Anyone else have an aversion to corporate bollock speak?

[LindaLaHugh]

I say aversion - deep hatred would be more accurate. It gives me The Rage
You know the type of thing " deep dive" " I'll take that away to action it" " even " going forward" makes me a bit stabby

@tunainatin

I've been roped into organising sand pit events (meetings), we need to do some comms around them (tell people about them). I may entertain myself at work from now on responding 'do you mean...?' to every bit of corporate crap I hear

Yes, and comms being used as a verb too, ie "we need to comms this out"

Sort of. However I've recently been assigned to a new project which I really don't understand. I've discovered that if someone asks me a question and I don't know the answer (which happens basically every day) I can just throw so corporate buzzwords together and they usually accept it. I actually kind of like it and now wonder why I used to waste so much time on trying to make sense.

I’m really glad you reached out, @LindaLaHugh

Maybe you should ring fence some time for a few quick wins.

Even worse is when jargon is used incorrectly.

I asked a colleague whether something thay was overdue had been completed. He replied it had not: ‘there’s been pushback from finance on the financials’. No further info. It transpired that a finance colleague had just asked a basic, factual question: not ‘pushback’!

@shreddednips

Yes, drives me mad. I'm not 100% sure if this is proper corporate speak, but I can't stand it when someone tells me that something that needs doing has an 'aggressive deadline.' It's a rather unpleasant way of saying that you want me to do it quickly.

The other thing I can't bear is faddy workplace initiatives. Has anyone ever done the fish training? The gist is that everything would be great if we were all having fun at work, and they show you a video of these blokes who sell fish and make the fish dance and do silly voices for the customers. I think they did tricks with these fish. And then they ask you to come up with ways to integrate fun into the workplace.

My mother and I have both done this training, both working in jobs where vulnerable people were relying on us to take our jobs seriously. It didn't seem hugely appropriate to be thinking of ways to have more jolly japes in the office 🤦🏼‍♀️

If you need training to think up jolly japes you're already fucked. Also all my jolly japes got banned in the 1990s and haven't returned - any time I tried to have a bit of fun with anything some odious cunt turned up and called it unprofessional.

Oh Jesus, that's brutal!!

@LindaLaHugh

I say aversion - deep hatred would be more accurate. It gives me The Rage You know the type of thing " deep dive" " I'll take that away to action it" " even " going forward" makes me a bit stabby

Someone somewhere has an MN bingo card in which “the rage”and “makes me Stabby” are appearing

@tunainatin

And why have people started saying 'Talk to that item on the agenda' rather than 'talk about?' why?

Yes yes yes! When did speaking ‘to’ become a thing?

Pretentious wankers.

"Let's foreground that in our next meeting" aghhhhh fuck off!

I think granular is a useful word

My personal irritant is “baked in”

@LindaLaHugh

As a former colleague of mine once said " there's no I in team, but there's a u in cunt "

I think it’s interesting that it’s mainly office staff who use this crap. Do you think they are envious of people with proper jobs who legitimately use technical jargon, and want to invent some of their own to sound important?
It must be galling for them to listen to NASA mission control, pilots, engineers, police officers, Star Trek bridge crew etc on tv.

I'm working with someone who likes to write down phrases from business podcasts to regurgitate in meetings. I try to rein them in but it's hard work.

My personal most hated one is when someone wants you to do something for them and says/emails "can you support with this"

It actually makes me feel stubby

I just want to say no, no I can't. Fuck off!

An ex-manager of mine clearly got a distinction on his buzzword-bollocks course, his favourite was for everything to be ‘crystallised’ (pre-XX too)…

In schools we don't provide education any more we have an 'offer' .....

@shreddednips

I've done the fish training!! A couple of years later I went to Seattle and saw the 'famous' market stall. I have to say, they didn't look like they were having that much fun. I guess chucking a halibut around whilst whooping loses its appeal after approximately 10 seconds.

Needless to say we haven't taken to throwing finance spreadsheets about the office and whooping.

@EngTech

In the mid 90’s worked for a well known American Telecoms company

Video conferencing with our cousins in the States was hilarious as we Brits used to play Buzz word, phrase Bingo 😹

One American who was based with us asked why someone used to mention house in a conversation while on the call

He roared with laughter and loved the Brit humour

We had fast ISDN lines even then and were developing what we now take for granted on our phones 👍

We were having buzz word bingo on teachers' courses back in the 80s, we needed to stay marginally awake once we'd finished the crosswords.

@marqueses

Surely the question is does any sensible woman ever speak such bollocks.

Solely the preserve of men imo, I'm actually quite surprised that you even need to ask the question

You clearly never knew the Head teacher of the school worked in, not the solo preserve of men, what we called The Golden Girls, ie the highly ambitious people of all genders, were so entertaining.

It is what it is and we are where we are.

@Resilienceismyname

‘Organic’ ‘Home grown content’

Used to quietly drive me mad. Even now, years later, it make me want to scream 😁

Tomatoes 'grown for flavour'! Why else are they grown, as Christmas tree baubles??

Lawd some of these are so funny. I don't know how some of you can keep a straight face sometimes.

I still have not managed to get past the reaching out or touching base.

I have a customer who sends out bulk emails to all suppliers for a quote request. We are blind copied in so obviously we don't know who everyone else is. But he calls us his 'Team'. Hi Team, please find...... Hi Team. Merry Christmas. Hi Team. just touching base as these are urgent. Arrrghhh Who is this team I am in? Not a clue.

So team gets on my tits, but worse yet is when one of my older friends come onto our whatsapp group and says Morning Team 🙄. I couldn't resist and asked him if he meant to post on his work group instead.

Bloody Team. It just grates me.

Someone said "bleeding edge" to me, to try and out do the "cutting edge" people presumably.

I don't get why companies want people to bring their "whole selves to work" you are there to work not go on about your personal life. I mean, if I employed a lawyer, I'd want them to do lawyerly stuff at work not practice their belly dancing at the office.

The only people "reaching out" should be the Four Tops or Americans.

@thepeopleversuswork

I’m with you all…

I have lived with and hated all this bollocks for years.

The problem is when you are around it for so long you start going native. There comes a point where “reach out” just becomes easier than “contact”. It’s awful how it gets to you.

I used to openly laugh at people using the word “leverage”. Until I found myself doing it.

God’s way of telling me to get out of corporate land I guess.

I totally relate to this.

My two favourites: "I have a hard stop on the half hour" and my lovely US colleague who frequently says that she doesn't "have a dog in this fight"