Anyone else have a boss who has no skills other than the ability to spew corporate-speak and conversation filler ad nauseum, schedule meetings to force groups to submit to said spewing, and act as a buffer between the haves (upper management) and the have-nots?
Here’s a recently compiled list of endless phrases that make up the verbal diarrhea:
I’m just thinking out loud/run it up the flagpole/double-back/if for some reason/take a few steps back/in terms of/what we’ll call/what I like to call/what I think of as/huddle up/first and foremost/as a sanity check/refer back to it/at a high level/adhoc questions/with the exception of/under normal circumstances/for the most part/to the best of our ability/I’ll just call it…/collectively over time/flesh out/so to speak/committed to memory/aligned with/as it relates to/go so far as to/greater level of detail/going forward/made reference to/as an example/to your point/until such time as/respectively/as well as/what comes to mind/for what it’s worth/gains traction/along the lines of/in its present form/in light of/literally/to some extent/as recently as/in my mind’s eye/side of the equation
Every interaction is 30 seconds of semi-pertinent info surrounded by an hour of fluff…
His predecessor was guilty of those kind of catch-phrases. We made fun of him too, but at least he kept it brief. It wasn’t 1/10th as torturous as the constant barrage of self-important blather to which this clown subjects us. His cube is within earshot of mine; as I’m typing I just heard “In my mind’s eye” again…who says this???
Kevbo, stepping up to the plate would probably cost me my job and lead to prison time…
Man you just described the boss at my last job and his boss as well. At least the latter could be an entertaining conversationalist when he wanted to be, but he was still a blowhard who literally sat on his ass all day blogging and trying to write the great American novel. I am not making that up.
Today I got the “Statistically, 10% of such-and-such is out of your control. Your numbers are blah, therefore blah, blah, blah.”
To which I answered, truthfully, showing that in my case, more than 10% had fuck-all to do with me and therefore my numbers were a statistical anomaly.
Which got a very narrow full-blinders response straight back into the “numbers”.
Ok, motherfucker, if you really knew anything about numbers and statistics, you would know that outliers are completely within statistical probablility and when it has been clearly demonstrated that the individual has been subject to more than the default standard (long term, wide scope average) 10% variance, that blaming the person for shit beyond their control and making threats about it is extremely foolish.
Except in that it makes you feel better because you feel you’ve “done something” about a statistical anomaly.
Most of this crap is spewed from people who are normally levels above a position they should hold and as a result have no idea as to what they are doing, or should be doing.
In an architectural history course several of us would make bets on how far into his lecture the prof would go before he used the word “overview”. Every lecture.