View Full Version : Corporate Words That DO NOT mean anything.
Is anyone else sick of "corporate" words that mean nothing?
I am so tired of the words "leveraging" and "creating value."
Why don't they just say they want to make money? And why don't they just say they want you to do more with less instad of "leverage." When I hear "leverage" it makes me want to go smash a board in to the side of the building and try hoping on the opposite end so that the building pops up some. hahahahahaha. That will be the most successful leveraging ever!
cattledog
3-10-11, 11:36pm
Ugh- "leverage" drives me crazy too. This is not necessarily a corporate word (but I hear it there a lot), but people need to stop saying "at the end of the day." I can't stand that phrase.
HATE buzzwords. Buzzkill is more like it.
At my former job in the county gov't., a couple of co-workers and I used to play Buzzword Bingo during meetings. Only so we wouldn't stab ourselves in the ears with the plastic forks which came with our crappy meeting muffins.
chrisgermany
3-11-11, 7:42am
Synergies: usually these are expected from top management by throwing people together on a task.
Key players: you need a lot of "non key players" to move the "key players" around and even more of "non key players" are then needed to open the door. Still the key players take the merits...
Vision: I have commented on this term several times that a vision can be shared by many people whereas it qualifies more as an hallucination if only very few see it and cannot make others see it, too....
Ugh, "creating/demonstrating value" and "vision" are phrases that are thrown around constantly in my line of work. I also detest anything that has to do with "strategy" as these documents tend to just be wishy-washy and vague with no concrete solutions or proposals in them.
Sometimes I'll read a whole work-related sentence and not derive any meaning from it whatsoever. It's very much "all talk and no action" in my field.
In my area it is 'outside the box' for education, and I still visit these charter schools to see that they want the teachers to prepare a lot more inside the box but then have a fancy little tweak instead of a true difference.
KayLRZ, we also played Buzzword Bingo during meetings. They were a lot more entertaining that way.
The word deliverables makes me laugh.
Life_is_Simple
3-11-11, 11:12am
... I can make up my own terms for my company. ;)
I think I'll borrow from Charlie Sheen... "winning" and I've got "tiger blood." Those actually make more sense in a business than a lot of them.
(Sorry Charlie, you really need medical help. But you're still a funny guy)
treehugger
3-11-11, 12:12pm
At my former job in the county gov't., a couple of co-workers and I used to play Buzzword Bingo during meetings.
Awesome! I think I might borrow that. Although I have to admit, I am pretty lucky in this area at my company. Not too much doublespeak/businessspeak here.
ApatheticNoMore
3-11-11, 12:52pm
Why would coworkers play buzzword bingo when they can fool around on their blackberries and iphones instead at meetings? (This is ubiquitous, this is how people pass time at the BS meetings, and the more important they are, they more of the meeting they just tune out to fool around on their electronic devices - probably just surfing the net! But even if they are working well AS IF I wouldn't rather be working than in the meeting also!)
Meanwhile, without a blackberry (don't want to be that important to the company) or an iphone (don't want to spend that much of my own money on a phone, although yea I know all my coworkers do have fancy phones of their own) I'm left there wanting to blow my brains out indeed. The meetings are actually such an exercise in brainwashing and total assault on reason they they make me angry and depressed and demoralized to such a degree and I have consciously labeled them "bad for my mental health" (and sometimes even bad for my work performance, so much BS gets demoralizing).
So I've started ditching meetings of that sort. I go to work relevant meetings, make no mistake I don't ditch meetings that are actually RELATED TO PROJECTS! Even many work relevant meetings aren't always productive (too much time is spent in meetings period) but at least they aim to accomplish something (at least they mean well!). It's the BS meetings, that are just pure 100% BS, and aren't needed to do anyone's job, that I've started ditching. But I'm so bad at ditching that other coworkers end up noticing me sneaking out, but as far as I know management hasn't yet :). Maybe I should just invest in an iphone afterall :P But I probably won't, too costly.
