Alright, team, let’s circle back and ensure we’re fully aligned on our north star objectives. We need to leverage synergy, engage in blue-sky thinking, and touch base on our pain points to drive mission-critical outcomes. But let’s not boil the ocean with unnecessary jargon - at the end of the day, we need to optimize our bandwidth for real, value-driven impact. If we keep moving the needle with this kind of thought leadership theater, we risk losing sight of our core competencies and drowning in a sea of meaningless buzzwords. Let’s pivot toward clear, actionable insights and sunset the overuse of strategic messaging before it becomes a blocker to true innovation. Instead of just playing the fast-follow game with every trending framework, let’s focus on original, high-impact execution that actually drives results.
Thoughts? Chris, do you have any builds?
No?
Good. Then let's action this and drive it across the finish line!
There was a website at some point that would put up themed meeting phrases each week, with points if anyone used them and caught it. I still remember a few of them.
“I don’t want a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, I expect a pot of uranium.”
“We either play barbie or go home. I didn’t get come here today to be Skipper.”
“I don’t say we build a barbie dream house, I want use to build a barbie on ecstasy house.”
“Is this a queen alien problem? Or more of a face hugger we can ignore for a while?”
This is normally called "institutional knowledge" which is definitely a real thing, I don't think it's a marketing or HR buzzword. Though, a lot of the time it somewhat trivial things those things do add up. Institutional knowledge around things like how to deal with a finicky piece of specialized hardware, or what are the right words to convince your bosses boss to pay for you to go to a conference are pretty helpful. If you have an older "individual contributor" in your company that has been there for a while and hasn't climbed the ladder, they might be a gold mine for that kinda info (they could also just be an ass)
Also "let's take this offline" which just means let's have a different meeting about it, it'll still be online because we're all remote.
See, I would think that would mean for more individual discussion, as in "this isn't relevant to this meeting, why don't you and I talk about this after the meeting or at a later point."
I think everyone has those coworkers who see meetings as an opportunity to ask about things with no relevance to anyone else in the room and makes everybody sit through 10 minutes (per discussion) about an issue that only pertains to them, instead of just going to the manager/whatever's office in their own time to ask about their personal situation.
If it's just to table it until another meeting, though, that doesn't make any sense.
In my experience, “take this offline” means they don’t want to have the discussion in front of present company.
For example, mentioning anything less-than-ideal in a meeting in front of large groups. It’s basically a thinly veiled way to control morale through selective information.
I guess it depends on the company, so far mine it's just making more meetings but keeping the current one focused. I'm fine with that, just hate the expression because it only makes sense if the follow up meeting was in person but we're all remote
Looks like everyone has ignored that you're talking about the expression not the act. I also hate take it offline, I'll just say... this sounds like a separate meeting.
The first one is an Abomination unto Nuggan. I'm OK with the second one being used in a meeting to divert a topic that needs covered but is getting off tack.
Do you have a better way to phrase it? I usually see this to mean “focus on this topic rather than get distracted. We can discuss that later” … or I guess that’s a better way to phrase it
Let's take that offline perhaps better as let's discuss that separately/later.
Double clicking should just be something like "to go into more detail" or something. I get why it happens, easy and quick to say, i just find it so irritating.
Nope, all in a teams meeting discussing something, topic diverges or becomes too complicated and is slowing the meeting. Manager says "let's take this offline" or "we'll discuss offline". Keeps the meeting focused but I hate the phrase. It's not offline because it'll just be another teams meeting!
Def all over the business world. It's more polite than saying "okay, let's have a 5 minute break from this meeting so everyone can piss and get some more coffee"
I’ve never heard it in a business environment. Even as a IT engineer.
My friend manages a team of engineers and TAMs for massive companies that do stuff like make airplanes and manage phone networks and you know the names. They specifically produce a toolsuite and rent out pro-serv nerds to go to mammoth DCs and show people where they fucked up their cabling and double the throughput. Like, SO nerdy.
Its gross. Saying something thats basically "gonna go take a dump" is unnecessary. Personally I don't give two shits, but not everyone is as easygoing as me. Best to keep a professional hat on at work.
I did use it at work once and a single "Dude TMI" was all it took for me to stop. Online playing an MMO as a group is casual and often used as a trigger for a group break.
At work I just say "going to step away for a bit" and that's all that's needed.
Yeah, hate this. To everyone saying it's not corporate: or certainly is. I did B2B work for around a hundred corps through the one I worked at and I heard it at probably 70% of them.
It's just the company trying to control literally every part of your life. Like who gives a shit what I do on my break? That, and you can't get an "extra" break later saying you have to pee.
I don’t use that, I usually just say I’m going to go grab some water but it’s better than saying “brb ima go take a wicked piss”. That being said, I’d respect the hell out of anyone who said that
I work at a school and that one gets used sometimes. A lady that helps us develop programming said it quite often and my colleagues picked it up, I don’t use it myself.
Unless there is a need for faster communication or because it covers a topic that people have strong emotions about and need to see how others respond so they don't assume the other person's feelings about something. There are some cases where humans, being social animals, do need some interaction beyond words to accomplish coordinated tasks.
The vast majority of meetings should be emails though. Just wish people actually read emails...
I always want to do things by email instead of a meeting, but have to admit the meeting is often necessary. Of course it wouldn't be if people could actually read and comprehend a detailed email and if they could also actually communicate information into writing without expecting you to be their minds enough to make sense of the incomplete vague phases they hurriedly type.
I don't play Balatro but from what I know about it, the game probably uses it correctly, unless it has nothing to do with, like, playing two cards that work better when used together.
