# Annoying BizSpeak (Managerial Jargon) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 18, 2001, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188 "2001-10-18T11:00:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188/41 "2001-10-19T17:58:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ashtayk \* > \*\*I get an image of me sitting in my cube and looking quizzically with a open mouthed stupid expression while someone walks by my desk and saying something while I am right in the middle of doing something. \*\* If your head pops up above the level of your cube walls when you do that, it is called “prairie dogging”. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188/42 "2001-10-19T21:59:12Z")
Previous posters have caught most of my peeves, but here are two I particularly dislike that I haven’t seen on this list: **bandwidth** - as in, “I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with that right now.” (see “cycles”) **circle** - “Let’s circle on that before next week’s meeting.” The marketing folks love that one. I always picture a bunch of covered wagons… ---
**Author:** ![Chas.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188/43 "2001-10-20T01:25:39Z")
I had an annoying manager with an quip for everything. His favorite was “The 5 P’s” which stated “Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.” Gak. “Paradigm” really bugs me too. I once lectured a manager on postmodernism and called it “The Paradigm Paradigm.” I said that getting stuck in one paradigm was an obsolete paradigm, we needed new paradigms that allowed us to switch paradigms as required. He left me alone for a long time after that… ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188/44 "2001-10-20T22:08:52Z")
Just in case no one’s seen this site yet: [http://www.buzzwhack.com/](http://www.buzzwhack.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188/45 "2001-10-20T23:15:43Z")
Oh my… just when I thought I was getting away from the BizJargon. I’m not going to dignify it as ‘bizspeak’ becasue the purpose of speaking is to convey ideas, not to obscure them \ I’ll second the idea that the ‘touch base’ construction is _the_ most annoying and contagious BizJargon around. And it shows up in the most unexpected places: last week I caught my funky and extremely cool Wiccan high-priestess friend using it! :eek: BTW, I’m a little hazy on the rules of baseball, but isn’t ‘touching base’ considered a _bad_ thing in baseball? **SteverinoAlaReno** , may I use your ‘I am not a resource; I am a human being!’ as a sig? The company of one of my best briends was just \ ‘rightsized’; he was ‘dehired’ and is now going to ‘take advantage’ of the services of an ‘outplacement coordinator’ \ [sub](Head Office shut down the Canadian operation; my friend was _fired_ dammit, and they grudgingly arranged for the services of a third-party job-search agency)[/sub], so somehow it only seems appropriate. When the revolution comes (however you might define ‘revolution’, and that’s a Great Debate I won’t get into here), the people who promoted this kind of deliberately-obscuring soul-destroying dehumanizing BizJargon will be among the first against the wall, I’m sure… ---
**Author:** ![Spoonbender](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spoonbender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoonbender)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2001, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188/46 "2001-10-21T03:19:04Z")
I too hate **task** (used as a verb) and **ping**. Worse, in my office “task” has ceased to be a noun: the noun form is now **task_ing_**! (As in, “I’m working on several taskings right now.”) Other hated phrases: **Out of pocket** , meaning “not available.” As in “Charlie will be out of pocket next week.” **Platform** , meaning “computer.” **Disconnect** , meaning a misunderstanding or failure to communicate. And one that’s peculiar to my boss: two things that are alike are described as “exactly similar.” :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2001, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188/47 "2001-10-21T22:30:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Legomancer \* > **Back when I worked in a hospital, they were changing what they used on circumcision clamps because of an unfortunate incident involving a metal clamp and a cauterizing electrode.** Just reading that was painful! OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW ! ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2001, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188/48 "2001-10-22T00:13:27Z")
I work for Australia Post, and like to make use of their disproportionate love of acronyms by occasionally inventing new ones, and just casually slipping them into conversations with supervisors. The supervisors usually feel obliged to pretend they know what I’m talking about, and nod their heads solemnly as I describe the intricacies of QRT, VSG, or RTL. One time, we had an acting manager who was not exactly a mental giant. I printed up a fake graph entitled **FTQ** -Factored Transit Quotient, had it getting progressively worse over the June quarter, and stuck it on the noticeboard. When this woman walked past, I stated quizzing her about it, and complaining that the staff hadn’t been told what FTQ was, and how it would affect us. She told me she was busy, and would “explain it later”. She must have gone to see the State Manager for New South Wales to quietly ask him what it was, because he came to see me later, and couldn’t stop laughing. It was good fun. ---
**Author:** ![TPWombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2001, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188/49 "2001-10-22T10:27:48Z")
Heh, no-one’s mentioned **Gus** from _Drop the Dead Donkey_ yet? ---
**Author:** ![SteverinoAlaReno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb8c5e/32.png) [@SteverinoAlaReno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteverinoAlaReno)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2001, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188/50 "2001-10-22T16:22:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sunspace \* > \*\*BTW, I’m a little hazy on the rules of baseball, but isn’t ‘touching base’ considered a _bad_ thing in baseball? > > **SteverinoAlaReno** , may I use your ‘I am not a resource; I am a human being!’ as a sig? The company of one of my best briends was just \ ‘rightsized’; he was ‘dehired’ and is now going to ‘take advantage’ of the services of an ‘outplacement coordinator’ \ [sub](Head Office shut down the Canadian operation; my friend was _fired_ dammit, and they grudgingly arranged for the services of a third-party job-search agency)[/sub], so somehow it only seems appropriate. > > \*\* Sunspace, feel free to use that line in a sig. You don’t even have to give me credit for it, I’m just tickled pink at the thought of something I said being quotable 🙂 Extend my condolences to your friend, I went through a similar “rightsizing” this past March. Oh, in baseball, a runner is supposed to touch the bases…if he forgets to touch one, he’s out. “Touch all the bases” is an annoying version of “dot your Is and cross your Ts” (what, nobody dots Js anymore??) Thanks, Sunspace, you’ve made my day… ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2001, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188/51 "2001-10-23T02:07:05Z")
Gawd, this thread takes me back to the late 1990s. I’d listen to NPR on the way home from work. The list of corporate sponsors that was announced every so often on **All Things Considered** read like a BizSpeak roll call. One particularly annoying sponsorship announcement still gets to me … “Valicent. Valicent offers robust, end-to-end solutions to dynamic Global 500 corporations. Vericent, at [velicent.com](http://velicent.com).” Okay … what’s a robust end-to-end solution? What’s a Global 500 corporation? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-bizspeak-managerial-jargon/88188.md?page=2)