MetaChat - Words I've Heard Enough Of Recently

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

14 November 2007

Words I've Heard Enough Of Recently
1. Silo
2. Privilege
3. Do→[More:]
By "do," I mean "do" as a substitute word for any other verb, such as "choose," "wear,""install," "order," "have," "visit," "see," "create," etc. It's as though applying a specific verb has become too nerdy. Thus we get:

"I'm going to do the fettucine Alfredo"
"We liked the walnut finish ok but decided to do the mahogany instead"
"We did the Sargent exhibit and the Roman antiquities this morning"
"I'm going to do Munich this year; last year I did Berlin"
"I did a faux-marble finish on the East wall and a sponge wash on the ceiling"
"I'm going to do a black cocktail dress with patent pumps"

...is it just me?

post by: Miko at: 21:04 | 27 comments

silo?
really??

I can't even recall the last time someone said that around me.

posted by kellydamnit 14 November | 21:07

Oh yes. But this isn't silo like on a farm. It's silo like vertically organized with insufficient communication.

posted by Miko 14 November | 21:12

I can't even recall the last time someone said that around me.

You obviously do not live in a converted missile silo. (I would have rather linked to Home Movie, but.. o well.)

posted by pokermonk 14 November | 21:13

I need a new job. No one mentions silos where I work. Ever.

I'm soooo sick of these words or phrases: data point, outlier, one-off, and egregious. STOP IT EVERYONE!

posted by iconomy 14 November | 21:14

I want to live in a world where the sentence "I'm going to do the fettucine Alfredo" would never be spoken. That's just a really unsavory image. Thankfully, I'm not having pasta for dinner tonight.

posted by bmarkey 14 November | 21:16

I got an Amazon.com support email today, it said they are always happy to "do the needful."

I have never had an Indian-subcontinent-outsourced technical support interaction that did not involve the phrase "doing the needful," often many many iterations of it in fact.

I like it. I think I might start doing the needful myself.

posted by ikkyu2 14 November | 21:17

I dunno. I could Do Stuff.

I don't like hearing myself say "from a BLANK perspective" at work, but it's pretty ingrained in the corporate culture.

posted by rainbaby 14 November | 21:22

I hate corporate speak. For example, if some is supposed to keep minutes at a meeting, they are "capturing" it. The powerpoint slides of a presentation are called a "deck", as in "I'll email you the deck from this powerpoint presentation tomorrow". The latest I heard was "spear of influence". No, not sphere of influence, but spear of influence. Check it out in a pop business book at a chain bookstore near you.

posted by eekacat 14 November | 21:39

Oh, and I hate hate hate the pop business things like "we don't have issues, we have opportunities". I am glad I am a knuckledragger with no aspirations of the managerial sort, and that I can bluntly speak my mind. I had a manager (we don't have supervisors anymore) respond to my description of a problem by saying "wow, this sounds like an opportunity to move the needle over." I answered "No, this shit is fucked up way more than you realize, and unless you get off your ass and take care of this steaming pile of shit we've stepped in, this place is shutting down." I don't like the idea of losing my source of income because some dumbass who read a business book wants to play games.

posted by eekacat 14 November | 21:55

So what I'm hearing, eekacat, is that you're not invested in moving forward with the new paradigm. Don't let the team down.

posted by bmarkey 14 November | 22:00

I like how you captured that, bmarkey. Let's use this momentum to drive the thread forward. After all, every day is a great day to make a difference.

posted by eekacat 14 November | 22:22

I only really object to "do" meaning "visit." It's so reductive, so dismissive. I know a couple who recently returned from two weeks in China. Yes, they've "done" China. They think they've experienced all the history, landscape, art, culture, and complexities of a vast land in two weeks, with time left over for a spa visit!

posted by Elsa 14 November | 22:28

"Spear of influence?"

"move the needle over?"

Huh? Como se dice?

posted by jason's_planet 14 November | 22:29

Now that I have all of your buy-in, let's all move forward and adopt some best practices for this thread.

This kind of horizontal thinking about the opportunities that have arisen isn't helping the team win.

What we need is to re-focus and re-energize around the new paradigm, and not get upset because the cheese moved, okay?

