-] solrize@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 days ago

Back in the Klingon Navy we just said "die with honor".

[-] Jarlsburg@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

One that I read that I found interesting is in the busking community is "fat hats!". Since they sometimes use a hat to collect donations, it's an expression that you hope they collect a lot of money.

[-] _deleted_@aussie.zone 24 points 2 days ago
  • Happy landings
  • Keep the blue side up
  • May you have fair weather and clear skies

Blue skies and safe landings.

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[-] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 18 points 2 days ago

One thing that was common in my EMS organization.

Don't say the 'Q' word!

Q=quiet. If you say 'it's a quiet night, you're sure to get slammed.

[-] lonefighter@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 days ago

I once told my EMT student that if he said "quiet" one more time I was throwing him off my truck and sending him home. He laughed. I was not joking. I'd been slammed all week and it was a pretty chill day and I needed the break.

Instead of telling co-workers goodbye in EMS, it's common to say "be safe"

[-] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 days ago

May you have no teacher dreams. Teacher dreams, common among teachers, generally have you going to class unprepared or having a class out of control.

[-] meco03211@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

Sounds a bit like server nightmares. You're fully aware you have gone home for the day and even in the midst of a good night's rest. But wait! Table eleven had asked for a side of Ranch and they are still there waiting for it all these hours later!

[-] tal@lemmy.today 14 points 2 days ago

Ha! Up until "table eleven", I was sure it was going to be an IT thing.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago

I've done both.

It's the same as realizing you swapped cables in ports 14 and 15 and they're gonna pull one tonight thinking it's the other.

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[-] sickday@fedia.io 18 points 2 days ago

Hope your Friday is read-only. Because no one wants to ship code changes on a Friday. (No one will be there on the weekend to babysit changes)

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[-] tal@lemmy.today 17 points 2 days ago

Not my line of work, but I think that acting's "break a leg" is a pretty oddball benediction.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 days ago

They have a bunch of weird superstitions. Like how you can't say the word "Macbeth" in a theatre. Something about whistling backstage too?

Also, the ghost light, which is a lamp on stage or back stage that they leave on 24/7 so ghosts can use the stage at night when everyone is gone. Or something.

[-] tal@lemmy.today 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Huh. Never heard of the ghost light thing. Neat! Thanks for sharing it!

Wikipedia says that it's got some weird traditions around it, but that it has a real safety rationale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_light_(theatre)

A ghost light is an electric light that is left energised on the stage of a theatre when the theatre is unoccupied and would otherwise be completely dark.

The practical use of a ghost light is for safety. A ghost light enables one to navigate the theatre to find the lighting control console and to avoid accidents such as falling into the orchestra pit and stepping on or tripping over set pieces.

The superstitious have various justifications for the ghost light in relation to the supernatural. A popular theatrical superstition holds that every theatre has a ghost, and some theatres have traditions to appease ghosts that reach far back into their history. For example, the Palace Theatre, London keeps two seats in its balcony permanently bolted open to provide seating for the theatre ghosts.

Many theatres that were forced to close during the COVID-19 pandemic renewed the tradition of ghost lights as a way of indicating the theatres would re-open.

EDIT: Actually, this is a good candidate for !wikipedia@lemmy.world. Gonna go submit it there!

[-] daychilde@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Whistling comes from when whistling was used to communicate to stagehands to lower and lift the various backdops that used sand bags as counterweights. Whistling could cause someone up in the grid to send something down that was heavy, injuring or killing people.

The thing about the Scottish play that you mentioned (which is what most theatre folks call it) is more of an actual superstition, but may well stem from the fact that the play has a lot in it that can cause injury if not done safely, so the thought is that a lot of productions of the play can feel cursed, so that turned into referencing the play feeling cursed.

[-] redhorsejacket@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Is the Scottish play superstition only for theaters which are currently rehearsing/performing that play, or is it an all-encompassing sort of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named situation, where the proper title is never utilized if it can be avoided?

[-] daychilde@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

The latter; and it's taken seriously by many, less seriously by many others. For some, they will never utter the name; others simply don't say it in a theatre. My wife is well into the second camp, and for example, while explaining it to kids in kids camp at the theatre, was quite willing to say the name.

For me, my main basically hard-and-fast rule is not saying it to actors or techs during rehearsals or productions, but that is mainly because for the ones who DO believe in it, it might make them nervous enough to actually do something that they would attribute to the curse. Placebos have real effects. :)

[-] redhorsejacket@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Fascinating. The first time I ran across the superstition was in a high school English class, in which the teacher would wheel out the TV and her Slings and Arrows dvds whenever she didn't want to do the lesson. I don't recall much (other than it being quite funny), but the "curse" of the play (and it's legitimacy) came up frequently over the course of one of the seasons.

[-] Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 days ago

“Hopefully we’ll see you back here in a bit.” - tacitly acknowledging that, uh, certain jobs and worksites have incredible danger and uncertainty attached to them.

[-] Zeppo@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 days ago

May your knife chip and shatter

[-] Fallibilist@feddit.uk 6 points 2 days ago

Can't think of one right now, but what it should be is "I hope all your tool batteries don't run empty at the same time"

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[-] CelloMike@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Woodworker - I'm careful complimenting a piece someone's midway on in the workshop, just in case I accidentally curse them to screw it up in the final moments

Fortunately it's not hard to touch wood just in case

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[-] daychilde@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Not a job (although it takes up more than 20 hours of my week), but we commonly say "Have a good treatment!" as a greeting/goodbye at dialysis (to other patients, of course).

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this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2026
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