Reaching out

[Icimoi]

I'm dealing with someone at work who never says that he'll contact someone, speak to them, phone them, email them etc - he always says he will reach out to them, or asks them to reach out to him. When he does it with me I find it hard to keep a straight face. I've noticed it occasionally with other people. Where on earth has this nonsense come from?

He's a cock. Plain and simple.

Anyone else get emails from the US that are urgent marked 'RUSH'? Wtaf?

Anyone else get emails from the US that are urgent marked 'RUSH'? Wtaf?

I live and work in the US and no I don't get emails that are marked 'RUSH'...

wobbly maybe one person in our US office started doing it and then everyone else thought it looked cool so they copied?! I didn't know what they were getting at at first, I thought maybe it was a project name

I was at a meeting last week where we were invited to "meet by the sandpit" or some such poo. I think we were supposed to exchange ideas in an informal manner. I have NO idea. (Oh, the meeting was in a theatre. Definitely no f*ing sandpits.)

Was there an actual sandpit?

"Offering".

"I feel that everyone will be satisfied with our new training offerings". Or, in normal, "I'm sure everyone will be pleased with our new training courses".

Oops, I missed the last line.

I've never had "react out" but have had "connect".

"Shockingly, could you make some time to connect with X and ask her to relay to us what the ETA of our stationery order would be?" Or "Shockingly, gonnae gie X a call and ask her when wir gettin oor printer paper?"

Reach even. I haven't had correct spelling either ;)

Lunar, no, I was reaching out for sandpits where I could 'deliver' my thoughts. None found. Why is everything delivered now, especially training courses?

Ridiculous. The poor clients! If he says he'll reach out to you tell him to park that idea for now.

Is he a well meaning buffoon, though? If so just forgive him this madness and hope he grows out of it.

He's not someone I can afford to be rude to, so I can't think of any way to stop him - apart from firmly acknowledging what he has said by repeating it to him in normal people's language. He's not really a buffoon, I suspect he thinks it's trendy and/or has just picked it up without realising what a twat it makes him sound like. I'm trying to manufacture a reason to speak to his DW to see if she has picked it up also; if I my DH ever tried that I'd threaten to LTB.

We have sandboxes and playbooks, which appear to be computers where you can try stuff out to see how it works, but I admit I am not 100% sure on it.

Might be guilty of using "going forward" myself, though.

The thing I think deserves capital punishment is misuse of "myself". "Can you copy myself on that?" No, because I will have killed you before then, which will be for your own good.

I was asked recently to talk around the issue.

Completely confused, I said " what?" And it was clarified as lots of chat and not coming to a decision. " a total waste of time, then," I said

And the response was " yes, but you will be seen as reaching out"

FFS. What's happened to people?

See how far you can take the gibberish before he realises you're laughing at him.

"Sure, reach out to me so we can touch base on this issue, we can do a brief flyover to make sure we're on the same page and fully synchronized...etc!"

I hate "Mission Statement" instead of aims. We're not launching a spaceship or a war.

and then they started inviting us to FU meetings ....

I asked if they were Fuck-Up or Fuck You meetings, but was snootily informed they were Follow-Up.

I have visions of someone silent, with their hand outstretched towards someone typing away at another desk.

FU meetings?

I would have to decline.

Corporatespeak normally sends me into a towering rage, but I quite like 'reach out'. As far as business bollocks goes, it's the soft old hippy in a room full of scary blocky pointy people with buzzcuts.

I am always befuddled at how angry people get about so-called business speak.

Reach out has a perfectly acceptable meaning. It is, objectively, no more nonsensical a construction than "follow up". "Go and talk to" sounds like you are in a playground, and is usually inaccurate given modern communications.

Wtf cares? We all understand what's meant and it is a simple concise way of asking. Life's too short, people - concentrate your energies on things that really matter.

That's another thing - business-speak is rarely concise, but there's nothing really wrong with "reach out".

It's better than saying "I will enmesh you in the tentacles of contact". Although maybe they only ever used to say that when I worked at "The Institute".

Do consultants really speak like that?

Im a consultant (not in the UK) and we always use ordinary language and our clients vocab (all companies have their own particular vocab) so as not to alienate our clients and to get them trusting us. Seems very odd to me that someone outside a company would come in and use those words - seems counterproductive in earning the clients' trust!

My DH started saying "reach out" when he started working for an American company. He's only ever used it in a work context though thankfully, not in day to day life: "nancy can you reach out to your mother to ask her to bring some pg tips with her when she visits?" I would seriously take the piss if he did that.

However I just realised I said it today (we now live in the US). And I don't even have the excuse of it being work related.

I've heard "reach out" a lot in the US but not so much in the UK.

A US expression I particularly loathe is "speak to" as a synonym for "talk about". "Ah... the Paris account. I think Lesley can speak to this. Lesley?" Drives me bananas.