Jump to content

Business / corporate speak nonsense


Recommended Posts

Many of us work in offices or corporate environments and will have encountered baffling businessspeak from our fellow office monkeys. I thought it might be an idea to start a thread devoted to this, we could share our examples and see which P&Ber works in the most bullshit filled office.

A couple of my favourites:

"Kick the tyres" - when you do a quick, once-over check of something, i.e. "Lets call Dave and get him to kick the tyres of the server".

"Quick and dirty" - not whathappens in the coat cupboard at the Christmas party but an informal, speedy action. Someone just said this to me - "we'll have a formal update on the call at two, but I just wanted to give you a quick and dirty update"

My all time favourite was in a former workpalce of mine when a manager asked a meeting to plan a quarterly upgrade on a particular system if we were "just using the Force" when we estimated the impact of doing the work. A bit of head scratching later we realised he meant that rather than properly investigating exactly what the result of the upgrade we just estimated it based on our collective experience and 'feel' for the systems.

What business-speak nonsense have P&Bers heard during their hours as captains of industry?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agreed. I once sent an email asking this guy if he had processed an order I had sent to him a week or so earlier. His reply was 'This has been actioned'.

f**k OFF

Passive aggressive corporate speak is the best.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"action that"

tumblr_lphkh1Sk4k1qg306n.gif

The worst ever. I get this all time. The thing is I just send shit out for folk so their wanky corporate speak doesn't really wash when they're asking me to send a tube of posters to some primary school for a wee boy's school project :lol:

'Did you action that request for me last week?'

Aye, I sent a roll of posters out to wee Chris in Oban.

Edited by JamboMikey
Link to comment
Share on other sites

'Touch base'. I fill with rage every time this phrase is used. Can't we just discuss something or talk about it? I eemember being on the phone to someone who used this phrase at least four times in a call that lasted around a minute and a half. I was furious.

In a former job I had a manager who seemed to routinely go through phases of using a certain phrase over and over before getting bored of it after a couple of weeks and finding another. Amongst these was 'we need to be corporate', which was used apparently without context and often used as a justification for something that needed to be down. How to get the sales up? We need to be corporate. What about that job that needs done? Well, we need to be corporate there too.

Edited by Michael W
Link to comment
Share on other sites

"run a flag up the pole and see who salutes it"

"blue sky thinking"

"brainstorm it out"

"helicopter overview"

"let's park that for now and review later"

"stand back and take a horizon view of the progress"

"who wants to own this piece of work?"

If I had time to think, I could add loads more - my company really seems to be run by c***s with honours in bollocks-speak.

How about some alternative phrases too?

"testiculating" - to talk complete bollocks while waving your hands around.

"blamestorming" - have a meeting to decide who carries the can for the latest fuckup.

Edited by Boghead ranter
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice of the OP to remind the majority of people who are enjoying a holiday weekend that they are back at work tomorrow :thumsup2

"Installation of new traffic markings and refurbishment of existing ones"

That apparently means they are painting the roads on the site.

"They're not MY results they are OUR results" With the emphasis on the tone of voice in bold

However this one was deliberately said to wind a particular individual up, and it worked an absolute treat every time. That boss was a bit of a lad

Edited by I'm Brian
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll ping it across to you. No you won't, you will email it. Inexplicable rage when that got said in my last office.

I also hate the word client with a passion. I don't know why, it just seems incredibly wanky.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As said earlier, referring to people as resources is just awful. It's not fucking Mission Impossible.

Probably my worst one is when people working together on something is referred to as networking. I get a sharp pang of murderous rage when I hear that word.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...