Do you speak "office speak"?

[whirlcool]

I heard this one more than once:
"Now that we have covered the new GPS approach standards, let's SEGWAY to the ILS approach standards."

It's almost as bad as the overuse of "Sweet!"

 

[gizmo]

If anyone is interested in reading further about this sort of stuff, Don Watson has written a fabulous book called "Death Sentence" which is about the mauling of the language by management newspeak.

He used to be a political speech writer, now has become an advocate for clear meaningful speech. And I suspect a bit of a curmudgeon, too. I recommend the book, it is a fun read and rings true.

Chris.

 

[toggleswitch2]

"Not a problem" does not equate to "You're welcome."
"Can I get" is not the same as "May I please have"
"I want" is a poor substitute for the subjunctive tense (is it the subjunctive?) "I would like".

Our language is borrowed. That does not give us the right to modify it, slaughter it, misuse it and/or garble it.

Corporate double-speak? No, thank you.

My mottos are the following that I saw posted in a supervisor's cubicle decades ago.

Adapt
Improve
Overcome
Never complain.

I guess "kiss @$$" should have been there as well. Ya gotta love the corporate mind-set.

 

[oldhouseman]

The office speak

is just as bad as street slang.

"Ya know"

"It's like"

"Back in the day"

"Ya know what I mean"

"Don't job back on me"

..and the list goes on.

Anguished english.

 

[nurdlinger]

I'd like to compose a thoughtful post here...

But I've got TOO MUCH ON MY PLATE.

 

[rinso]

CORPORATE-SPEAK TRANSLATION GUIDE-Partially Plagerized

• “We need to focus on our core business.”=”We can’t find our ass with both hands.”
• RFI/Request for Information = We know we have the information because you have submitted it to us over and over and over again, but we’re too damn lazy and disorganized to look for it ourselves.
• Reorganization=1. Corporate version of re-arranging the furniture, only with employees. 2. Layoffs
• Help them find another opportunity. = Can their ass.
• Change Management Training = Layoff early warning alarm.
• Opportunity = Problem
• Challenge = Problem
• Issue = Problem
• Event = Problem
• Situation = Problem
• Create value for the customer = Create value for the stockholders
• Marketing Strategy Meeting = Strategy meeting that includes the following tools: Ouija Board, Crystal Ball, coin for flipping, Magic 8 Ball, Microsoft Prophecy; and the following people: 1 each Gypsy, Soothsayer, Psychic, Astrologer, and one little kid.
• Head Count=Financially Unwanted but Grudgingly Necessary Payroll Burden
• Lunch Room Refrigerator=Spontaneous Alien Life Generator
• Politically Correct=Situation where it is OK to slip and drop the “F” bomb or other profanity around a co-worker today, because they just happen to be in a good mood. (Do it again tomorrow around the same person who is now in a bad mood and you could be Human Resource toast.)
• Cubicle = Open, observable work area for employees who cannot be trusted by management.
• Private Office = Closed, reclusive work area for managers who cannot be trusted by employees.
• Negative Variance Analysis = List of lame excuses for non-performance by line item and the non-management personnel blame assignments for each one.
• Positive Variance Analysis = List of better than plan accomplishments, for which management will take total credit.

 

[jeffg]

I once dropped the "C" bomb to a co-worker, in front of an office full of people. Try that one sometime.

Fortunately I didn't become HR toast, because the flareup was so out of character for me, but primarily because the charge was completely accurate.

 

[whirlcool]

Even More....

Marketing Strategy Meeting(2) = A place where fifedoms and kingdoms are created and destroyed by control freak managers.

Operational Metrics - show me a list of everything you did this week. This is a sign that your manager doesn't think you are working hard enough. Also connected to "reorganization" definition.

Merger Planning Meeting - where they clarify who will have a job and who won't when the merger is completed.

 

[jasonl]

Street slang is more tolerable

Wazzup = Hello, how are you

Alright = Fine, thank you

Simple. It's all good in the hood.

 

[beadsobleach]

Exciting

When I worked in an office, everything was exciting. We're really excited, this is going to be exciting, it's an exciting concept, meanwhile, most everyone had deadpan expressions at meetings, never saw the excitement spread much....

 

[neptunebob]

I know what you mean, we would have meetings about incentive plans, benefits, objectives. It's hard to get excited about things you cannot see, hear, touch, or taste. Maybe people who get MBAs lose their 5 senses.

 

[neptunebob]

Speaking of an MBA, I know of an MBA scandal....

It might have made the national news. The daughter of the governor of West Virginia received an MBA degree from West Virginia University, but the Pittsburgh Post Gazette newspaper has found out that she is missing more than half of the classes and has a good executive job. The PG is having a field day over this and even has a special section about this scandal. All this kind of suggests two things to me about MBAs and people who have them:

1. If she is still able to do this job without half the classes, would anyone learn much if you had the classes?
2. Unlike a doctor, nurse, engineer, or even plumber or electrician, you must not learn much in class that would need to know to do your job. Even actors and musicians would need what they learn in their education or it shows.

Actually, I want to be wrong about all this. In PA, WVU is known mostly as a university you go to when you want to party and where they have sofa burning bonfires. If I had a son or daughter, I just could not let them go there, I would not take the chance.

Oh, and many more links where that came from!

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08125/879034-298.stm

 

[may63]

Thanks for the laughs and insights! Many of these phrases are thrown around my office.
I had a boss that was fond of saying "on the docket"...I don't think she even knew what a docket was (I had to google it myself before writing this).

 

[drhardee]

Having recently "transitioned" from the business of public education to the corporate world of the "Death Care" industry, I find that the edu-babble with which I was so grimacingly familiar ("outcome-based results","child-centered classroom" ) has been replaced by corporate newspeak. The manager of our funeral home loves to throw out "corpspeak", talking about "strategic growth targets", and "customer focused results"....for Christ's sake, we're selling caskets and funerals, not widgets!

But, the corporate death-care industry is as cut-throat and management top heavy as any Fortune 500 company..and I fear that it's more about the bottom line, budgets and the stockholders' returns than it is about the families we serve who are our daily bread and butter. But, time will tell.. I've only been there about 3 weeks full-time. I still have to make it through my 90 day new-employee probation period (another corporate "thing" I never had to put up with in public education) so I can get my health care benefits. I'll just keep on smilin' and sellin', smilin' and sellin'... I really do love the business I'm in..it's the corporate environment umbrella I could do without.

 

[oldhouseman]

drhardee,

welcome to Corporate America.

It's all about profits.

Try and make the customer think it's about them.

Get their money.

And you have done your job.

 

[oldhouseman]

And

the government is moving in that direction. I work in gov. I see it everyday.