In corpo speak. I've seen it used as a synonym for "energy." Like after the crowd quiets down, "Wow! The synergy in the air tonight is electric!" makes me cringe so hard.
I had one retail manager who constantly kept using "moving forward" for everything. It was so freaking grating!
I hate that I've learned to censor myself around these soulless void-skulls by replacing "problem" with "challenge." No, I don't "solve problems", because to acknowledge something as a problem is negativity we just don't need here at Emperor Clothing Inc! I "tackle challenges"!
It's so freaking goofy and they just eat it up. Everything needs some sort of business-positive spin or they lose their minds and think you're not being a "team player."
Seeing opportunities everywhere. The same underlying mechanism is at work here as with challenge: Let's replace the word for this bad thing with a different word that means something similar but positive. And then it looks like something good! I am very smart
“We work hard and play hard” makes my skin crawl. Also, had a manager who would describe every situation with a war analogy. Sorry Bob, this is Finance, we’re not literally killing each other. Take it down a notch.
Here at Lemmy, we are steadfastly committed to leveraging our core competencies in order to drive strategic alignment across all functional units. Our focus remains unwavering on fostering a culture of continuous innovation and optimizing synergies that propel us towards achieving scalable growth and value creation for our stakeholders. By embracing agile methodologies and harnessing cutting-edge technologies, we endeavor to stay ahead of the curve, ensuring robust ROI while maintaining unparalleled customer-centricity in every facet of our operations.
Should you have any further inquiries or require additional insights into our visionary pursuits, please do not hesitate to connect with us. Together, let’s pioneer new paradigms and redefine excellence!
More commonly known as the slop of a product or solution that’s being slinged to all the markets early on without adequate documentation, support, usability, scalability, standards or security.
“Corner the market” also deserves a disgusting mention.
The whole "we're a family" motto. I never understood why this is a thing and why it should be a thing. There is no job that I've ever been comfortable getting that attached to.
I mean, yeah, but actually streamlining things is something I like. I work on helicoptersn so example:
Aircraft is broken because of a faulty component. So the maintainer has to go and sign on to our grossly over-bloated computer (which can take anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes to start up), look up the relevant illustrated parts breakdown and download it (because they've moved everything to the cloud from our previous local servers) which runs through our exceptionally bottle-necked security system (seriously, usually ~50-100kbps download on a 100Mbps connection), find the part, log into a different system to get the national standard number and see what type it is to find what system to look in to see if we have it, look up the part location. Look up the maintenance procedure card (which is not classified) from the same place as the manual, download it at 100kbps, figure out the operational check for the replaced component is not in the card but in a separate maintenance manual, go back into that system and download that manual, find the ops check. Try to print out both the card and the ops check from whatever printer wants to work today. Fill out a requisition form, grab the part, and now you can start the job. Basically, add approximately an hour of work to any task for this nonsense.
Streamlined: Have a standalone computer that is not connected to the internet, is regularly updated via approved external hard drive with the latest Maintenance Procedure Cards and manuals, pre-filled requisition forms (with locations) for parts, lists of consumable components (like gaskets) for each repair, connected to a standalone printer hardwired to the standalone computer. Pull up card, manual, form, and ops check and print in 5 minutes.
Finding time wasters that only serve to frustrate workers and finding ways to cut those time wasters out makes the workers and the managers happy, assuming the people doing the job want to do the job well and quickly (we all want to be here, so that describes our hangar deck).
Like many buzzwords it's both a legitimate good idea and a concept a lot of people with no idea what's going on get a bug up their asses about and use to mean "shake stuff up that had been working fine on a hunch"
Unrelated but I only recently realised that when someone says they believe in family values it means they want to impose their definition of "family" on everyone else.
From an employer I guess when they refer to family they're really referring to a bond beyond work, which basically means they're expecting more from you than you're paid for?
I've found from employers it tends to mean "we should be valued and given time at least on par, but we'll push for more, than your actual family. Work will call you at any time of day or night and you should be ready to drop everything and get in on no notice."
I don't mind lunch and learns. I get overtime for that, AND they buy me lunch. I'm either stuck near the office for an unproductive hour I don't get paid for, or at my desk working on the same shit I was earlier for an extra hour.
But all the bullshit buzzwords attempting to paint employees standing up for themselves as bad things are obnoxious as hell: quiet quitting and the like
Manager: Leadership wants a "double click" on the numbers on slide 8.
Doer: What do they want to see.
M: Well they wanted to see more about the numbers on slide 8 they thought it was interesting.
D: What number? Interesting how?
M: They want a double click? Does that work? How long will that take?
D: ummm a week?
this gem was put forward in all seriousness when the data didn't support the claims in the report: "it's not in the numbers, but we have a pretty good sense that this is true"
Translates to:
“You will be simultaneously micromanaged and expected to know everything with no prior documentation, and you will be underpaid for your efforts. We also have no organization whatsoever :)))”
"Fast paced environment" is the one that always gets me, because that's just explicitly admitting that their organization is a total clusterfuck but somehow this inevitably gets put in the bullet points list because some bozo apparently thinks this is a positive thing that will make people want to work wherever-it-is.
All it means is that you'd better show up wearing roller skates because management is going to expect you to be in three places at once all the time.
And fast paced environments tend to have a focus on "time-management skills." I once interviewed at a place that was looking for someone with "excellent time management skills" because people kept going on vacation, getting back, and never being able to get caught back up with their workload because things kept being assigned to them while they were out and no one was assigned to cover for them. I felt like the manager who was interviewing me knew exactly what the real problem was.
We’re like family is a HUGE red flag for me. I had a boss use that as a selling feature to get me to work there. I had come from a place that really was like a family, a nice one, where we all really cared about each other. Turns out she meant it in the unpaid slave labour way. You can’t make a group of people a “family”, it has to grow that way Crystal. And not through pain and suffering!