Let's all mindstorm a little bit and re-gather in another week to revisit our progress. Who'd like to take the initial action of setting up this meeting?

Excellent! I think we've made some real pro-
(sound of rending flesh and screaming....)

posted by Lipstick Thespian 14 November | 22:39

take ownership of
silo
data point
step up to the plate

These are a few of my (current) least favourite things.

posted by dg 14 November | 22:57

I'm going to go ahead and task you with the role of increasing productivity and decreasing "not activity." Go ahead and dialog with your team mates about the best workarounds for the data stoppage and communicative sidewinding. We can all bring it home this quarter if we remember the focal nexus, L.E.A.R.N:

Liaisable - ask yourself, is this communication strategy liaisable?
Ethicate - Can we further ethicate this process to maximize transparency?
Antitoxify - If communication standstills, find a way to antitoxify the situation. Foosball, anyone?
Re-unlearn - when seeking new answers to challenges, go to your child-self for guidance. Re-unlearn all that you've unlearned in the past and start afresh.
Neolinguify - if there isn't a word for your particular brand of bullshit, feel free to neolinguify one, and be sure to add it to the company's mission statement - it's a wiki!

posted by SassHat 14 November | 23:38

'Sooner than later' and 'walk the talk' were my bugbears at my last job. For fuck's sake, is the word 'rather' that hard to say? How far away is later, anyway? And the more you talk about 'walking the talk' the less you seem to actually do what you say you're going to do. Another one was 'utilize'. 'Use' is a perfectly good word. Gah. Fortunately (or not), my job involved ripping this crap out of other people's writing and translating it into real English. I was known for giving out tickets for rampant jargon-slinging and abuse of passive verbs.

Man oh man, I am so glad I don't work in an office any more.

Of course I'm perennially broke now, so that has its down-side. Somehow it still doesn't make returning to corporateville look appealing, though.

posted by elizard 14 November | 23:41

Spear of Influence: Coming to a d20 game near your basement.

posted by dismas 15 November | 02:20

Wha? No "synergies"? My company loves synergies. Transversal synergies, especially. And, if they can be leveraged, so much the better.

Interesting about "doing the needful" - the Indian support team we use always use that and I assumed it must be something that my company had got them to say.

Silos are bad, bad, bad. I had the dubious pleasure of being in a meeting last week where someone was going to build a "straw man". Quite why, I don't know. Maybe it helps get your ducks in a row.

God.

posted by TheDonF 15 November | 02:37

I thought "doing the needful" was a euphemism for going potty? And I say, by all means, yes! Please do the needful before sending off my order, thank you very much! I wouldn't want any mistakes along those lines.

posted by taz 15 November | 03:26

Holy cow, Sass those are insane. The only one that bugs me and not necessarily in a business setting is 'disengenuous'. WTF is wrong with insincere, superficial, unintended, veiled, or misleading?

posted by chewatadistance 15 November | 07:30

Operationalise. Hate it.

posted by Wilder 15 November | 10:23

I'm needful. Do me!

Seriously, though... Do you know what my job has been for the past year or so? I write synopses/reviews of management books. IT'S FREAKING PAINFUL. Every book says pretty much the SAME EXACT THING, but each author thinks up new buzzwords to describe basic concepts. So all these annoying terms you describe will eventually be replaced by brand new annoying terms as soon as a new vapid guide to doing stuff comes into vogue.

posted by jrossi4r 15 November | 10:56

Oh, I've got another one. Parking Lot. In a meeting, an issue comes up, and they'll say "let's parking lot that" and it goes on a list to be addressed later.

posted by rainbaby 15 November | 11:08

Sass, I see many promotions in your future. Management material, if ever I saw it.

posted by elizard 15 November | 11:13

One time, in a meeting, I said we needed to build a better parking lot. Completely silenced all the managerial types. I could just see them searching their brains for parking lot references, and wondering how a knuckledragger like me could be ahead of them in the business culture curve. I think they realized I was being a smartass when I said it needed moving sidewalks.

posted by eekacat 15 November | 13:38

Take it back, Elizard! You take that back right now!

posted by SassHat 15 November | 21:08

← OMG Leaves! || So... how's the weather in San Francisco tonight? →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN