# Worst case of "manager speak" you've heard? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 13, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589 "2014-03-13T01:58:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/81 "2014-03-14T23:50:33Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > If you just say exactly what you mean without all the crap euphemisms, people get offended that you are being too direct or not touchy feely enough. > > “What is the ask here?” or “What is the action item?” is a lot more friendly than saying “what the fuck are you asking me to do?” Or you could go without the swearing and just say “Sorry, I’m not clear on what you’re asking me to do.” Simple, unjargony, inoffensive, clear. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/82 "2014-03-15T00:03:14Z")
“You’re stopping the wheels of progress”. No sarcasm, irony or intelligence to be detected. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/83 "2014-03-15T00:34:33Z")
I’m still tying to figure out where all this “low-hanging fruit” is. I’m getting hungry. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/84 "2014-03-15T01:18:24Z")
I like “low hanging fruit”. It’s a very effective metaphor. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/85 "2014-03-15T03:03:22Z")
I want to commit murder whenever I hear the thing-loosely-called-a-word “incentivize.” ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/86 "2014-03-15T03:45:55Z")
I use most of these terms all the time and I have to assume that they are well understood. Is there a more succient way to say incentivize? It perfectly describes a concept. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/87 "2014-03-15T03:49:16Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Or you could go without the swearing and just say “Sorry, I’m not clear on what you’re asking me to do.” Simple, unjargony, inoffensive, clear. > Roddy But that doesn’t simultaneously convey my disdain at the other person complete failure in asking a request. Someone writes a long message without clearly xommunocating what they want - reaponding with “what’s the ask?” Requests information and tells them they failed to communicate ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/88 "2014-03-15T04:16:10Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I use most of these terms all the time and I have to assume that they are well understood. Is there a more succient way to say incentivize? It perfectly describes a concept. Manipulate. “How can we incentivize more users to subscribe to our service?” becomes “How can we manipulate more users into subscribing to our service?” Just as succinct _and_ more honest (and thus unacceptable for certain managerial types). ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/89 "2014-03-15T10:14:23Z")
I’m a teacher, and when I first decided upon this profession I naively thought I’d be avoiding this type of mentality. But administrators (and the teachers with their noses up the administrators’ asses) love to use corporate jargon like the examples in this thread. One that I’ve noticed a lot in the last few years is the use of the word “piece” to refer to pretty much everything. referring to an item on the agenda of a staff meeting: “Okay, the next piece is about textbook distribution.” regarding the mandatory pedagogical system du jour: “The final piece in the VESTED model is Deliver.” when discussing resources available for use in the classroom: “This piece is available at [yyyy.com](http://yyyy.com).” Gah! It’s not that it’s wrong, it’s just that they use it so often, when other, better terms are available. Seriously, sitting in faculty and department meetings I feel like I’m just hearing “Piece piece piece piece piece piece piece.” ---
**Author:** ![Frank\_Merton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Frank\_Merton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank_Merton)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/90 "2014-03-15T10:36:15Z")
The worst thing I think a manager can say to employees is something to the effect of, “WE have had a good year, and we owe it all to you.” It is patronizing and no one believes the manager really thinks so. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/91 "2014-03-15T12:37:18Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I use most of these terms all the time and I have to assume that they are well understood. Is there a more succient way to say incentivize? It perfectly describes a concept. Promote, encourage, inspire, bribe, blackmail, reward, punish, retaliate … English is a fluid language, and cross-pollinating nouns and verbs is fine, but the decision to not use an existing word comes across as ignorant or deliberately misleading. In my experience, people use ‘incentivize’ when they mean “punish” but want to be thought to mean “encourage”. I kind of like “task with an ask”, though. It’s like “pimp my ride”, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Frank\_Merton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Frank\_Merton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank_Merton)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/92 "2014-03-15T12:51:43Z")
The way to “incentivize” most people is to pay them fairly and treat them respectfully. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/93 "2014-03-15T14:18:01Z")
