I’m getting so tired of corporate speak that I’m ready to boycott anyone who uses it.
“Please advise if you have any spare cycles to…”
Despite my overwhelming intelligence, I’m not a computer.
“Do you possibly have the bandwidth to…”
And I may be mindnumbingly fast, but I’m not a broadband pipeline either.
“Give me a moment to get my arms around this…”
Hey, you see this? Get your arms around THIS.
“I need you to reach out to…”
How about I reach out and slap ya some?
“Let’s put this topic in the parking lot…”
What say we just take it out to the alley instead?
“I’d like to schedule a roundtable…”
Just because you’re a pointy-headed, tin-foil hat wearing freak doesn’t mean I’m going to mistake you for a knight.
From now on, when anyone formats one of their requests this way, I’m just going to say “Huh? I have no clue what you mean” until they say it in normal, plain English.
I think you have too much on your plate right now. Let’s bang our heads together and see if you can come to a consenus about the best way to tackle this problem.
At the end of the day, we need to identify the root-cause issue. Maybe we need to task someone with this new inititiative, and liaise with other teams to get their feedback.
In the post-election coverage, it seems there is some new FCC regulation mandating that every sentence must begin with a particular phrase for which I harbor an irrational, seething hatred: going forward/
I can’t come up with any good reason why I despise it so much, other than its ubiquity.
If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were in on my call this morning. The problem (root-cause issue) is, I am project management, so all these brainwashed flunkies come to me spewing the dreck that’s been forcefed to them. Corpspeak is to the Business world what foie gras is to geese. Some people think it’s the greatest; I think it’s horrendous.
Heh. When I worked for a mega-corp we some of us played “Bullsh*t Bingo” during meetings. Pick 25 or more of your least favorite corporate buzzwords or phrases. On a 5x5 grid, randomly write a buzz word or phrase in each block. Play just like bingo, except instead of “B5” and “A27” you’ll be marking off “root causes” and “roundtables”. It looks like you’re hanging on the speakers every word ('cause you are) and taking notes (but you’re not). Instead of yeeling “BINGO!” a simple cough and raised eyebrow is enough to let all the players know who won. Even more fun when wagers are made beforehand.
Slight highjack -
Every meeting also has the ubiquitous handouts. I used to make a tic mark on my copy everytime the presenter used a verbal crutch - i.e.: um, ah, like (I really despise “like”). You’ll find that most folks have a particular verbal crutch, some of which are pretty amusing. The most I ever recorded was a gentleman who used “um” over 400 times in a 30 minute presentation. That’s an average of one “um” every 4.5 seconds!
Our next steps should be to incentivize the sales force to really make this a win-win situation, and leverage that opportunity to build greater brand equity.
If you network with some of your associates and utilize their resources and amalgamate your diversified talents, you can produce a deliverable that will effect more efficacy throughout the rest of the team. You must coordinate with your key players to develop a game plan that has everybody on the same page. The company is shifting its focus and envisoning new paradigms, so be prepared for tomorrow’s new chalenges.
Thanks for helicoptering this issue, TellMeI’mNotCrazy; we’ll escalate it and task some resource and quality time on it; going forward, we should touch base in seven and kick it around, run our best possible practices up the flagpole - see who salutes, then implement robust and user-centric synergies.
At this time, the convergence isn’t mature enough to to target deliverables, but it is mission-critical, so we’ll pick the low-hanging fruit first. Let’s maintain transparency on this one.
You haven’t gotten the memo yet? You out of the loop? In this day and age, we do not have “problems.” We have issues. Your negative vernacular is adversely affecting the morale of the group, and that’s a big red flag.
The problem, as I see it TellMeI’mNotCrazy, (who is, in fact, insane and she knows why ) is that you have failed to visualize the total picture. Instead of internalizing, you should look globally. The new benchmarks we have actualized should empower the team to envision the total corporate concept. Take these paradigms back to the drawing board and conceptualize them and get back in three so we can kick them around and see if we get any field goals.
