What cringey phrases are common in your workplace?

[Soubriquet]

Mine seems to favour

“Smash this”

Makes me internally shudder everytime I see I written. And it’s wrote a lot

"On an exceptions basis"

"One source of truth"

"Going forward"

I hate that one

Urgh. Going forward.

I also hate - Mind Map.

Going forward

Due diligence

As per ....then using peoples initials instead of full name

Paperwork exercise

Ah yes.

We get going forward

To make it worse

So, going forward, we are going to smash this!

Someone in our office regularly says “solutionise”.

The new new normal.. or currently the new, new new normal!

That will really move the needle 🤦🏻‍♀️

Thought leaders I work with academics. Every time I hear I think of thoughtcrime and nineteen eighty four

‘In the (insert word) space’. Not sure when it came from but I wish it would bugger off back!

Run this up the flagpole (try something out)

Talk to the slides
Does not mean what it sounds like it does

"Circle back", "Top of mind" and most recently "good financial hygiene". Hate them all.

So glad I'm not in the workplace any more.
”Flying a kite here”
We also had team huddles every morning where we stood by the water cooler and were told what we had achieved yesterday while we were wondering just when we would be able to actually do some work.

They spent far more time discussing what we were doing, where we were and if we had achieved than we actually did working!

Unwrapping the parcel/undoing the envelope
Can do approach
It’s a marathon not a sprint

I like "going forward". It's a useful way to redirect people who are dissecting the past to no benefit or have gone off on a tangent.

I might steal "solutionise" because that's amusing and I bet everyone I work with would be too polite to say anything.

If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.

It's my boss's favourite phrase and it makes me want to throw things.

'At the close/end of play' makes my foot itch.

You might be playing, I'm working. Sod off.

Close of play

Agile working (in practice, this means entering the office, getting your laptop and other equipment out of your locker, walking around trying to find a spare desk, setting everything up, then finally starting work in the din of an open plan office)

"Bottom it out"

Another vote for "going forward". What's wrong with "from now on"?

"Gold standard" (usually meaning the most expensive option not necessarily the best and often no evidence base to back it up)

"We have to be seen to be doing x" ... more important than actually doing x.

"class base"
WTF is wrong with "classroom"? Because that is what we have. With walls and windows and a door.

Class base sounds like a Nissen hut with a barbed-wire compound round it.

So many... "it is what it is", "let's get our ducks in a row", "we don't want a bun fight over this"

Oh I'm guilty of "close of play" sometimes
I promise to stop.