To hate this phrase a manager at work is using

[ellemenopee]

Cross pollination.

He's started saying it and writing it all the time. For example, 'it is important team A and team B are coming together at this stage to cross fertilise/pollinate knowledge and learning'.

It feels like manager buzz word jargon having gone wrong. I hate it. Feels inappropriate in a work context.

AIBU?

@SaltySheepdog

My pet hate is when I’m asked to ‘reach out’. In other words contact someone

Me too. I always want to give them this.

I detest manager speak, a few I have picked up on and loathe are
“What is the ask” or “the ask is” 😩 - instead of what we want/should do
The next one is
“It’s an iterative process” - basically we’re making it up as we go along

They are annoying as are acronyms especially if you are meeting people in a different field to you. I have sat in meetings and had to stop them and ask what certain acronyms meant as they were not any I had heard or used in my line of work. After the meeting three people came and thanked me as they had been to meetings of this particular business before and had not understood but had not been brave enough to ask. I read a sign once that said "you are not stupid if you ask a question but stupid if don't" so I ask. I no longer have to listen to all this crap now, retirement has its upside 😊

🤣🤣🤣 too good!

Prevalent in organisations with too many managers sent on too many courses.

360 degrees was my favourite. It meant consider all the outcomes. Which most people had been doing already.

Luckily I am no longer part of this world, although during the first lock down I overheard DH on zoom call to a colleague who was talking about opening the kimono thank goodness it wasn't followed with any reference to cross pollination! It did keep us in silly jokes for weeks...

'Carve out some time to.....' is our current buzz phrase. We work over 60 hours a week, carving out some time just means working to 10pm instead of 9pm!

What's bad is I actually said cross pollinate today, in a non-work setting. I haven't worked for over a year. I must be a lost cause - a walking cliché.

For all those forced to endure management speak, I give you this comic in the Wall Street Journal today

I work with someone who, once he is done with the niceties at the beginning of a call, he lets you know by saying ‘anyway, enough of the foreplay what can I do for you?’

I have experienced most of these except 'cross pollinate' but I have a feeling that will be coming soon if its a latest 'buzz' phrase
Luckily I was not on camera when my newest manager used 'kinda'
8 times in a recent half hour call .
a: We are based in the UK not the US
b: we are not 12
c: I got so fixated on 'kinda' I forgot what the meeting was for !

We had a recent call in which a senior manager said "trust me" so much all I could think about was that I didn't.

Ooh @DynamoKev that's like when someone keeps saying 'honestly' and that makes me suspicious...

@VanGoSunflowers that's rank

@anon666

What's bad is I actually said cross pollinate today, in a non-work setting. I haven't worked for over a year. I must be a lost cause - a walking cliché.

There's nothing cliché at all about using "cross pollinate". As metaphors go, it is a very accurate analogy to its intended meaning. There are many other expressions that are far more annoying, and much more cliché. Examples: "There's no I in team", "My bad", "Every little counts" [Tesco, I believe], "That's Asda price", "To be honest", "Run it up the flagpole", "360 degree thinking", "Blue Sky thinking", "Its on my radar", "play hardball", "peel the onion", etc. Oops, maybe saying "et cetera" is cliche too due to having been used frequently since Roman times. I don't think so. No common usage is not cliché. "Cross pollinate" is just common usage of a good saying, methinks.

@MakkaPakkas

Ask him if you can run an idea up the flag pole and see who salutes it to change the language to ideas orgy. Perhaps the ideas orgy will get the spunk from team one into team 2 and produce a beautiful pregnancy

Spat my tea out!!