Yes. It’s so hot it’s on fire. It’s number one with a bullet. No manager with AVP-level-or-greater ambition can get through a ten-minute Powerpoint deck without using “ask” as a noun at least three times.
Just this morning, I was informed that we weren’t sure whether a particular work item was an IT ask or an actuarial ask.
Remember when you used to ask somebody to complete a task? Now, you task them with an ask. All these asks make me want to stick an axe up somebody’s ass.
“Like a pig thru a snake” - I have heard this used to describe a process that takes a long time. Ugh.
“Deep dive” is my new nemesis. I’ve gone my whole life without diving into anything, and suddenly I’m deep diving all over the place.
I refuse to believe the thing about ask. Most managiese I can grok, but not ask as it has been used here. It sounds so incredibly, incredibly stupid.
I suspect it has replaced “take away”.
As in, “What is my take away from this?”
Which is manager speak for: I asked you for a technical explanation for a problem and the explanation you gave me is way over my head, so give a simple version that I can understand.
I’ll hold them for you.
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”.
Dear Lord - I used to call us temps “disposable employees,” but I was mostly kidding!
I love this one, from the BBC:
Ah, so that’s where it came from. I eventually sussed what it meant, but hearing it for the first time from a mealy-mouthed manager gave it a bad association for me.
It’s only the next step after the time-honored “human resources” which I always hated.
Roddy
That’s not much worse than “human resources”, a term that’s been around so long and is so widespread that no one seems to think about what it implies.
ETA: The obligatory “ninja’d”.
Yep, that one’s big by me, too. In fact a big part of my job is doing Deep Dives. I hate hate hate it every time I have to say the words but what can I do? If I call my Detailed Study a Detailed Study no one will know what I’m talking about.
Are you…digging deep, and peeling back the layers?
Of the onion, amirite?
I don’t actually have a problem with most of the manager speak in this thread. It often shortcuts longer sentences, and it’s usually more comprehensible then you guys are implying. It’s only when a lot of it gets strung together that it begins to feel like Bullshit Bingo.
Oh! I agree and feel so strongly about this. I once felt so angry about all of these expressions that I began to keep a list:
It turns out there are just so many ways to say nothing and so many are variations of your example. What a stupid expression. Here are a few examples:
. All things considered, …
. Bottom line is, …
. All things being equal, …
. All other things being equal, …
. All things considered, …
. In a manner of speaking, …
. What I mean to say is, …
. When you consider the bottom line, …
. For all intents and purposes, … (this one is perhaps my favorite)
. At this time, …
. At this point, …
. At this point in time, …
. At the same time, …
. At the end of the day, …
. For the time being, …
. As you know, …
. In such a way, …
. In such a way as to, …
. In the first place, …
. In the sense that, …
. With regards to, …
. With respect to, …
After a short time, I concluded there were hundreds (if not thousands) of ways to say nothing. I became very discouraged and fed up with this realization and I just gave up maintaining this list.
But it is trury amazing that people would go to so much trouble to develop so many ways to essentially say nothing. How wasteful and bogus!
Sometimes, I just get to hating people. They can just be so f’ing stupid!
I have heard the term, “muff diver”.
I have always believed this had something to do with cunnilingus but I’ve never been quite sure. I never felt like pursing this too much. I did try to perform cunnilingus on a couple of my girlfriends. But I experienced a very unpleasant odor and I quickly abandoned any hope of finding this to be a mutually pleasurable experience. I wouldn’t have minded if it seemed to be a pleasurable experience for both of us. But the pleasure just seemed to me to be entirely one-sided. As such I never knew how to handle it - especially since she was not at all interested in performing fellatio. I mean, under those circumstances, to heck with it!
However, to this day, I still feel there is something I have missed and I wish that I could have found some way to re-explore this experience.
Oh well!
**“Bullshit Bingo” **
Now that seems like a real lovely expression. I wonder if you could tell us what you think it means. It seems to me that it could mean a number of very amusing concepts.
I like it - even though I have no idea what it means.
Value-at-risk.
I was a little thrown off the first time I heard someone say, “My bad.” All I could think was, “My bad what?”
