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07 April 2006
Execrable Business Jargon for the Day→[More:]
"Living Document"
"Happy Path"
"big rocks"
"maximize" and "synergy", either alone or in combination
"innovative opportunity"
"innovative" anything--when ya toss that word around like green puke on St. Patrick's day, it kind of ceases to lose its meaning
x "is key to" y
x "will impact" y (I know it's technically correct. It still bugs me.)
"vision" when used as a verb
anything to do with teams when referring to work--I find the more they talk about teamwork, the less they actually have, no?
Speaking of which, I now have to work on a document that, at the end of the day, will impact my team's visioning of our next innovative opportunity.
I'm so glad my immediate supervisor hates MBA wankers and shield me from the everlasting crapflooding that is the unignorable stench of our corporate HQ.
The worst I've heard so far was from a former coworker, with whom I used to laugh about made-up words we heard in meetings, etc. The instructor of a workshop she was in assured her that her learnings from that day would maximize the impactfulness of her presentations.
We laughed until we cried. And then we just cried.
I hate the jargon that sounds sexual. "Happy path" is definitely gross. I guess "screw the pooch" doesn't just sound sexual; it is. A friend of mine that I used to work with would always say "bang it out" for any task or project. He'd say, "Let's bang it out real quick, no problem!" He'd make a motion with his fist. This happened several times a week. It was horrible, but funny.
"Leverage"
"Best of breed"
Definitely whenever "impact" is used as a verb.
"Win-win-win"
Jargon I like:
"Low-hanging fruit" - Means my manager understands we shouldn't have to kill ourselves just to be productive.
"Due diligence" - Awesome MBA jargon that protects from executive pie-in-the-sky projects.!
Ooh, I love 'due diligence'. I think it actually comes from legal jargon. To me, it means that other people should have exhuasted all their resources before dragging the problem up to me.
Got you all beat: This, fresh from the Starbucks portal today:
"Please join us for the Marketing Speakers Series and hear author Kathy Cramer discuss her book Change the Way You See Everything: Through Asset-Based Thinking. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, that perception is reality, and that a single strength can overcome a world of obstacles. These three powerful ideas converge in the breakthrough work, Change the Way You See Everything"
Hmm, I guess jargon does have to be made up. Sorry about including "due diligence". But I'm excited to find that other people like it too. It really is my favorite workplace term!
"Proactive" is definitely unlikable. I remember the resident director of my dorm in college (it's like a dorm mother) used to use it on me when I was dragging my butt so I had to live with it because I really was being immature. I have a love-hate relationship with it because of that.
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