To be irritated by the term "reaching out"?

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When what is meant is "contacting"?

I recently left a comment on a company's FB page with some suggestions as to how they could improve their service. A company rep has now replied and their response starts "Hi Page, thanks for reaching out to us..."

I didn't reach out to you! I contacted you. The only time I "reach out" is to grab something that's arm's length away. I'm not a needy supplicant approaching you with my arms stretched out.

It's not the first time I've seen this used, so AIBU to dislike the creeping replacement of a perfectly serviceable, no-nonsense word like "contacting" with this wank?

(And yes, before anyone wonders, obviously this is all I have to worry about; all wars are over, famine has been eradicated, we're all wonderfully equal and tolerant, free unicorns all round and so now I can get onto worrying about the really important stuff )

My exh talks in pat phrases as well, though not as often HR phrases as very English phrases from the 80's & earlier. It saves him having to make up original sentenced.

"Learnings"

Not a word, people. Not a word.

Yep.

Along with 'Can I get'...' to shop staff. The answer is 'no, you can't get it - if you could you wouldn't be asking someone else would you?

Delivery bloke just said to me ' Can I get a surname?'

Arghhh!!!!

Yanbu. I just read a newspaper article where they had 'reached out' to someone for comment (but got no reply) WTF?

to all of these. I work in frontline public transport and all the managers at my publicly funded organisation speak like this. It drives me mad. What ever happened to plain English?

Next time your train fails to turn up blame the managers for touching base with their blue sky thinking. B@stards.

Ah, I've found my people .

DH says "can I get?" when ordering coffee, food etc. I cringe each and every time.

The term I particularly despise at the moment though is "role". I'm job hunting for the first time in a few years, and every "position" or "job" is now a "role". Why? Are we all actors? Is every workplace a stage? It's another utterly wanky term IMHO. Unless you are actually are a stage performer, in which case it's totally fine.

Delivery bloke just said to me ' Can I get a surname?'

Depending on my mood, that may have been answered with a cheery "don't you already have one?"

Santa's - believe me when I say it took all my inner strength not say just that!😁

I recently spent a weekend with my sister in the US and I was shocked by how frequently she used this, it sounds outrageously silly. 'Mike and I have friends in common, so I reached out to him to see if he wanted to join the meeting'... and so on.

I've always understood it to mean an emotional appeal, e.g. reaching out to someone from whom you're estranged, reaching out for help, etc.

Museumsofcurry - yes, it's all so cringingly emotive, isn't it? Makes us all sound on the verge of tears all the time.

More evil from HR: I'm looking for work & I've noticed every job out there requires one to be passionate. "Must have a passion for correct filing order", "must have a passion for cell phone sales", "must have a passion for cleaning petrol station toilets". How about we just go to work & do the job reasonably well? Why are they now thinking they're also paying for our inner life as well?

Yeah! When did someone decide that competence was no longer sufficient?

I seem to recall Slate had an article about that. I find it bloody presumptuous to insist that people in deadly dull and/or low paid service jobs "have a passion" gf's.

Damn I wish I could edit these things. Typed ffs, phone agreed w me, hit post and it changed to gf's. I have a passion for readability.

Capricious phone.

I saw a tweet for a UK based HR software company recently bragging about their "passion for overcoming diversity"

At work I once asked if "reaching out" was e-mailing then was a group e-mail a "reach around"

No-one laughed

passion for overcoming diversity

Uh-oh, they didn't assemble their string of buzz words properly.

DH has just started working with a very wanky "reach out" type of company and yesterday spent a conversation much confused and looking at the floor when people were talking about "drilling down" and "diving deep". I had to explain to him afterwards that it didn't actually involve construction work.

I once interviewed someone who referred to himself in the third person when answering a question. I really had to try hard to restrain myself from walloping him round the head with a stapler. It was quite the struggle.

Passion for overcoming diversity?!? Someone is taking the piss. Either that or it confirms my suspicion that people who talk like that are not really listening to themselves or indeed mentally present when speaking or writing this way.

If I knew how to link to the tweet (is that even possible?) I would :)

Should be possible but then people who tweet often have umpteen subsequent tweets, making the one you want to read a pita to find (on a phone, no control f here!).

Can I get - perfectly acceptable in Scotland, has been for aeons.

There was an article on the BBC website yesterday - some young upstart was obviously writing - and they used the phrase 'reaching out' I almost reached out (see what I did there?) for my writing pad and pen in order to compose a stinky letter of complaint.

'Going forward' is another pet hate, and my boss once told me and my colleague that we had to 'improve our synergy' - that's given us many laughs over the years

Oh I hate any of this shite.

A colleague used to send emails asking that we 'gather together and bounce off one anothers auras'. I shit you not. I used to have visions of a kind of 'It's A Knockout' style meetings.