Collaboration.
I have never worked at a single company that wanted people talking or collaborating on the work floor, or even when sharing a cubicle, let alone listen to any suggestion us peons had to offer. They keep using it as an excuse for RTO.
This one works in my company. If you have a ticket with no actionable items (you can't do anything to improve it or it is complete), then you use that lack of actionable items to make a timer to close it, or pressure the team you're waiting on.
This phrase is currently running riot at my work. Leadership have just created a new "North Star" so that they can Kingdom Build and leave their mark; years of progress on other projects are being thrown on a mini-bonfire of the vanities.
I've never heard it in a corporate context, but I had thought in a personal context it's not necessarily something to be achieved but what is meaningful or what has value for you.
For example...
Uh..
Yeah actually IDK what my north star is. Maybe enough internet for me.
Any mention of "family" and I'm out. You aren't my fucking family. I barely tolerate any of you, and I only go that far because I am forced to participate in this bullshit just so I can feed and shelter myself. Just give me my project, shut your dick sheath, and let me grind my life away in silence.
I also have a colleague who refers to Apple computers as MAC, and has at least once asked for MAC addresses of some devices when what she meant was IP addresses last associated with the devices.
these are not knots in muscles they are severe institutional shortcomings and failings that are draining us all, making us want to jump ship, hazardous, and in some cases even making the company lose profit but you fuckheads just want to write down pAiN pOiNtS and jerk yourselves and the shareholders off instead of actually doing ANYTHING MEANINGFUL
“You don’t have a sense of urgency to get things done”. I usually get this when I’m going crazy to get things done so my status reports and presentations suffer. I understand paperwork is necessary, but can’t you at least say that rather than claiming I’m not getting things done. Meanwhile they’re satisfied with my sends of urgency to get things done if I just ignore my work and pamper them with status reports and PowerPoints.
IME, when they talk about sense of urgency, they want you to cut corners and rush through everything, but somehow make no mistakes. Usually said when you've been assigned double the normal workload for your position.
This isn't strictly corpo-speak, but upper mgmt type people do this a lot:
Misuse of the word "myself." Like, "if you have any questions, talk to Joe or myself."
Nice one dumb-ass--you tried to sound smarter by adding syllables but it didn't work, did it!
What I don't understand is why so many people start using the object form of a pronoun as a subject the minute there is an "and". "Me and her went to the store."
(I know this is the opposite of the pretentious overcompensation of using "I" as an object you're likely to see in a corporate meeting. But why?)
Think of it as you’re holding a bag of groceries. You are going to put things away from the bag, but maybe some things need to go somewhere else so you pull it out of the bag and put it on the table to put it away later.
"Every interaction makes 35 telemetry API calls, and uses up 45 gallons of potable water so it can run that through GPT to pick what ad to push before finally, begrudgingly, doing what the user requested. Isn't it GREAT?"
I used to have a coworker who would also say things like "I'll ping you after the meeting" and I'd chuckle because it sounded so stupid.
One day he asked me why I was smirking and I lied and told him "You know what 'pinging' means, right? It's the act of putting a metal rod in your urethra and tapping it with a tuning fork."
I don’t remember what it was exactly but someone said something along the lines of “we’ll need to massage it a bit as we roll it out” regarding a new system being implemented.
The Q3 numbers have a life of their own. Growing, shrinking, zig zagging all over the place. Pushing needles, pulling levers. And fyi, the roi is tbd. high five synergy!
Yesterday I aligned with Harold from the CD team on how to pull the data off their SI table, and so today I'm going to work on validating that data. I'll probably be done by tomorrow
Place I worked at some time ago made a big speech and unveiled the following company motto to a lot of confused faces: "Engagement makes awareness sustainable."
We 'nice catch' each other all day. We celebrate when people find dumb shit, especially when it's our dumb shit. We positively reinforce that natural code review and checking one another in the name of safety.
But I work with a bunch of pros on some private-possum shit, and that's culture they've preserved from before the 2005 dark ages began. If you don't know what positive reinforcement sounds like, I get it. Learning's fun.
Any talk of "we" from the boss really means "you". It's exceptionally maddening when the boss is already a POS who has an A+ for delegation but F- for teamwork and care factor.
I fucking hate “strategy” because upper management loves to use that word to describe EVERYTHING. Yeah, no shit there’s a strategy. If there weren’t, what the fuck are we all doing? Random bullshit until something sticks to the wall?
My current bugbear is "guesswork," although in my case this is in the context of the marketing bumf that my vendors and manufacturers slather their products in.
Apparently in the corporate world, the only purpose of guesswork is to "take it out of" things. Take the guesswork out of this, take the guesswork out of that. It seems at this point you are guaranteed that any time "guesswork" appears in a sentence it's going to be preceeded or followed by it being taken out of something, as surely as U always follows Q.
Once you notice the pattern (it doesn't take you long if you're sitting in my seat) the lack of originality becomes deeply irritating.
Ya why don't they just ask for a better plan, or say some part doesn't make sense to them. "Taking the guesswork out" to me means "I'm not convinced, go do more homework and explain this better"... Why can't people just say that.
I had a manager who at the end of every meeting (and I mean EVERY meeting) said "go team!" It was especially annoying since he wasn't actually present in 99.9% of those meetings.
