He Aint Heavy... He's my Brother

I don’t know how it started, but everyone in my office uses the word “bro” to address the male colleagues and “sis” to address the female ones.

For an unsuspecting visitor, walking into our office might give them the impression that we are some ashram, an enclave of all the IT people who are seemingly “related” to each other. Or worse, that they have walked into some cult! *gasp*

The irony of this is that my company is pretty much a Taoist / Buddhist one, and there are not many Christians around. So no, I don’t think this started from the church going folk.

I might have written about this before, but I’m one of those people who do not use the word “bro” carelessly. For me, its an affectionate term for the select few whom I consider “family”. People whom you value as closer than normal friends, whom you trust their counsel, whom you rely on.

Ok, I am guilty of using the term carelessly once in awhile. I do use it to address some of the help, like waiters in a prata shop, the postman… but clearly, I do not mean it when I call them “brother”. Its just something I use to catch their attention. (much like a-neh, baiyi, abang)

And so, which is the point of this post, I’m getting increasingly irritated at my internal office emails, which start with “Hi Bro” or end with “Thanks Bro”.

I’m not your “bro”! And you aren’t mine either! Nor are you my “sis”, my “uncle”, or my “bitch”!

And the shitty thing is, I always address my colleagues by name, and they always reply with calling me “bro”! Grr…