This is a followup article to part I.
The best part about corporate buzzwords is the smug look of self-satisfaction across the faces of the idiots who use them by the dozen. It’s as if every time a buzzword spews forth from their mouths they are so proud of themselves for being cool.
I have been in meetings lasting over two hours where literally nothing gets said or accomplished. Well, I should rephrase that. A lot gets said as far as actual words spoken, but no information is conveyed. And after the meeting, each side walks out with an air of smugness like their farts don’t stink because they spent 15 minutes talking about how they’ve been “…hearing noise about a streamlined attempt to leverage thinking outside the box vis-a-vis a proactive, valued-added best practice alignment with…” Zzzzzzzz…
Sorry, that’s usually where I zone out.
Here’s part II of the list!
| Word | Definition/examples |
| Infoshare | Noun – “Meeting.” Typically involves a bigger part of the company than a standard team meeting. Usually some higher-up or bigwig will be speaking. Ex. Person 1: “We have an infoshare today at 3pm.” |
| Hit the Ground Running | Expression – “Don’t waste time before you actually start working” Ex. Person 1: “Tomorrow we have to hit the ground running.” Person 2: “Obviously...” Ex. 2 Person 1: “Did you hit the ground running today?” Person 2: “No, I was surfing the net for like 5 hours |
| Feedback | Noun – “Criticism” (usually), “Compliment” (rarely) Ex. Person 1: “I got some feedback on your performance today Person 2: “Oh really? What’d they say?” Person 1: “You do a good job with analysis but you don’t Person 2: “Ok, thanks.” Person 1: “This is something you can add to your performance |
| Performance Plan | Noun – Something with which you are threatened to keep your performance up to standards. Ex. Person 1: “You went to the bathroom 5 times today. This Person 2: “wtf?“ |
| Cushion | Noun – “extra time for a project.” If you scheduled 4 days worth of work over a 5 day period, you would have one day of cushion. Note that your cushion always gets filled up by something else that is usually unrelated to the original project. Once you have taken care of that, you realize that you’ve used up approximately 150% of your alloted “cushion” time and are now behind on your original project. Ex. Person 1: “Is your project done?” Person 2: “No.” Person 1: “Why not? You had 2 days of cushion in there.” Person 2: “Well, I had 35 other urgent issues assigned Person 1: “Well, your other project was due today. This |
| Mind the Gap | Concept – To save the company money by spending your own money on work-related things instead. Ex. Person 1: “Welcome to my meeting. I printed all these Person 2: “Way to mind the gap!!“ |
| Drop Off | Verb – “To hang up when you’re attending a meeting via phone” Ex. Person 1: “That’s all I needed to talk about. I’m gonna Person 2: “Bye” ::click:: |
| Perspective | Concept – “Related to such-and-such.” Works best if you use it approximately once every 6 minutes while speaking. Ex. |
| Standpoint | See: Perspective |
| Push Back | Verb – “to suggest that maybe you can’t do something, or as much as someone is asking” Ex. |
| Approach | Noun – “the method by which you’re going to do something.”
Ex. |
| Straggler | Noun – Someone who is late to a meeting. This is actually what the word means, and it wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t used every single time someone comes to a meeting late, and then followed by a laugh as if the person making the comment had just said the most clever thing ever said in the entire history of spoken language. Ex. Person 1: (arrives late to a meeting) Person 2: (arrives late to the meeting with person 1) Person 3: “e-heh-heh, looks like we got a couple stragglers. Person 1: (awkward look) |
| Hash Out | Verb – to clarify things
Ex. Person 1: “Do we know what’s going on with such-and-such Person 2: “Yes. Everything has been hashed out.” |
| Flush Out | See: Hash Out |
| Flesh Out | See: Hash Out, Flush Out |
| War Room | Noun – a training room where a small group or an entire team works in supposed isolation. It is believed to increase efficiency. It also increases attrition. Ex. Person 1: “Did you see that meeting invite? We’re in Cheerleader: “Yay!!!!!!!!!!! We can really crank though Average Associate: “Ok.” Slacker: “Geez, I’m going to be surrounded by work-happy Pessimist: “Great. The computers in the training rooms Cheerleader: “Come on, silly! We can all work together |
| Can I Drive? | Expression – “Can I work on your computer?” Used when you are at someone’s desk helping them with something and you get sick of telling them what to do and would rather do it yourself. When you let someone else “drive,” you get up and give them your computer chair. If they had a chair, then you take their chair. Otherwise, if they were standing next to you, you stand where they were standing while they use your computer. Ex. Person 1: “Click there, ok, now scroll down, no wait, Pesron 2: “Ok.” |
| Hearing Noise About This | Expression – “People are complaining.” Used when someone doesn’t want to admit they effed up and they’d rather sugar coat it and use the term “noise” instead. Vague made-up terms are much better than to-the-point terms. They deflect accountability. Ex. Person 1: “How is remote access working?” Person 2: “We’ve been hearing noise about that.” Person 3: “That’s because we forgot to configure it.“ |
| Step Up | Expression – “Take on more work/start making more progress.” It implies that you are not doing a good job and/or pulling your weight. Also thought by managers to magically bestow knowledge into the listener’s head, but it doesn’t really work. Ex. Manager: “How’s that project coming?” Person 1: “It’s coming along ok. I’ve been busy with Manager: “We’ll you’re going to have to step up and get Ex. 2 Manager: “How’s that project coming?” Person 1: “I’m pretty confused. I’ve never seen this Manager: “Well, you’re going to have to step up.” —Fantasy ending— Person 1: “Ohhh, NOW I understand how to do it. Thanks!” Manager: “np!” —Realistic ending— Person 1: “Um… so… are you going to explain this Manager: “You need to step up and get this done.” Person 1: “Right, but I’ve never even seen this stuff Manager: “You need to step up.” Person 1: “Uh… yeah…“ |
| Communicate | Verb – Tell/inform/notify/etc.
Ex. Manager: “Can you take on this responsibility?” Person 1: “Yes.” Manager: “Great. I’ll communicate that to the team.” Ex. 2 Manager: “It has been communicated to us that…“ |
| Perception | Noun – What people think of you/the only thing that matters
Ex. Manager: “I want to talk about your performance.” Person 1: “Well, over this past iteration, I’ve accomplished Manager: “Yeah, you see, there’s a perception that you’re Person 1: “Are you kidding? I showed you empirical, irrefutable, Manager: “Yeah, it’s just, someone saw you eating in |
If you enjoyed this article, you may enjoy the book Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter’s Guide.
Wow, I will never use office speak again without laughing! What will I say? Hm…..
man up
So true and so funny
At my next job I will post this list in my cubicle, so as to never use any of them. It’s like the posting fat’pics on your refrigerator type of thing.