I called someone at our corporate office to get an answer to a problem. I called the wrong person, and he said he would transfer my call to the correct person. Except, he didn’t say, “Oh, you need to talk to Tracey about that, I’ll transfer you over to her.” He said, “Oh, Tracey handles that, let me lean her in on your call.” And then he transferred me to her extension. Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out just what he said! She didn’t join our call…he transferred my call and he himself hung up. Gone. Outta there. I really, really wanted to call him back and ask him exactly what he thought he was saying when he said that. Because from my limited understanding of the whole “lean in” concept, it doesn’t refer to transferring misplaced calls. And she wasn’t “partnering” either. That’s another one that bugs me when my regional says, “You should partner with Melanie about that” when she means, “Melanie knows the answer…call her.”
“You can’t see the forest if you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“If you have that, the world is your walrus.”
Before one of those long, pointless, unwieldy meetings- especially if it’s an office wide one or a bloated project team-- you and your buddies sketch out a bingo card. In each box, write the meaningless buzzwords of your choice. Your cards should all be different.
When the meeting starts, you’ll look like your carefully writing notes. Instead, you are crossing off words as they are said. First one to make a bingo wins.
My gift to the OP – Mission Statement Generators
You will find no better source of gibberish for the office professional.
I’m drilling down all the way to bedrock, and beyond. I’m a veritable Project Mohole.
I brought up this incident on the board several years ago when it first occurred: there was a manager – I’ll call her “Becky”” – in the department who talked a lot, but never said anything because she chose to speak in businessisms (e.g., “At the end of the day it is what it is.”)
The most remarkable thing that came out of Becky’s mouth was a new-to-me variation on “value-added," which she uttered during a meeting shortly after a round of layoffs had occurred. Since the layoffs, she had been desperately trying to demonstrate to the vice president of the department and other company executives just how important she was in order to avoid being included in the next (inevitable) round of layoffs. During this particular meeting, the department VP casually mentioned to us that Becky had attended another department’s meeting the previous week – and before he could finish his sentence, Becky interrupted with, “Yes, and the *value *that I *added *to that meeting was … “
It wasn’t just that she felt she had to justify her attendance at the meeting – she had to believe that the term “value-added” means anything at all to anyone anymore, and then modify that term to suit her needs.
Dear Lord, those are awesome!
That’s the game indeed. It is, however, for amateurs: about 20 years ago during a reorganization one of my peers (who had a very dry sense of humor) pointed out that playing Bullshit Bingo with our boss was no fun; he was so prone to those kinds of usages in our weekly staff meetings that we bingoed in no time at all.
She proposed instead “Reverse Bullshit Bingo”, which has simple rules: fit as many bingo phrases as you could into a sentence without getting a funny look from him, and whoever gets the most wins. After that staff meetings became a strategic effort in which you didn’t want to aim high early on, because it would sound strange, but you also didn’t want to wait too long and get pre-empted. On a banner day she got four phrases into one sentence, and he agreed with her and carried on the conversation; a tear still comes to my eye when I remember that day.
Nope, first one to cross off all words has to ask a question in front of everyone using a set phrase that is awkward.
Just came across this, just had to share …
Recently popular in my neck of the cubicles…
“Bird-dogging”. Track and report status of other people’s work. Usage example: “Make sure to bird-dog this until closure!”
“Resourceable”. Somewhere between being on-call and contactable, but not obligated to respond or support. “Can you be resourceable for the holiday just in case our on-calls aren’t available?” It gives mgmt the illusion of emergency contingency planning when in reality no one will actually be answering any phone calls coming from the company prefixes.
It’s an actual defined method for dealing with enterprise risk management. Nothing wrong with it.
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?”
Thank the universe that I don’t work in a place where anyone talks like this at all, but my girlfriend does. Just yesterday I learned that her higher-ups are now using the term “resources” instead of employees, as in, “How many resources am I getting to complete this task?” Ugh.
Apparently not.
'round these parts they want us to ‘drill down’. We’re asked to do it repeatedly.
My place has recently started calling people widgets. No, I’m not kidding.
mmm
‘Concepting’ in the advertising field. That business is full of crazy words.
Nitpick: “… kick off an action item” please. 
Nitpick: “What is my takeaway from this?”
And analogously, set up and set-up, log in and login, log out and logout, check out and checkout, sign off and sign-off.
Perhaps if I knew how it defined, I could nothing wrong it myself.
I am sure that request has been impacted on your consciousness already.
And my director overused ‘That said’ to the same effect. Well, almost. During meetings she was constantly texting and reading her Blackberry. Oh, and she was the meeting chair.