Why would coworkers play buzzword bingo when they can fool around on their blackberries and iphones instead at meetings?
Well, ANM, in my case, this was before Blackberries. Quite the rant there, bravo! If you can get away with ditching meetings, more power to you. I just had my first spat with my boss of 18 mo. over his need to have weekly non-productive meetings. They fulfill a need for him---which is to have the spotlight in order to tell stories we've all heard 18 times already. But they serve little to no other purpose. Ugh. We finally have compromised having twice monthly meetings. Victory!!
jennipurrr
3-11-11, 1:22pm
I like the term bullsh*t bingo a little better :) One time someone actually stood up and said bingo. That was a bit of a tense moment.
I used to work for a company that had people at multiple locations, so meetings were all done by conference call. It was fabulous. I could completely tune out the garbage and get actual work done. Now, though, at my current employer we have old fashioned meetings since everyone is within a mile of each other. Anyway, luckily we don't have too many meetings here that are not relevant but I go to one meeting every month that is ridiculous and full of buzzwords.
I've mentioned before, in education the use of the word learner annoys me in this way. College student has somehow sufficed for years but now they are "learners" instead. I think the word learner makes the special snowflakes feel empowered (ooh, buzzword). After a massive rebranding effort (ooh is that another buzzword?) one department here had to go back to using the name Housing instead of Residential Life because people kept not being able to find Housing in the directory, would call and want to talk to Housing, etc etc. It was a complete mess.
DH and I were just laughing the other day about people started recently throwing around the word "business intelligence" as we both come from backgrounds with true data warehousing, and now some people at the current employer here have just picked up the word and latched on to it without knowing in a sense what it actually should reference. But, business intelligence does sound pretty spiffy.
I think when people say synergy in a business sense in 2011 they sound like a complete tool. That word has always been fairly pompus and buzzwordy, but by now that jargon is completely played out.
ApatheticNoMore
3-11-11, 2:13pm
The meetings I ditch probably have around 120 attendees, and I'm not kidding (they aren't participative meetings AT ALL but merely listening to BS). So of course you can get away with ditching them, in a crowd of that size noone notices.
"work smarter not harder" meant...obviously you do not have enough to do- let's pile more on you!
Team Player - which means, go the extra mile, on your own time, no money compensation, follow the boss' stupid idea to make him look important, be a YES person, follow in lock step... So as you can guess I CRINGE everytime I hear these words.
At a school I once worked in, we were frequently reminded to tell students to "remember to continue to stand in your greatness."
gimmethesimplelife
3-12-11, 12:18am
How about "I'm just here to cheerlead." I actually had a manager last year at the North Rim who would say this every night for the server pre-shift meeting. I always wanted to ask where his pom-poms were and what cheer did he intend to lead, two bits, four bits, six bit, a dollar? I was very glad when I moved onto the veranda to ****tail serve the rest of the season, i.e., got reclassified as bar staff, and did not have to go to the pre shift meetings anymore. Rob
gimmethesimplelife
3-12-11, 12:20am
Team Player - which means, go the extra mile, on your own time, no money compensation, follow the boss' stupid idea to make him look important, be a YES person, follow in lock step... So as you can guess I CRINGE everytime I hear these words.Yes indeed, the whole idea of being a team player, at least what it has meant in the places I have worked, absolutely repulses me. Leave me alone, don't get in my way, and let me get the job done! Rob
One of the great joys of my previous position was that I was supposed to wander the halls like the Ghost of Meetings Past, straying into meetings as the feeling took me, and then ask:
0) Why are you all having this meeting?
1) Do you folks have an agenda for this meeting?
2) Is this a regularly-scheduled meeting? If so, what is its purpose?
3) Are you using Powerpoint?
4) Is there something more productive you could be doing now?
Depending on the answers, I could cancel meetings, cancel projects, change schedules, redeploy managers to ditchdigging positions, promote people, get people more resources, or buy folks lunch/dinner on the company.
