# Business Bullshit watch - "reaching out" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 10, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927 "2010-05-10T16:46:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/41 "2010-05-13T18:59:08Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > maybe reaching out is the new touching base. Does anyone still say ‘touch base’? Naw, you touch base _after_ you’ve previously reached out. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/42 "2010-05-15T06:24:12Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > Naw, you touch base _after_ you’ve previously reached out. Is that before or after I “ping” them? ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/43 "2010-05-15T12:01:19Z")
> [@Tully\_Mars](#): > > Sad, isn’t it. Does it mean we’re Subject Matter Experts? I’ll have to cycle back to you. ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/44 "2010-05-15T18:52:27Z")
> [@ghardester](#): > > We should concetrate our efforts across to board toward leveraging this idea in a pro-active way for value-added results. We will grow the business with an emphasis on austerity and use a multi-phase approach to addressing both the concerns and the challenges we face as we move forward. > > Translation: No more free donuts at meetings. But if there are no free donuts, how can we “incentivize” the employees? Use of that word even once subjects the user to instant and permanent tooldom. You could quit your widget making job and spend the rest of your life fighting AIDS in Africa and you’d still be a tool. ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/45 "2010-05-15T19:12:12Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I hate the term “Regards” used to sign emails. Some of my fellow middle management types and I were saying how it is used when you don’t feel the person you are emailing is important enough to say “thank you” to. > > Basically it is synonomous with “Retards”. FTR, I use “regards” all the time. If I want to thank someone, I usually wind up doing it in the first line of whatever letter/e-mail I’m writing, there’s no need to repeat myself at the closing. Its use has certainly been around a lot longer than most of the words/phrases mentioned in this thread so it has more legitimacy (in my lowly opinion, anyway). Obviously, your mileage varies but how do you sign off on more formal e-mails? Sincerely? As ever I remain your most humble servant? Cheers? Toodles? Love? Best? Kind regards? Affectionately? I remain Dear Sir/Madam, faithfully yours? In general, most e-mails are painful to read but that follows if the majority of people writing them believe a witty substitue for “Regards” is “Retards.” ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/46 "2010-05-17T01:38:09Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > Just attend any large teachers’ meeting and the buzzwords and edu-speak are enough to make anyone throw up. Everyone seems so afraid to be politically incorrect or make a statement that makes any sense or takes a stand; I call it ethereal white noise. Nice to doze off while you listen, so at least there is that. You are not kidding. I once used the phrase “highly constructed” to modify the phrase “five-paragraph essay.” I wanted to kill myself. ---
**Author:** ![Lok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e8c25b/32.png) [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/47 "2010-05-17T02:35:10Z")
Since I have spent the vast majority of my working career on the blue collar side of things, I do not have to deal with this kind of thing from day to day. Just had to put up with it at the monthly meeting, where it invariably translated into “work harder, get more done, your insurance costs will go up enough to more than negate your annual raise.” And the phrase “Our people are our biggest resource.” means “We will suck out your life, chew you to ribbons, then spit out the remains in the dump, just like we do all of the other resources this company uses.” ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/48 "2010-05-17T08:41:13Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I hate the term “Regards” used to sign emails. Some of my fellow middle management types and I were saying how it is used when you don’t feel the person you are emailing is important enough to say “thank you” to. > > Basically it is synonomous with “Retards”. Frankly, I’m getting way sick of “Cheers” as a closer. Is this just a West Coast thing? I don’t know why it annoys me exactly, but it really does. I guess it seems really impersonal, to the point of actively trying to avoid the human commitment of Sincerely, Regards, or Yours Truly. Besides which, the people who seem to use it most (in my experience) are people who have never said, “Cheers” over a convivial glass of wine or whatever, because _they do not drink._ There is something wrong with that. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/49 "2010-05-17T14:15:22Z")
> [@brujaja](#): > > Besides which, the people who seem to use it most (in my experience) are people who have never said, “Cheers” over a convivial glass of wine or whatever, because _they do not drink._ There is something wrong with that. In the UK “cheers” is a casual way of saying “thanks”. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/50 "2010-05-17T22:39:38Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > Taxpayers are customers, not stakeholders. > > I pay taxes but I’m not a stakeholder in provision of screening treatments for cervical cancer because I’m a man. I am however a customer for lots of other government services and interventions, but even then I’m not a stakeholder because I don’t have any direct influence on them. The only difference between a stakeholder and a customer is that you can tell a customer to fuck off. Stakeholders somehow have you by the balls, or at least they momentarily are able to make a convincing case that they do. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/51 "2010-05-18T10:26:17Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > The only difference between a stakeholder and a customer is that you can tell a customer to fuck off. Stakeholders somehow have you by the balls, or at least they momentarily are able to make a convincing case that they do. No disagreement from me - hence why taxpayers are customers, not stakeholders. I’m sorry if this offends the democratic sensibilities of people reading this but by and large the governments of the day don’t pay a huge amount of attention to individual taxpayers because we can’t, there are just too many of them. What we do is decided through Ministers who represent the will of the people via election, that’s how it works. Arguing that taxpayers are stakeholders in government is like saying that people who shop are Walmart are equivalent to its shareholders. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/52 "2010-05-18T18:35:08Z")
Its old I know, but I’ve always loather the term Human resources. It always makes me think that they’ve dug up zombies and put them to work. Which some of the places that I’ve worked at could well be the case. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/53 "2010-05-18T18:41:47Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I hate the term “Regards” used to sign emails. Some of my fellow middle management types and I were saying how it is used when you don’t feel the person you are emailing is important enough to say “thank you” to. > > Basically it is synonomous with “Retards”. The one that bugs me is when people sign off “Best”. "Best, Peter" Best what, motherfucker? Regards? Wishes? In show? Boy? Western? ---
**Author:** ![Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/858c86/32.png) [@Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/54 "2010-05-18T22:37:36Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > Its old I know, but I’ve always loather the term Human resources. > > It always makes me think that they’ve dug up zombies and put them to work. I’ve run across a human resource (manager) with the title “Director of People”. Ack, who do we have to kill/zombiefy to get “Personnel” back as the common term? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/55 "2010-05-19T17:25:21Z")
I worked at a very cult-like dot-com consulting firm years ago where they had a Director of Culture. They were basically like HR people who administer shit like Meyers Briggs tests and teach you how to come up with team cheers. Really I hate anything that is designed to obfuscate what someone or something is or does. I think it creates an entire culture of bullshit that can ultimately have very severe consequences when it collides with the immovable wall of reality. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927/56 "2010-05-19T17:32:28Z")
Heard on today’s interminable cofnerence call: “We need to focus our thought-leadershipping on the ‘Overall Value’ dynamic.” Translation: We need to convince our customers to give us a bit more profit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/business-bullshit-watch-reaching-out/538927.md?page=2)