鴉PieFed
return2ozma
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Alright, team, let’s circle back and ensure we’re fully aligned on our north star objectives. We need to leverage synergy, engage in blue-sky thinking, and touch base on our pain points to drive mission-critical outcomes. But let’s not boil the ocean with unnecessary jargon - at the end of the day, we need to optimize our bandwidth for real, value-driven impact. If we keep moving the needle with this kind of thought leadership theater, we risk losing sight of our core competencies and drowning in a sea of meaningless buzzwords. Let’s pivot toward clear, actionable insights and sunset the overuse of strategic messaging before it becomes a blocker to true innovation. Instead of just playing the fast-follow game with every trending framework, let’s focus on original, high-impact execution that actually drives results.
Thoughts?Chris, do you have any builds?No?
Good. Then let's action this and drive it across the finish line!
Jesus fucking Christ. This was excellently written and horribly real.
Other than the lack of a "shift left" it's just about perfect.
What’s shift left
Buzzwords
Basically just means handling problems earlier rather than later, catching issues early instead of fixing them when they cause expensive issues.
It usually means moving tasks earlier in a workflow. You could often also just say "start early".
There's also "shift right". 😄
Me commenting insteada sleeping when I have to get up in 5 hours right?
Perfect example!
I threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Perfect except for ‘Thoughts?’ Instead of that it should be an appeal to the speaker’s boss: ‘Chris, do you have any builds?’
Done. 😁
Thanks. It hit close to home. I hate it.
There was a website at some point that would put up themed meeting phrases each week, with points if anyone used them and caught it. I still remember a few of them.
“I don’t want a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, I expect a pot of uranium.”
“We either play barbie or go home. I didn’t get come here today to be Skipper.”
“I don’t say we build a barbie dream house, I want use to build a barbie on ecstasy house.”
“Is this a queen alien problem? Or more of a face hugger we can ignore for a while?”
I want this to still exist
Sounds like AI slop finally found a good use.
How do I delete someone else's comment.
Thank you for reaching out. After a strategic review of available pathways, we regret to inform you that the requested course of action is not viable.
Lol
I heard "rightsizing" for the first time last year.
I have no idea what knucklehead PR dumbass came up with that but it made the following layoffs even more unpalatable.
The only time I hear rightsizing is for cloud resources. I've never heard of it in human resources. That sucks.
"Tribal knowledge."
Though, I actually like this one. It's a pretty cool phrase you can use anywhere.
This is normally called "institutional knowledge" which is definitely a real thing, I don't think it's a marketing or HR buzzword. Though, a lot of the time it somewhat trivial things those things do add up. Institutional knowledge around things like how to deal with a finicky piece of specialized hardware, or what are the right words to convince your bosses boss to pay for you to go to a conference are pretty helpful. If you have an older "individual contributor" in your company that has been there for a while and hasn't climbed the ladder, they might be a gold mine for that kinda info (they could also just be an ass)
wow I was not expecting to find something worthwhile in here but I will definitely be using that lol
Leadership at the company I work for started saying "let's double click that" to mean let's go into more detail on that topic. Hate it.
Also "let's take this offline" which just means let's have a different meeting about it, it'll still be online because we're all remote.
See, I would think that would mean for more individual discussion, as in "this isn't relevant to this meeting, why don't you and I talk about this after the meeting or at a later point."
I think everyone has those coworkers who see meetings as an opportunity to ask about things with no relevance to anyone else in the room and makes everybody sit through 10 minutes (per discussion) about an issue that only pertains to them, instead of just going to the manager/whatever's office in their own time to ask about their personal situation.
If it's just to table it until another meeting, though, that doesn't make any sense.
I think in many cases it results in separate discussion over slack, probably between managers but it still often ends up in a follow up meeting.
Oh snap I should have read more comments before posting about "double clicking". I hate it.
I've been hearing "velocity" a lot recently and that also makes me cringe.
In my experience, “take this offline” means they don’t want to have the discussion in front of present company.
For example, mentioning anything less-than-ideal in a meeting in front of large groups. It’s basically a thinly veiled way to control morale through selective information.
I guess it depends on the company, so far mine it's just making more meetings but keeping the current one focused. I'm fine with that, just hate the expression because it only makes sense if the follow up meeting was in person but we're all remote
Looks like everyone has ignored that you're talking about the expression not the act. I also hate take it offline, I'll just say... this sounds like a separate meeting.
The first one is an Abomination unto Nuggan. I'm OK with the second one being used in a meeting to divert a topic that needs covered but is getting off tack.
Do you have a better way to phrase it? I usually see this to mean “focus on this topic rather than get distracted. We can discuss that later” … or I guess that’s a better way to phrase it
Let's take that offline perhaps better as let's discuss that separately/later.
Double clicking should just be something like "to go into more detail" or something. I get why it happens, easy and quick to say, i just find it so irritating.
Before “double clicking”, it was “drill down”. That was no better
I really wish they'd use drill down instead
That can come off as, "Not now dumbass." The new slang comes off as, "Yeah, needs covered, and we will, but not now."
As always though, it's all in the tone.
Take it offline as in turning it off? "We're taking the service offline" or "Let's talk about this face to face?"
Nope, all in a teams meeting discussing something, topic diverges or becomes too complicated and is slowing the meeting. Manager says "let's take this offline" or "we'll discuss offline". Keeps the meeting focused but I hate the phrase. It's not offline because it'll just be another teams meeting!
Bio break.
I don’t think I have to elaborate on that one.
I like it because it's so vague.
A nap is pretty biological! And nobody will ask why your bio break was an hour long.
This is a gamer term. I've never heard it in a business environment. Even as a IT engineer.
Lucky you, it’s all over my company.
Def all over the business world. It's more polite than saying "okay, let's have a 5 minute break from this meeting so everyone can piss and get some more coffee"
My friend manages a team of engineers and TAMs for massive companies that do stuff like make airplanes and manage phone networks and you know the names. They specifically produce a toolsuite and rent out pro-serv nerds to go to mammoth DCs and show people where they fucked up their cabling and double the throughput. Like, SO nerdy.
