"Slice the salami before you swallow it"- Is this just a proverbial saying or creepy?

[questionzzz]

I was in an inter-agency workplace meeting, just me and a guy from a partner agency, meeting in his office. First time meeting this person, only joined this workplace a few months ago. In the context of discussing budget shortfalls for next year, funding, grants blah blah, he says: "you have to slice the salami before you swallow it", accompanied by a gesture of tilting his head back, raising his hand above his mouth and miming lowering a -er salami- into his mouth. I said "excuse me?" and he said "you know, it's an old saying, slicing the salami before you swallow it", accompanied by the same gesture.

huh? Is this an actual saying- have any of you ever heard of it? My brain somehow won't let this go- it happened two weeks ago, and I'm meeting him again this week (with another female colleague). It felt creepy, but maybe I'm just dirty-mined or oversensitive?

I have never seen it done with the 'sword swallowing' gesture, but I have heard it on US TV shows (? Sopranos or similar NY Italian). It's the same as 'not biting off more than you can chew' or 'not running before you can walk'. It sounds as if the hand gestures make it, well, odd.

I've never heard that before, no, but unless he makes a habit of saying/doing questionably offensive things, I'd probably give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he didn't realize how strange his gesture looked... Sometimes people can be oblivious to things like that.

Just this weekend, I realized that my husband thought "fugly" meant "fun and ugly" or "funny and ugly" (as in a dog that's "so ugly it's cute"). It might have been awkward for him if he'd used the word inappropriately in public.

I googled the quote and came up with a free webinar from this 'American business guru' : [https://www.briantracy.com/blog/leadership-success/slice-and-dice-the-task/ Brian Tracy ]] so it may be that your colleague has been doing some self-improvement on the cheap!

Brian Tracy

I’ve never heard of it, but all sayings are ‘made up’ at some point so if it makes sense then no problem!

Never heard of it either, I don't know about it being creepy though, in what way?

Sounds like 'how do you eat an elephant' which I hear all the time at work.

Is it along the lines of "how do you eat an elephant? // In small chunks?"

By creepy, I guess I mean inappropriate for a workplace meeting.

I fully understood the "slice into smaller tasks" metaphor, and the point he was trying to get across - I just found the salami/swallow (and anyway, who swallows a salami??), accompanied by the hand gesture a bit inappropriate. But I accept I could be overthinking it.

Back in the early 2000s I used to work in a European-based agency where inappropriate sexual innuendo was the norm, think Mad-men-lite. The director of the agency eventually had to resign due to slapping female colleagues' behinds too many times (I'm not exaggerating- I could provide links to the media furore, but it would be outing). Since then I have worked in mostly female-dominated environments. So it may be that I am over-sensitive, or out of touch.

I've never heard the saying either.

In the context of budgets, I would use 'salami slice' to mean that you cut all budgets by a small amount in order to achieve the required savings, rather than making big cuts to one budget and leaving the rest as they are.

I have obviously misunderstood the meaning of 'fugly' too!

nope, never heard that one before, also it sounds gross.

Could it be a (dodgy ?) translation of an original from another language ?

He was a native English speaker.

I've never heard it before, but I can see the meaning of the saying.

I think I'd be a bit weirded out by the gesture though!

He was a native English speaker.

But may have heard it elsewhere ? (It doesn't ring as Italian, but my DF had loads of dialect sayings).

That said, as a native English speaker it does sound a bit ... offish.

I think he was a dick, trying to make his friends laugh at your expense

I don't get why he didn't mimic slicing a salami since that's what he was getting at? I'd think he was a weirdo!

Are you saying you found it... hard to swallow?

I'll get my coat.