Not true for cease and desist spick and span, or kith and kin. Somewhat true for aid and abet, although abet has a more restricted sense of aiding in a crime.
(on preview I see Q.E.D. beat me on cease and desist)
I always wondered about “born and bred.” Bred comes first; why isn’t it “bred and born?”
I like henceforth.
If I ever make it to the point where I would be subjected to corporate douche-speak then I’d have to use henceforth. In fact, I’d use pretentious words in the traditional sense. Why the fuck not? If everyone else is going to sound like douchebags, you might as well do it with some class.
“On a go-forward basis” That one makes me want to end it all. There is no reason at all for this to exist. Why not “in the future?” that simply makes all the sense in the world to me.
I briefly tried to pick up some extra cash by listening to corporate conference calls and transcribing them. Actually I didn’t do the transcribing, I checked the transcriptions for errors based on the audio. The things you hear. It’s incredible. What’s hilarious to me is every now and again you’ll get your average British company and they use the same garbage too.
Oh, go all the way, Merkwurdigliebe. Make it “*from * henceforth.”
[QUOTE=catsix]
[quote]
QED said:
You sound bitter. Passed over for a promotion too many times?
Engineers are useful, but there’s no function in business with a more unrealistically inflated sense of their own importance and competence.
There’s a healthy balance to be struck betwene accepting new business ideas, which requires some new terminology, and sounding like the pointy-haired boss and babbling about “leveraging core competencies to pin down price points at the end of the day.” Being resistant to everything management does is just as useless, though.
Because “in the future” is some undefined starting time someday. “Going forward”* means from right now, into the future, until further notice. “Henceforth” would be fine, and I do occasionally go with “effective immediately”, to get people’s attention.
*“on a go-forward basis” is beyond the pale.
Welcome to the English language. Part of the fun, many words and phrases that mean virtually the same thing.
This is completely false, untrue, wrong, incorrect and spurious!
[QUOTE=RickJay]
[QUOTE=catsix]
I think you just channeled my boss’ boss. Meanwhile, here I am managing perceptions. Which in my office is code for sending e-mails at 2 a.m. so you look important. Yes, I’m serious. Well, at least I’m serious that that’s what it means. In fact, someone who is fortunately not my boss told me that to manage perceptions, I should send an e-mail to “key” people in the evening so they think I’m working. When I started laughing hysterically, he got this blank look on his face, to which I said, “What does your wife think of you managing perceptions?”
Considering that the engineers are what my company sells, well, I’d say my sense of self-imporantce is pretty grounded in reality. If they don’t have us, they can’t get paid for us, which means the largest part of their business plan is shot.
None of that requires calling people ‘resources’ as if they are staplers or toasters. There are terms that exist because they describe something that previously did not exist and thus language had no word for it, and then there are terms taht exist because someone had to find newer, better, more impressive way to say something that’s always been said.
Saying ‘You can leverage other resources in the global community by reaching out and pinging them.’ is completely useless when you could say ‘Send an email to the Shanghai group.’ This invented pointy haired boss language does not make communication clearer or easier, it doesn’t refine anything, it doesn’t make the meaning of a phrase more precise and it doesn’t improve efficiency.
All it does is make a stuffed shirt feel more important.
My boss’s boss told me to ‘reach out to’ my boss and ‘manage up’. I said ‘If you want me to do my boss’s job, then give me his job.’ They gave me more money and asked me not to quit.
Yeah, but at the end of the day, it is what it is.
What about “…the wonk was crurled but we can now skip this step.” You don’t get it.
What are you, 15?
:rolleyes: Aaaaa, shit.
Well, no, the birthing comes first; the breeding referred to is social, not genetic.
…
Unless I was just whooshed with a neat little pun about coming.
And why isn’t it “eat your cake and have it too”?
Consider the possibility that it actually does have a different meaning. Consider the possibility that management is a art/craft/science in it’s own right with it’s own terminology, just like any other discipline.
I am basically a technical person. I joined management ranks a few years back. Some of these words and phrases really are different and really aren’t meant just to be pompous. It is not a perspective I had when I was a low man on the totem pole, my viewpoint was pretty much like everyone else’s on the Pit thread. I have found that there is a reason these phrases get invented. They get invented by someone who sees the world differently than you do and requires different phrasing because of that. And corporations require people with many different worldviews.
For example, I find the tendency to call everything opportunities infuriating. They are problems, not opportunites and challenges. However, I work with people who use the word “ownable” and it’s exactly correct for their job. People are resources. It doesn’t mean they are toasters, but when you have $100,000 to spend, there is a choice to upgrade your people or your equipment – there is an equivalency there. In any company over 30 or so people, you can’t think about people as Mike and Jim and Sue, you have to abstract them into resources. The tech people are the same way. In my business, the technical people call them “users”. That doesn’t demean them, it’s a better word for their role as they relate to our techncial issues.
My greatest skill in my career is the ability to translate business ideas and concepts to technical teams and vice versa. Both have their share of lingo that sounds absolutely insane to the other.
Originally Posted by Sigmagirl
Huh. I was actually thinking about it in conjunction with racehorses, not people; I guess with the Kentucky Derby still in my mind. With people, I guess it makes sense, but I hear of horses “born and bred” to be champions. And that still makes no sense to me.
I spent five years managing a technical department, and I never needed to use bullshit PHB-language to do it.
You upgrade objects like printers or overhead projectors. You educate people. Take your pick.
We already have a perfectly good term for an abstract group of human beings. That term is ‘people.’
The term ‘users’ cannot apply to inanimate objects. It specifically means ‘people who use a particular type of item.’ If you really need to be more specific than ‘people’, you could always say ‘I need to add ten engineers to this project.’
I refuse (and did refuse when I was running the IT department) to ever refer to a person as a resource.
That’s not a skill. Most of us know what the ‘business lingo’ means, but we also recognize it for the useless bullshit that it is. The emperor has no clothes on.
It’s weird, isn’t it? It’s like they actually respect people who have the balls to tell them to their faces that they don’t know as much as they pretend to. Not that it’s ever going to get me an actual promotion, but the swollen salary makes up for quite a bit.
Hey, thanks for the love. Every time somebody references one of my past posts, I literally get an eighteen-inch erection.