Office worker’s habitual disclaimer fails, for the fourteenth consecutive time, to precede a point worth making
MANCHESTER – Colleagues of local office worker Adrian Fenwick confirmed this week that his frequent use of the phrase just saying has, in fourteen consecutive documented instances, failed to precede any statement containing genuine informational, emotional or practical value.
Fenwick, 41, a project coordinator at a mid-sized logistics firm, reportedly deploys the phrase an average of six times per working day, most commonly immediately before or after a comment colleagues describe as either already obvious, entirely unrelated to the matter at hand, or simply untrue.
The pattern documented
HR representative Deborah Okonkwo-Price, who compiled the informal log at colleagues’ request, said the phrase appeared to function primarily as a kind of verbal insurance policy, allowing Fenwick to state something while simultaneously declining responsibility for having stated it.
Recent examples logged by the department include just saying, the printer has been making that noise for a while, delivered eleven minutes after the printer had already been repaired, and just saying, some people prefer email over Slack, addressed to no one in particular during a fire drill.
A broader phenomenon
This paper’s coverage of British passive-aggressive phrases has previously catalogued several similar constructions, though researchers say just saying occupies a distinct category, offering no actual criticism, compliment or information, merely the suggestion that one might have been intended.
Okonkwo-Price noted the phrase appears to be entirely involuntary at this stage, with Fenwick reportedly unaware he uses it at all until the log was read back to him in a scheduled one-to-one meeting.
Fenwick’s response
Reached for comment, Fenwick said he found the log somewhat unfair, just saying, before adding that he did not think it was that big a deal, just saying, and that people were probably reading too much into it, just saying.
What happens next
The department has agreed to continue monitoring the phrase informally, though Okonkwo-Price admitted she was not entirely sure what outcome the log was meant to produce, just saying.
Colleagues weigh in further
Several colleagues interviewed for the informal log said they had initially assumed the phrase carried some hidden meaning they were simply failing to grasp, before eventually concluding, after careful and repeated observation, that no such meaning existed and had likely never existed at any point.
Marketing coordinator Priya Deshmukh said she had begun silently counting each instance during team meetings specifically to pass the time, and that her tally now exceeded two hundred separate occurrences recorded across just the current quarter alone.
A workplace-wide reckoning
News of the log has reportedly spread to at least two other departments, both of which have now begun their own informal tallies of similarly meaningless verbal tics among their own staff, with one team reporting a colleague who prefaces nearly every statement with to be fair, despite rarely following it with anything resembling balance or context.
Okonkwo-Price said HR had no current plans to formally address the phenomenon, describing it instead as a fascinating, if mildly draining, feature of contemporary office life that was probably best simply endured.
A closing note from the log
The most recent entry, recorded on Thursday afternoon, reads simply just saying, the biscuits in the kitchen are running low, a statement colleagues confirmed was, unusually, both true and mildly useful, prompting brief internal debate about whether it should be excluded from the tally altogether.
The department has agreed to revisit the tally at the end of the quarter, though nobody involved seems especially confident the pattern will have changed by then, just saying.