Awwwwwwk­ward.

“Ask EDW” is your oppor­tu­nity to ask ques­tions directly to Chair­man and CEO EDW Lynch.* If you have a ques­tion, please con­tact us!

*or his autho­rized sig­na­to­ries and assigns

THE QUESTION:
What is a Moment of Awk­ward­nesss?
–J., Port­land, Oregon

THE ANSWER:

J., thanks for this great ques­tion. A lot of peo­ple want to know more about the term “Moment of Awk­ward­ness,” or MOA.  First of all, it’s noth­ing to be afraid of. Moments of Awk­ward­ness are a nat­ural and reg­u­lar byprod­uct of EDW Lynch social oper­a­tions. Social awk­ward­ness is a core com­pe­tency of the EDW Lynch brand, and we strongly believe it is part of the manglomerate’s intrin­sic charm, much in the same way that moldi­ness makes blue cheese so irresistible.

There are sev­eral cat­e­gories of MOAs. The most com­mon are:

• A misunderstanding–joke or obscure reference.
• Roman­tic intent (unexpected)
• Social gaffe

An MOA can range in sever­ity from mild to extremely awk­ward.  EDW Lynch uses the met­ric “Awks per Meter” mea­sure­ment (Awks/M), rang­ing from 1.0 to 11.0 Awks/M. Most MOAs are mild, rat­ing at less than 3.0 Awks/M. Should an MOA exceed that thresh­old, two things will hap­pen: we dis­close the MOA via our pub­lic edw­lynchcm twit­ter account and we dis­patch our Awk­ward Mit­i­ga­tion Team (AMT).

The Awk­ward Mit­i­ga­tion Team
In 2005 EDW Lynch formed the Awk­ward Mit­i­ga­tion Team. The AMT con­sists of a 24 hour on-call team of pro­fes­sion­als: lawyers, cri­sis man­agers, coun­selors, and dat­ing experts.  Once an MOA has been detected, the AMT is dis­patched to assess and respond. Very often a bit of edu­ca­tion goes a long way in mit­i­gat­ing a moment of awk­ward­ness. Usu­ally a mis­un­der­stand­ing can be cleared up, or an obscure pop cul­ture ref­er­ence explained. On rare occa­sions, the MOA is so severe that the recip­i­ent may need to be coun­seled by our pro­fes­sion­als or their Part­ner Man­age­ment dat­ing or Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ friend account may need to be terminated.

Once the Awk­ward Mit­i­ga­tion Team has responded to the Moment of Awk­ward­ness, an SR1090 MOA Report is issued and filed for fur­ther study.

Social awk­ward­ness is part of doing busi­ness with EDW Lynch. It’s our respon­si­bil­ity to respond to and mit­i­gate these MOA’s with all of our cor­po­rate resources. And I assure you, nobody is more advanced in the cre­ation and mit­i­ga­tion of social awk­ward­ness than the EDW Lynch Cor­po­rate Manglomerate.

EDW Lynch

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.…..Ladies?

THE QUESTION:
What is the Let­ter of Roman­tic Intent?
–J., Port­land, Oregon

THE ANSWER:
Great ques­tion. The Let­ter of Roman­tic Intent is a legal doc­u­ment which expresses my roman­tic inter­est to a girl in clear con­tract language.

In 2009, the man­glom­er­ate expe­ri­enced a series of moments of awk­ward­ness due to what we call a roman­tic inter­est mis­match. In layman’s terms a mis­match occurs between two peo­ple when one party has roman­tic intent and the other does not. Obvi­ously if one party (we’ll say EDW Lynch) acts on his roman­tic intent with say, a kiss attempt, and the other party (we’ll say an adorable yoga instructor/ukulele musi­cian) was not expect­ing and does not wel­come this action, then we have a severe moment of awkwardness.

The Part­ner Man­age­ment (dat­ing) Divi­sion and our legal depart­ment held a series of meet­ings to find a way to pre­vent these MOAs from occur­ring. The result of these meet­ings is the Let­ter of Roman­tic Intent.

In broad strokes the LRI clearly dis­closes EDW Lynch’s roman­tic inter­est in the girl in ques­tion. It explains the dif­fer­ences between a friend­ship with EDW Lynch and a roman­tic rela­tion­ship (or “Part­ner­ing Oppor­tu­nity.”) It dis­closes the like­li­hood of moments of awk­ward­ness as a result of future roman­tic efforts. A neu­tral medi­a­tor is iden­ti­fied, should EDW Lynch say or do any­thing to the girl in ques­tion that is con­fus­ing and requires expla­na­tion. And finally, should the Part­ner­ing Oppor­tu­nity fail, the Ter­mi­na­tion process is clearly out­lined for both parties.

The Let­ter of Roman­tic Intent brings the clar­ity and fair­ness of con­tract law into roman­tic rela­tion­ships. It’s just another social inno­va­tion from the EDW Lynch Cor­po­rate Manglomerate.

So if you receive the Let­ter read it care­fully and run it by your attor­ney. Should you elect to sign it, you’ll be rewarded with the unique delights and chal­lenges of dat­ing EDW Lynch.

See Also: A sam­ple Let­ter of Roman­tic Intent

EDW Lynch

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