What corporate bullshit words and phrases do you hate?

Inspired by this thread.

Ever since there was big money in computers, the “suits” have moved in and corrupted the lingo with their own bullshit advertising-inspired jargon.

Here are a few of my “faves”:

-leverage
-resource (used for a person)
-value add
-touch base.

Yes, I’ve heard of “buzzword bingo” too :wink:

Team player.

Funny how some members of the ‘Team’ get company Lexus’s for personal use and others don’t. Are we not all part of the team?

:wink:

Robust.

Dialogue.

Talking about it “offline”.

and others, ad nauseum.

“Think outside the box.”

This phrase, while once fresh and meaningful, has become so far inside the box that it now means “Be a drone.”

All of them.

value add

synergy

cohesive

This is probably all from that bullshit bingo game but these are two that a certain member of our company uses all the time.

“brand”
“brand strength”
“branding”

ad nauseum

Proactive

“We provide a comprehensive suite (barf) of solutions(double barf)”

“Power play” always bothered me as well. WTf? you playing hockey?

Schmucks.

All of the above.

Plus, an acquaintance of mine constantly talks about holding “come to Jesus meetings”. He’s not a fundie; he’s apparently referring to getting a group back on track when they are not following one program or another.

That’s one of my biggies, too.

Others:

Action plan

Action item

I missed an obvious one - “paradigm shift”. Why do people do this??

The one I really hate is, “If you don’t start showing up on time and sober, we are going to fire you.” Newspeak bastards.

Going forward

Synergies

commoditize

win-win

I’ve bitched about “leverage” before, and I will bitch about it again. Goddamn, I hate that word. Others include, but are not limited to:

  • “Sexy” used to describe something that is patently un-sexy, like a brand marketing campaign or a b-to-b website.
  • “Proactive”
  • “Synergy”
  • “Going forward”
  • “Solution”
  • “Incentivize” (that’s not even a fucking word! It’s incent, you fucking morons!)

… and there are many more. My SO works for the same company, and it kills me when he utters these words/phrases at home. I’ve banned them from home use, but he slips them in every now and then.

Cart Retriveal Engineer (or anything else along these lines).

Seriously, I went to apply for a summer job once, and the circumlocutious descriptions had me wondering just what it was I was applying for. I was looking to be a bag boy or cart boy. Eschew obfuscation, people!

Cubicle.
Corporate bullshit for three-walled box wherein we test our resources into insanity.

Utilize (it suffices to say “use”)

Another one - “bigger than a breadbox”.

I worked at a hospital before my current job and one day, as a result of something that happened, we were changing a procedure. My boss said, “So we want to be proactive here and keep this from happening again.”

Me: “Reactive.”

Her: “What?”

Me: “Reactive. Something happened, and we’re reacting to it. We’re not being proactive. Inasmuch as proactive is a word at all, it means to do something to prevent an occurance before it happens.”

Her: “Well we’re preventing it from happening again.”

Me: “I have to go pretend to care about something else now.”