Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
I didn't bother responding to this at the time, but since I ran into a person at work recently who REFUSES TO STAY IN HIS LANE, I figured I'd go back and address it.
Before BR mentioned it, I had never heard "Stay in your lane" interpreted to mean "avoid curiosity" or responsibility or ownership, or "don't make waves" or anything like that. In fact, as a metaphor, when a driver refuses to stay in their lane, they cause disruptions and accidents and are a problem to those around them. And that's always how I heard and interpreted the expression.
We have a dude at work who apparently is trying to get management attention, so he's interfering in tasks that are not his responsibility, inserting himself into other team's projects, and trying to manage things that are NOT his job to manage, and, by all other accounts, were getting along fine without him, and were not in need of anyone stepping in to rescue. He's not a whistleblower, or a white knight stepping in to save the day by doing what needs to be done. He's just an ambitious jerk who unilaterally decided he can do other people's jobs better than they can, and so he should just step in and do them. He needs to stay in lane.
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Well, hell....maybe I've misunderstood it, then. I've never thought of it as "avoid curiosity" or don't ask questions, etc.
I understood it to mean quite simply don't exceed your authority and don't try to tell other people in different fields of endeavor (or with expertise in something else)
how to do their jobs. "Don't get up in my grill," in other words, if someone is trying to tell you how to do your job, when there's no chance that they themselves know.
I never thought it meant "don't rock the boat."
Does it? (As the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood of Chapterhouse
une said, "[r]eal boats rock.")
Hitch