'bio break' is used a few times a day.
I did use it at work once and a single "Dude TMI" was all it took for me to stop. Online playing an MMO as a group is casual and often used as a trigger for a group break.
At work I just say "going to step away for a bit" and that's all that's needed.
Huh. I literally only know this from the context of mmo games.
TIL where that is from
Yeah, hate this. To everyone saying it's not corporate: or certainly is. I did B2B work for around a hundred corps through the one I worked at and I heard it at probably 70% of them.
It's just the company trying to control literally every part of your life. Like who gives a shit what I do on my break? That, and you can't get an "extra" break later saying you have to pee.
fuck. i hate this one the most.
just say “break.” let everyone else decide for themselves if it needs to be biological in nature.
I don’t use that, I usually just say I’m going to go grab some water but it’s better than saying “brb ima go take a wicked piss”. That being said, I’d respect the hell out of anyone who said that
I always used "gotta go drain the lizard."
I heard teachers use that term. 🤷♂️
My friend uses that all the time.
It means a pee break, a tea break, sometimes a 'walk rover' break. When meetings cross that 44-min mark, it's break time.
I work at a school and that one gets used sometimes. A lady that helps us develop programming said it quite often and my colleagues picked it up, I don’t use it myself.
If you use these regularly I KNOW the meeting you just booked me into should have been an email.
Can we put a pin in that and circle back later? Maybe parking lot it and we can discuss it at the end of the call
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I can't remember last time I heard someone use it in a normal conversation, but in the corporate world I find it gets incredibly overused.
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It's fine is used properly, but management tends to use it to mean "magically gooder."
I always hated “circle back” but I did get into using it ironically for a while.
I wouldn't actually mind "circle back" if it wasn't just used as cover to kick the can down the road.
For me the guy who always said it was a former boss and he was good at actually circling back, but sometimes it felt more like “fuck that for now.”
“let’s just put a pin in that, and circle back to it later”
Every meeting should be a fucking email.
Unless there is a need for faster communication or because it covers a topic that people have strong emotions about and need to see how others respond so they don't assume the other person's feelings about something. There are some cases where humans, being social animals, do need some interaction beyond words to accomplish coordinated tasks.
The vast majority of meetings should be emails though. Just wish people actually read emails...
I always want to do things by email instead of a meeting, but have to admit the meeting is often necessary. Of course it wouldn't be if people could actually read and comprehend a detailed email and if they could also actually communicate information into writing without expecting you to be their minds enough to make sense of the incomplete vague phases they hurriedly type.
I spend more time in meetings talking about the work I'm going to do, than doing the actual fucking work.
Bro I have my first "big company" job after working smaller places for over a decade. This feels so real. I'm dying.
I’m not in many meetings but when I am, I oversell and overpromise then immediately forget everything we discussed as soon as it ends.
Just send a fucking email.
Touch base too
FUCK touching base that one's the worst.
Referring to people, staff as resources. Nice and dehumanizing.
An old line manager referred to me as a resource in front of me once. I should have told her to fuck off.
I've heard "human capital" before. The soulless fucks make others a commodity by stripping the mere mention of their existance of its humanity.
Synergy
Mostly because I have never heard it used correctly in the context of a copprate speech/talk.
Does it mean the same thing in corporate as in balatro
I don't play Balatro but from what I know about it, the game probably uses it correctly, unless it has nothing to do with, like, playing two cards that work better when used together.
In corpo speak. I've seen it used as a synonym for "energy." Like after the crowd quiets down, "Wow! The synergy in the air tonight is electric!" makes me cringe so hard.
Wow that's bad. You have my pity
I had one retail manager who constantly kept using "moving forward" for everything. It was so freaking grating!
I hate that I've learned to censor myself around these soulless void-skulls by replacing "problem" with "challenge." No, I don't "solve problems", because to acknowledge something as a problem is negativity we just don't need here at Emperor Clothing Inc! I "tackle challenges"!
It's so freaking goofy and they just eat it up. Everything needs some sort of business-positive spin or they lose their minds and think you're not being a "team player."
I’ve got a manager that’s replaced problem with “opportunity to succeed”. Well, I’ve got 99 opportunities to succeed I guess.
...but management ain't one!
Seeing opportunities everywhere. The same underlying mechanism is at work here as with challenge: Let's replace the word for this bad thing with a different word that means something similar but positive. And then it looks like something good! I am very smart
How dare you not overachieve for your corporate overlords!
Dance, monkey, dance!
That they treat you like "family"
They do, the family just happens to be dysfunctional and abusive.
Anything they use to replace the word "layoffs".
Rightsizing
Fun sizing
Snack Sizing
Excising.
There are many but I find "let's double-click on that" particularly grating
I always reply with, "Or we could right-click on that to see our options".
I’ve never heard that one. What does that mean?
It means let's take a closer look at a problem or project. Sounds like a Microsoftism
Cheers. I might use that one next time I’m in a meeting with the BAs haha
"I already three-finger-swiped down to minimize, sorry."
“We work hard and play hard” makes my skin crawl. Also, had a manager who would describe every situation with a war analogy. Sorry Bob, this is Finance, we’re not literally killing each other. Take it down a notch.
I work hard and I play hard. Not here to play.
Everybody dance now!
Touch base
Can we "just double click on that" for a second?
shudders
I had a visceral reaction to this. If you've heard this in real life, my deepest sympathies.
What is it even supposed to mean?!
"Let's explore that topic more"
What would a linux user say for this?
"Can we just dot slash that, then chmod plus x that semicolon dot slash that for a second"
A linux user would just throw a craft beer bottle.
