knoppy1987 Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 As work is driving me nuts at the moment and business jargon within emails is also doing my nut in, I thought I would introduce a thread to make us office dwellers share business jargon, to turn my annoyance into something worth laughing at. My first contribution is "spearheading new initiatives" which was spoken by our Chief Commercial Officer yesterday. In the last week we have also changed our logo and reports for a more "contemporary" look. It looks shit and I do not like the word contemporary. Maybe I just lack "business acumen". Anybody else have any funny examples of business jargon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 Ping irritates me, ping me an email. Dicks. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 "Reach out". Sorry , they work 200 miles away . I can't reach out to them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted November 29, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted November 29, 2016 "Let's unpack this for a moment." Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrgghghghghghghghghgh 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted November 29, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted November 29, 2016 'You have to ask if you're a chicken or a pig'. This was said in a meeting I was in once and prompted 15 minutes of time wasting which began with 'sorry, what?' and ended with 'OK, I'm not sure what the relevance is but let's carry on'. See also 'skin in the game'. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapal_fan Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 My wife has said to me on 2 separate occasions "going forward" - ahhh no you don't. "we can really drill into this information." - you mean look at it, using our eye balls. "let's try and take the pragmatic approach" - it's not so bad, but the annoying thing is how often it's said in my place. "2020" - I swear, when we finally reach 2020, most of the corporate suckers in my place won't know what to do with themselves. "2020 this, 2020 that" - well done on drawing an arbitrary line on a calendar for which you will try (and fail) to do something "next gen". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knoppy1987 Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 (edited) Another one that really drives me mad is the word " pertinent" usually by saying "please send all pertinent information". What is wrong with relevant? In the last hour in a proposal that went out for an inspection and appraisal of some aircraft components: Market commentary for the pertinent aircraft types and spare component availability. If I was on the selection committee for that job out for tender, I'd reject it straight away because of that word. Edited November 29, 2016 by knoppy1987 I did not feel the comment was as pertinent as it could have been, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knoppy1987 Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 32 minutes ago, Chindie said: See also 'skin in the game'. Brilliant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brumerican Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 Run it up the flagpole. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omariqy Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 Kick the can down the road Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted November 29, 2016 Moderator Share Posted November 29, 2016 Technically none of the above is jargon. It's just vacuous office-bingo clichés. There's a difference. Sorry /pedant 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midfielder Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 - extrapolate. mis-used repeatedly in a context of cutting and pasting something from excel into powerpoint for example - silos. fed up of hearing this such as 'we need to get out of our silos on this one and come together' - blue sky thinking. i dont know who instructs people to use this but when i hear it, i think of blue skies... a devon beach in summertime, and not this sh-thole... instead of whatever the F blue sky thinking is. Like Homer Simpson just goes off on a mental journey while the conversation happens. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knoppy1987 Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 18 minutes ago, BOF said: vacuous office-bingo clichés Good contribution . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted November 29, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted November 29, 2016 34 minutes ago, knoppy1987 said: Another one that really drives me mad is the word " pertinent" usually by saying "please send all pertinent information". What is wrong with relevant? In the last hour in a proposal that went our for an inspection and appraisal of some aircraft components: Market commentary for the pertinent aircraft types and spare component availability. If I was on the selection committee for that job out for tender, I'd reject it straight away because of that word. I've literally just used "pertinent" in another thread 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted November 29, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted November 29, 2016 A manager in my previous workplace used the word "tweet" to mean using the chat/instant messaging function on the work email. "Send me a tweet" "He tweeted me earlier" "I'll tweet you later" THAT'S NOT WHAT A TWEET IS! I called him out on it once by pretending I thought he wanted me to tweet him on Twitter. Didn't work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 It's a little different to the kind of vacuous bullshit spouted by the shiny-trousered, square-toed shoe wearing wastes of oxygen that ave been posted so far, but an honourable mention to "Inglish". Depending on my mood, I'm either infuriated or amused by Indian-English catchphrases, which seem to be used by every Indian IT workers. "Please do the needful" - which translates to "I have no idea what's going on, could you figure it out and take care of it, even though it's my job?". A lot of it is archaic English, a young female apprentice on my team was once horrified when a middle aged Indian bloke told her to "intimate" with him if she needed anymore information. "Revert", as in "please do the needful and revert". They seem to use it to mean "do this, and then tell me it's done", whereas I'm always tempted to do it, then change everything back to how it was before. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coda Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 A rocket polisher forwarded me an email with "please note the salient points therein" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choffer Posted November 29, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted November 29, 2016 Any sentence containing the word "granularity". 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted November 29, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted November 29, 2016 31 minutes ago, Stevo985 said: I've literally just used "pertinent" in another thread Was it relevant? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AshVilla Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 When someone calls to "touch base" touch my nipples instead 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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