I’d really prefer that somebody spray me with diarreah than have to endure another discussion about Change Management.
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“Let’s circle back after the meeting…” uh, you mean you want to see if we both heard the same bullshit?
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“we have to incentivize them…” you want to provide them with an incentive to do the work?
After the meeting lets “touch bases.”
Huh? You mean touch my base to your base? I’m married for God’s sake! I can’t go around bumping bases with coworkers, and I don’t swing that way anyhow. Oh, you mean we each go to the other persons base of operations and touch it. Why are we doing this? Madness.
I saw it spelled “touch basis” in a memo. Idiots.
That and “paradigm”. Dilbert is too real to be funny anymore.
“I’ll contact you telephonically”
I’m going to reach in and yank out the vocal cords of the next psuedo intellectual that inflicts this piece of drivel on me.
Whew. I had no idea I felt so strongly about that until I typed it out.
Expedite
Yaaaaaaaaghhhhh!!!
At my first job I must have heard that nearly every night, and a request to “expedite” work was common enough that “expedited” work wasn’t given the exceptional attention implied by the word “expedite.”
I worked for many years as a technical writer in the IT industry. This was weird, because to some extent I was being paid to know how to use words correctly, yet I was often required by my paymasters to do the opposite.
I once re-wrote something to eliminate the word ‘leverage’, and this was queried in rather angry tones by the dingbat who’d written the original version. I explained to him, and to his boss, that he was using ‘leverage’ to mean things it didn’t mean, and that I’d made the changes for this reason. I was ordered to re-instate the word ‘leverage’.
I work for myself now.
I’ve mentioned this elswhere but,
“At the end of the day”.
But, at the end of the day I think you will profit from this.
Also,
“touch base”
"
From higher education:
“teaching moment” (an opportunity to teach about something)–Well, aren’t we teachers, um, teaching all the time?? It also reminds me too much of “senior moment.”
“core values” (what on earth does this mean, anyway?)
“sensitive to the needs of a diverse population” --they put this on the applications as a qualification, and it just seems superfluous. Isn’t it a given that if you’re going to work at a college or university in the U.S., you already know where you are and who you will be working with.
“Our military needs blank for transformation.” I swear nothing comes out of the DoD that doesn’t have the word transformation in it somewhere.
“The blending of new technologies will create a synergistic effect that is a part of the ongoing RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs) which in turn will help bring about the transformation of our forces.” Uggghhh. The worst part of the RMA is the lack of a generally accepted definition. This person could be talking about using computers and sensors for advanced targeting or holograms that will fool enemy forces into fighting non-existant enemies. Heck, it could be a requistion for some fancy toothbrush.
“ping” is definitely my least favorite.
And “matrix” is not a verb.
You know, I spent a lot more time than I should have explaining that “equalizing our prioritizations” could more easily be accomplished by simply not prioritizing in the first place.
I was told I was being divisive.
I think that almost any word that ends in “ation” is probably crap.
Non verbal people are so nice.
Tris
I say nation and ration, at least, ought to get a pass on this one. And I like conflagration and bastardization.
Here is a relatively new term: repurpose. Example: Let’s see if marketing can repurpose that mailer.
I can’t claim to know exactly what it means. Apparently it has something to do with trying to convert some screaming failure into something useful. Anyone else heard this beauty?
“world class” - when we’re done, this will be a world class organization well that says nothing
“information superhighway” - Thanks Al
At Dell we had to memorize a list of these stupid buzzwords and various other moronic slogans a group of underpaid executives had come up with over their three-hour lunches. Of course there was precedent for obnoxious buzzwords and slogans… upon being hired you got a little deck of laminated cards full of them you were supposed to wear on your belt. OK! Let me get my old headgear and wear that too!
Why did we have to memorize the slogans though? Because said execs would swan around the building and pick people at random and ask them to recite the stuff. No, we didn’t have anything better to do… but remember this next time you’re on hold waiting for Dell tech support.
One co-worker got in trouble because when he got put on the spot, he asked the execs to please stop wasting his time because he was trying to help some customers. Silly boy… put that customer on hold so you can recite these buzzwords about customer service. Where are your priorities at?
They gave us little pyramids filled with colorful fluid with the slogans printed on. Another co-worker got in trouble for scraping all the slogans off his pyramid. Yet another co-worker cracked open the pyramid and poured the colored fluid into a shot glass and tried to get people to drink it. This also didn’t go over well, because abuse of the pyramids was tantamount to treasonous disrespect for Michael Dell somehow, who after all had paid for those pyramids that we might be inspired.
I used mine to sharpen razor blades and keep dead mice from decomposing with magical pyramid power.
-fh
Did I say underpaid? That’s hilarious… of course I meant underworked.
It worked fine with underpaid… adds that touch of angry sarcasm.
I hope most fo you are joking. When I get a “real job”, if my bosses talk like this it will be very hard not to make fun of them and laugh in thier faces.
Oh yeah, my boss now uses HUA, it means Head Up Ass. He also uses a few other buzz words, but most are funny. He doesn’t care if I laugh at or insult him though. Some others: SFB = Shit for brains. CUNT = Can’t Understand Normal Thinking. Going into childbirth = the (male) superintendant’s anger when e-mail goes down. After he get off the phone with pushy sales people he will say stuff like “If you wanna play harball with me I’ll jam the bat up your ass.” My job is actually pretty entertaining when its not utter hell.
When I worked for a large, international temp service we were required to refer to the temps as “assignment employees”. The reason was because people think badly of temps. Now there’s a reason to want to go to work: you have to sell something people think badly of. Meanwhile, if we called a client looking for our temp and used the term “assignment employee”, nobody knew what the hell we were talking about.