I'm in this comment and I begrudgingly like it. Carry on.
I have to say, I have used the phrase "Drill Down" to refer to the same thing? Does it cause the same reaction?
Ew.
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Take your upvote and choke on it.
Congratulations, you win both this thread and my disgust. This is literally every company in software development these days.
MVP - as in “minimum viable product”
More commonly known as the slop of a product or solution that’s being slinged to all the markets early on without adequate documentation, support, usability, scalability, standards or security.
“Corner the market” also deserves a disgusting mention.
Especially if the MVP ends up with a lot of scope creep for features that are not MVP
The whole "we're a family" motto. I never understood why this is a thing and why it should be a thing. There is no job that I've ever been comfortable getting that attached to.
"Oh yeah? What's my name then?"
For me its more of a lack of understanding of a specific word's definition. The word? "Systematically"
"There's a problem systematically, so IT is gonna have to look at that."
They literally mean there is a problem with a computer or software and not anything related to a systematic process.
This drives me right up the wall. Everyone in management says it like a buzzword.
Streamline
I mean, yeah, but actually streamlining things is something I like. I work on helicoptersn so example:
Aircraft is broken because of a faulty component. So the maintainer has to go and sign on to our grossly over-bloated computer (which can take anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes to start up), look up the relevant illustrated parts breakdown and download it (because they've moved everything to the cloud from our previous local servers) which runs through our exceptionally bottle-necked security system (seriously, usually ~50-100kbps download on a 100Mbps connection), find the part, log into a different system to get the national standard number and see what type it is to find what system to look in to see if we have it, look up the part location. Look up the maintenance procedure card (which is not classified) from the same place as the manual, download it at 100kbps, figure out the operational check for the replaced component is not in the card but in a separate maintenance manual, go back into that system and download that manual, find the ops check. Try to print out both the card and the ops check from whatever printer wants to work today. Fill out a requisition form, grab the part, and now you can start the job. Basically, add approximately an hour of work to any task for this nonsense.
Streamlined: Have a standalone computer that is not connected to the internet, is regularly updated via approved external hard drive with the latest Maintenance Procedure Cards and manuals, pre-filled requisition forms (with locations) for parts, lists of consumable components (like gaskets) for each repair, connected to a standalone printer hardwired to the standalone computer. Pull up card, manual, form, and ops check and print in 5 minutes.
Finding time wasters that only serve to frustrate workers and finding ways to cut those time wasters out makes the workers and the managers happy, assuming the people doing the job want to do the job well and quickly (we all want to be here, so that describes our hangar deck).
I'm a fan of streamlining.
Like many buzzwords it's both a legitimate good idea and a concept a lot of people with no idea what's going on get a bug up their asses about and use to mean "shake stuff up that had been working fine on a hunch"
"We're family"
Unrelated but I only recently realised that when someone says they believe in family values it means they want to impose their definition of "family" on everyone else.
From an employer I guess when they refer to family they're really referring to a bond beyond work, which basically means they're expecting more from you than you're paid for?
I've found from employers it tends to mean "we should be valued and given time at least on par, but we'll push for more, than your actual family. Work will call you at any time of day or night and you should be ready to drop everything and get in on no notice."
#1 toxic workplace red flag
I fell for this once. Thought it sounded great. Everyone at that place hated each other, constantly spread rumors and sabotaged each other's work.
I still hate "leverage" used as a synonym for "use." "We leverage technologies" yeah sure, when was the last time you had your asshole leveraged?
Next biz bro bestseller: "Leverage the power of your bowels to produce fertiliser that promotes growth"
I don't mind lunch and learns. I get overtime for that, AND they buy me lunch. I'm either stuck near the office for an unproductive hour I don't get paid for, or at my desk working on the same shit I was earlier for an extra hour.
But all the bullshit buzzwords attempting to paint employees standing up for themselves as bad things are obnoxious as hell: quiet quitting and the like
Yeah.... bring your own sack lunch and it's "voluntary", so no OT. That the lunch and learn I'm familiar with anyway.
That's them half assing it, not a knock on the actual thing.
"double click" to mean "focus on" or "explore in more depth"
Sorry, I run KDE.
Typical double click request is as follows:
Manager: Leadership wants a "double click" on the numbers on slide 8.
Doer: What do they want to see.
M: Well they wanted to see more about the numbers on slide 8 they thought it was interesting.
D: What number? Interesting how?
M: They want a double click? Does that work? How long will that take?
D: ummm a week?
It always sounds so deliberate.
It just sounds forced to me.
It's never said by people who created this slang as kids growing up with computers, it's like managers who just invented it in their 40somethings.
Like they're trying to be cool, but it's just not cool
This one comes from Excels Pivot tables, where you double click to see the source data, but it got picked up and bastardized
Given the ubiquity of double clicking, I imagine it has many origins.
'contextual knowledge'
this gem was put forward in all seriousness when the data didn't support the claims in the report: "it's not in the numbers, but we have a pretty good sense that this is true"
"vibes"
"Lean and nimble"
"Moving with a sense of purpose"
"We're like a family"
"Synergy"
“High energy multitasker”
“Detail oriented”
“Fast paced environment”
Translates to: “You will be simultaneously micromanaged and expected to know everything with no prior documentation, and you will be underpaid for your efforts. We also have no organization whatsoever :)))”
"Fast paced environment" is the one that always gets me, because that's just explicitly admitting that their organization is a total clusterfuck but somehow this inevitably gets put in the bullet points list because some bozo apparently thinks this is a positive thing that will make people want to work wherever-it-is.
All it means is that you'd better show up wearing roller skates because management is going to expect you to be in three places at once all the time.
