It’s one of those days at work where those empty corporate phrases are flying around without mercy. You know, when people talk like a Power Point deck.
In the elevator this morning, I heard two self-important guys discussing “the opportunities to realize our synergies and gain greater efficiencies.” Seriously.
Uh, you mean, get your teams together?
Then, at a meeting, someone asked me if I would “own the construct of the phraseology.”
So you want me to write the memo?
Or shall we brainstorm it first and then do a deep dive? Then I could identify all of the key watch-outs and put the learnings into buckets before I circle back. That would allow me to level set so that we’ll all be able to hit the ground running and optimize our resources.
Then we can all go back to BAU (business as usual).
What corporate lingo drives you bananas?
I too find it ridiculous, but I have more adverse reactions to specific words like “robust” and “utilize.” Just say use! On a conf call one time, I made a list of all the nonsensical things people said. I’m going to have to dig that out and circle back.
Here’s my hit list (although I’m sure I’ve been an offender at times):
“bandwidth” – Working in technology, this term is applied to everything except actual bandwidth. It shouldn’t be. Using this out of context never helped anyone sound cooler.
“a leading provider of …” – It irks me how this is overused. Yet people keep adding it in there even though it has been rendered meaningless. It’s a pretty far cry from a leading approach to a sentence.
“out-of-pocket” — I have hated this since the first time I heard the 22-year-old nephew of the CEO of a large agency that I used to work for blurt it out to describe why “his client” was unavailable. “He’s out-of-pocket tomorrow.” It wasn’t my first (or last) brush with nepotism, but this kid was really too much. Zero talent. Stupid catch phrases to fill in the blanks. Caveat: I can sort of accept this when describing costs — but people who are unavailable? Nothing doing.
Hope you are well. I’ve enjoyed the blog! Best to your family.
I can’t believe I forgot “out of pocket”!! Huge offender. I hear it constantly.
Great to hear from you and thanks for reading — hope you are well!
This is such corporate speak, I’ve actually never heard most of these! I don’t have a clue what out-of-pocket means. I mean, apparently it means someone isn’t available, but … what does it have to do with pockets?
It kind of blows my mind that people really talk like this. I wonder if it’s in the same in academia and I just don’t notice it.
(By the way, I started reading your blog when you linked to it from FB, and I am enjoying it! I’ve linked to my blog here, but I haven’t updated it in months. Basically I stopped when I was pregnant and oh so tired, and now I just can’t seem to find the time to get back to it. Maybe one day…)
So your blog has been out of pocket, then?
Thanks for reading, and hope all is going well with the family!
you forgot “at the end of the day” and “let’s take this offline” Love your blogs!
Thanks Lisa! Good ones — can’t believe I forgot those. I will hear them soon enough 🙂