> [@ryobserver](#): > > The other day I was noodling around my employer’s intranet networking site and discovered recent hires are now apparently “new acquisitions”. > > Also creepy: “human capital”. They used to be called “people”. That’s still better than where I work. At least there’s some acknowledgement that they’re human. The in vogue term for people these days is “resources”. As in… “We’ll need to assign another resource to the project.”, like we’re interchangeable and/or no more important than physical objects and supplies. I refuse to do it; there’s only so much dehumanizing that I’ll put up with, and using a term just as equally appropriate for something like toilet paper or coffee filters to describe other people isn’t something I’m going to do. I always say “people” or “person”- I tend to think that what you say affects how you think, and I don’t want to fall into that particular pit of using a particular term that devalues anyone. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/94 "2014-03-15T14:24:13Z")
I also tend to think that a lot of manager-speak is usually some kind of attempt on the part of inarticulate managers to make themselves seem more “hip” in a business sense. Kind of like “If I say “What’s the ask?” instead of “What do you need me to do?” I’ll sound like I’m more in-tune and competent.” A lot of the rest not caused by that reason is caused by lickspittle chumps and toadies (who usually know better) trying to make themselves heard using the “cool” jargon that the managers are now using. So it usually only takes one knucklehead manager who wants to make himself sound cool, and you get a huge chunk of people repeating the same idiotic terms. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/95 "2014-03-15T14:42:02Z")
Around me they have discovered the word **“bandwidth”**. I first started hearing it a while back when a BYE\* asked if I had enough bandwidth to complete the project. I stood there blinking, trying to puzzle out the question. I was in an anechoic chamber, working on 4-dof motion drivers, but with simple wired i/o. I couldn’t figure out what sort of transmission he was talking about, what protocol, or how the heck would it get inside. (??) Turns out MBAs think that word means “time”. \*Budding Young Executive. They come, they go, they hype their BNI (Bold New Initiative). And this apparently promotes their “brand”, whatever that is. And they leave. I go on building things. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/96 "2014-03-15T15:17:45Z")
> [@j666](#): > > Promote, encourage, inspire, bribe, blackmail, reward, punish, retaliate … > > English is a fluid language, and cross-pollinating nouns and verbs is fine, but the decision to not use an existing word comes across as ignorant or deliberately misleading. > > In my experience, people use ‘incentivize’ when they mean “punish” but want to be thought to mean “encourage”. > > I kind of like “task with an ask”, though. It’s like “pimp my ride”, isn’t it? I use it in the context of pour bonus or incentive program. E g ensuring that out incentive program properly incentivizes the proper behavior. Seems reasonable to me. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/97 "2014-03-15T15:40:44Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > I was in an anechoic chamber, working on 4-dof motion drivers, but with simple wired i/o. … ---
**Author:** ![Athabasca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Athabasca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athabasca)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/98 "2014-03-15T16:04:38Z")
A few years ago, ‘walk the talk’ was one of the most revoltingly awful, misappropriated expressions around. I had thought the original expression was ‘if you’re gonna talk the talk, then you gotta walk the walk’ or something similar, but wherever ‘walk the talk’ came from, I really don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/99 "2014-03-15T16:12:11Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I use most of these terms all the time and I have to assume that they are well understood. The problem with manager-speak isn’t that it’s incorrect or unclear; the problem is the insufferable _faddishness_. Six months ago I had gone years without hearing “ask” as a noun; now I hear it _multiple times in every meeting_. Just yesterday Manager A asked Manager B if his group could do something, and instead of saying, “That would be really difficult”, Manager B responded with “That would be an awfully big ask.” He thinks he’s being cool, but he’s not. ---
**Author:** ![tenacious\_j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/439d5e/32.png) [@tenacious\_j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tenacious_j)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589/100 "2014-03-15T17:33:33Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I also tend to think that a lot of manager-speak is usually some kind of attempt on the part of inarticulate managers to make themselves seem more “hip” in a business sense. Kind of like “If I say “What’s the ask?” instead of “What do you need me to do?” I’ll sound like I’m more in-tune and competent.” A lot of the rest not caused by that reason is caused by lickspittle chumps and toadies (who usually know better) trying to make themselves heard using the “cool” jargon that the managers are now using. > > So it usually only takes one knucklehead manager who wants to make himself sound cool, and you get a huge chunk of people repeating the same idiotic terms. I am pretty sure my co-worker is in the first group. The thing is, we’re new to working together, and if he would just be real with me instead of trying too hard and coming off like a d-bag, we’d probably get along great. Get the job done and I’ll realize very quickly that you’re competent. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-case-of-manager-speak-youve-heard/683589.md?page=6)