And fast paced environments tend to have a focus on "time-management skills." I once interviewed at a place that was looking for someone with "excellent time management skills" because people kept going on vacation, getting back, and never being able to get caught back up with their workload because things kept being assigned to them while they were out and no one was assigned to cover for them. I felt like the manager who was interviewing me knew exactly what the real problem was.
We’re like family is a HUGE red flag for me. I had a boss use that as a selling feature to get me to work there. I had come from a place that really was like a family, a nice one, where we all really cared about each other. Turns out she meant it in the unpaid slave labour way. You can’t make a group of people a “family”, it has to grow that way Crystal. And not through pain and suffering!
Collaboration. I have never worked at a single company that wanted people talking or collaborating on the work floor, or even when sharing a cubicle, let alone listen to any suggestion us peons had to offer. They keep using it as an excuse for RTO.
"Opportunities" when talking about shitty metrics.
Let's take it offline
My thoughts exactly...Every time I walk by the door that says "server room."
Actionable. Ugh.
This one works in my company. If you have a ticket with no actionable items (you can't do anything to improve it or it is complete), then you use that lack of actionable items to make a timer to close it, or pressure the team you're waiting on.
What’s our North Star?
This phrase is currently running riot at my work. Leadership have just created a new "North Star" so that they can Kingdom Build and leave their mark; years of progress on other projects are being thrown on a mini-bonfire of the vanities.
It’s just a bullshit saying for something they’ll never achieve.
I’ve even heard people say it’s never achievable but we should use that as our direction. I can’t stand corporate fucking bullshit.
I've never heard it in a corporate context, but I had thought in a personal context it's not necessarily something to be achieved but what is meaningful or what has value for you.
For example...
Uh..
Yeah actually IDK what my north star is. Maybe enough internet for me.
when they give thier non-apology apologies.
Please socialise the requirement throughout your teams
Any mention of "family" and I'm out. You aren't my fucking family. I barely tolerate any of you, and I only go that far because I am forced to participate in this bullshit just so I can feed and shelter myself. Just give me my project, shut your dick sheath, and let me grind my life away in silence.
On a totally unrelated note, "team player".
People saying something needs to be flushed out when they really want it fleshed out.
Lmao!
I'd ask if they want me to get rid of it.
I also have a colleague who refers to Apple computers as MAC, and has at least once asked for MAC addresses of some devices when what she meant was IP addresses last associated with the devices.
I suppose it could be used in the sense of a dog flushing out game for the hunters - to make something hidden visible so it can be dealt with.
War room
You're a Karen and you're going to talk to Pete from accounting about what gift to buy for Sally's birthday
You can’t fight here, this is the war room
"pAiN pOiNtS"
these are not knots in muscles they are severe institutional shortcomings and failings that are draining us all, making us want to jump ship, hazardous, and in some cases even making the company lose profit but you fuckheads just want to write down pAiN pOiNtS and jerk yourselves and the shareholders off instead of actually doing ANYTHING MEANINGFUL
not really corporate, but (as far as i know) it was brought into existence due to corporations: "unalive"
“You don’t have a sense of urgency to get things done”. I usually get this when I’m going crazy to get things done so my status reports and presentations suffer. I understand paperwork is necessary, but can’t you at least say that rather than claiming I’m not getting things done. Meanwhile they’re satisfied with my sends of urgency to get things done if I just ignore my work and pamper them with status reports and PowerPoints.
IME, when they talk about sense of urgency, they want you to cut corners and rush through everything, but somehow make no mistakes. Usually said when you've been assigned double the normal workload for your position.
This isn't strictly corpo-speak, but upper mgmt type people do this a lot:
Misuse of the word "myself." Like, "if you have any questions, talk to Joe or myself."
Nice one dumb-ass--you tried to sound smarter by adding syllables but it didn't work, did it!
I’ll take “myself” over using “I” as a direct object any day of the week.
"I" as an object gets used way too often and way too many people argue that it's correct.
It’s appalling to I.
What I don't understand is why so many people start using the object form of a pronoun as a subject the minute there is an "and". "Me and her went to the store."
(I know this is the opposite of the pretentious overcompensation of using "I" as an object you're likely to see in a corporate meeting. But why?)
"It doesn't scale", meaning the company might have to (*shudder*) hire people if our business doubles.
Does “tabling” mean putting a subject on the table or taking it off?
“That’s a big ask” drives me crazy. I’ve been hearing it everywhere lately. When did ‘ask’ become a noun?
A huge ask. The biggliest ask. Sir Mixalot dreams about this ask.
The question is more 'where'. Be sure to tease whomever about the car lot they obviously worked at.
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/ask_n1
Tabling means to save for later. You put it in the table to deal with it another time.
So tabling it means it’s off the table?
Think of it as you’re holding a bag of groceries. You are going to put things away from the bag, but maybe some things need to go somewhere else so you pull it out of the bag and put it on the table to put it away later.
You’ve tabled it.
Is this different from putting it in the parking lot?
Yup
Lets park this discussion for now, we'll circle back to it later.
Depends on if you follow the British meaning or the US American one.
AI
But specifically "How could we use AI?". If you dont know you don't need it. Also looking st you big tech.
Let me introduce you to this AI TV remote. You push this button, and AI turns it on. Revolutionary!! Right??!
"Every interaction makes 35 telemetry API calls, and uses up 45 gallons of potable water so it can run that through GPT to pick what ad to push before finally, begrudgingly, doing what the user requested. Isn't it GREAT?"
Let's circle back.
I used to have a coworker who would also say things like "I'll ping you after the meeting" and I'd chuckle because it sounded so stupid.
One day he asked me why I was smirking and I lied and told him "You know what 'pinging' means, right? It's the act of putting a metal rod in your urethra and tapping it with a tuning fork."
He NEVER said it again.
I always think of the
pingcommand line utility because I haven’t really used the word outside that context ever.Alright, I'll peg you instead!
What do you have against massages? I find them relaxing.
I don’t remember what it was exactly but someone said something along the lines of “we’ll need to massage it a bit as we roll it out” regarding a new system being implemented.
Oh god I've heard that one many times before as well. It's like adult baby talk
Ping: emailing someone
Revert: emailing someone
[Topic] came up on diary: I'm emailing someone
Signs you work in a bullshit email job.
More from the sales types but saying 'value added' is the same as saying greedy mark up.
"going forward."
Yeah, "from now on" worked fine there Phill.
Effectuate
I'm going to effectuate this pole right up the ass of the next person to use that word.
👉👈
I can't think of a sentence in which it doesn't sound heavy handed.
Please effectuate the reports. Accounting will effectuate the invoice. HR has effectuated the hire.
The Q3 numbers have a life of their own. Growing, shrinking, zig zagging all over the place. Pushing needles, pulling levers. And fyi, the roi is tbd. high five synergy!
This sounds like an Eric Andre sketch
I can’t read this shit on the weekend you guys are killing me :p
Growth.
Just the recent used-car lot trash
... fighting for hate space with the recent shit jargon
... and people who can't write English
.. and a special fuck you to people who join words together where normally they need a space
.. because that last part is just cheap indolence.
I relate to this so hard.
literally based
Yesterday I aligned with Harold from the CD team on how to pull the data off their SI table, and so today I'm going to work on validating that data. I'll probably be done by tomorrow
Place I worked at some time ago made a big speech and unveiled the following company motto to a lot of confused faces: "Engagement makes awareness sustainable."
Nice. I'll drive alignment on this value with my directs. I'll status you tomorrow.
"Good catch!"
Usually said when you bring up something that needs fixing, and said as a way to puff you up and not actually follow up on the problem.
We 'nice catch' each other all day. We celebrate when people find dumb shit, especially when it's our dumb shit. We positively reinforce that natural code review and checking one another in the name of safety.
But I work with a bunch of pros on some private-possum shit, and that's culture they've preserved from before the 2005 dark ages began. If you don't know what positive reinforcement sounds like, I get it. Learning's fun.
Are you a manager?
No, no. It's words that sound like positive reenforcement be repurposed by people who don't want to deal with an issue.
One company I worked for decided it was a good idea to name a bunch of firings due to performance "Project Panda" 🤦
I mean that one is kinda funny. "Project Sloth" might have worked a bit better but been too on the nose.
“Learnings” - you’re not fucking Borat!
I haaaaate this one! It's lessons ffs lessons.
"Makes you feel like character"
Yes, this movie about a billionaire with severe mental issues who lost both of his parents makes me feel like I lost my parents too.
Any talk of "we" from the boss really means "you". It's exceptionally maddening when the boss is already a POS who has an A+ for delegation but F- for teamwork and care factor.
game changer… also any other sports reference…
Strategy.
No, your half-baked, half-plan you stole from an intern, is not only not good, the last guy tried it and we are still trying to fix that mess.
I’m not sure if it really counts as a buzzword though.
I fucking hate “strategy” because upper management loves to use that word to describe EVERYTHING. Yeah, no shit there’s a strategy. If there weren’t, what the fuck are we all doing? Random bullshit until something sticks to the wall?
"It is what it is".
Used by spineless weasels when it something that they could have avoided, or can still be solved but they are too scared or stupid to say anything.
Wow, lots of “double clicks”, which is fairly new to the usual list.
Because it's new and awful. Also implies that these massive new work is just a simple tasks. 0/10
“Cross-pollinate”
The term "let's slow time this" was used for a while. I can only assume that was some corporate phrase.
Probably ' servant leadership'.
My current bugbear is "guesswork," although in my case this is in the context of the marketing bumf that my vendors and manufacturers slather their products in.
Apparently in the corporate world, the only purpose of guesswork is to "take it out of" things. Take the guesswork out of this, take the guesswork out of that. It seems at this point you are guaranteed that any time "guesswork" appears in a sentence it's going to be preceeded or followed by it being taken out of something, as surely as U always follows Q.
Once you notice the pattern (it doesn't take you long if you're sitting in my seat) the lack of originality becomes deeply irritating.
Ya why don't they just ask for a better plan, or say some part doesn't make sense to them. "Taking the guesswork out" to me means "I'm not convinced, go do more homework and explain this better"... Why can't people just say that.
Mitigation
Lessons learned
Collaborator instead of employee. That's a usage that has spread through every company in French. It's infuriating how it.she just plain lying.
Drill down
I had a manager who at the end of every meeting (and I mean EVERY meeting) said "go team!" It was especially annoying since he wasn't actually present in 99.9% of those meetings.
I used to say Go Bills at the end of every meeting to my mostly local Western New York co-workers.
Sometimes I say this in a glib or sarcastic or ironic kind of way. It's not an "every meeting" kind of thing.
I'm not a manager but maybe a supervisor I guess.
I'd respond with "venture" every time.
I don't have a problem with the words - I have a problem with them getting appropriated and destroyed by corporates.
We are working on a new strategy
I know we're going through some growing pains, continuing our commitment to efficiency and accountability.
After a round of layoffs 😭
Think out of the box
We're going to hyperconverge our core past the edge node and clear out to the cloud!
“Learnings”
Yes its an old word and was repopularized by Borat of all things.
Ugh. Just say lessons or something. Leanings just sounds … wrong.
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