It was like being The Grim Reaper for bad management. I modeled my questioning after Columbo's interrogation techniques.
iris lily
3-12-11, 12:42am
I would like to have a drinkging game at work and drink for every time our boss says "ernormous." It's kind of cute, really.
iris lily
3-12-11, 12:44am
I like the term bullsh*t bingo a little better :) I've mentioned before, in education the use of the word learner annoys me in this way.
Education is always in the lead of change for the sake of change.
iris lily
3-12-11, 12:49am
One of the great joys of my previous position was that I was supposed to wander the halls like the Ghost of Meetings Past, straying into meetings as the feeling took me, and then ask:
0) Why are you all having this meeting?
1) Do you folks have an agenda for this meeting?
2) Is this a regularly-scheduled meeting? If so, what is its purpose?
3) Are you using Powerpoint?
4) Is there something more productive you could be doing now?
Depending on the answers, I could cancel meetings, cancel projects, change schedules, redeploy managers to ditchdigging positions, promote people, get people more resources, or buy folks lunch/dinner on the company.
It was like being The Grim Reaper for bad management. I modeled my questioning after Columbo's interrogation techniques.
That is an awesome power, I would like to be Queen of Meetings.
Oh wait--I guess I wouldn't. That would mean I'd have to attend an awful lot of meetings.
Fortunately I do have VERY few formal, regular meetings at work. The one such meeting that was actually very useful to me has been pretty much cancelled for the past several months. Annoying. And I cancelled two other meetings that lived out their usefulness. I think you've got to switch up and change out meetings every so often.
That is an awesome power, I would like to be Queen of Meetings.
Oh wait--I guess I wouldn't. That would mean I'd have to attend an awful lot of meetings.
The key there was it was on an as-I-felt-like-it basis. If I was scurrying down the hall, and felt a disturbance in the Force from a meeting room I passed, I'd pop in and observe, and ask "just a few questions, pardon my ignorance...".
Variable-ratio reinforcement schedules produce better conditioning, so the seeming randomness kept The Evil Meeting Weenies on their toes :-) A few meetings nuked from orbit now-and-then, and spread of the associated tale of destruction, didn't really take all that much work.
Life_is_Simple
3-12-11, 1:04am
It was like being The Grim Reaper for bad management. I modeled my questioning after Columbo's interrogation techniques.
LOLOL!!! :laff:
I would have liked to have seen that;) Did you wear your trenchcoat?
^ The idea of making Columbo your mentor also made me cackle!
One of the great joys of my previous position was that I was supposed to wander the halls like the Ghost of Meetings Past, straying into meetings as the feeling took me, and then ask:
0) Why are you all having this meeting?
1) Do you folks have an agenda for this meeting?
2) Is this a regularly-scheduled meeting? If so, what is its purpose?
3) Are you using Powerpoint?
4) Is there something more productive you could be doing now?
Depending on the answers, I could cancel meetings, cancel projects, change schedules, redeploy managers to ditchdigging positions, promote people, get people more resources, or buy folks lunch/dinner on the company.
It was like being The Grim Reaper for bad management. I modeled my questioning after Columbo's interrogation techniques.
Oh, Bae! I have never been more attracted to you as now....;-)
...
I've mentioned before, in education the use of the word learner annoys me in this way. College student has somehow sufficed for years but now they are "learners" instead. I think the word learner makes the special snowflakes feel empowered (ooh, buzzword). ...
Education has to be one of the worst offenders. I think they avoid using "student" now because it implies you have to make an actual effort sometimes to learn something. And it might be hard (insert put-upon smiley here)
I worked with some college-level educators for awhile, and the one with the most education degrees wrote in absolute gibberish. She asked me to do some editing once, and I was completely at sea, having no idea what she was trying to say. I was taught in technical writing classes to keep it straightforward, but that's clearly not a tenet of at least some ed schools. (I read the wildly irreverent Ed School Follies years ago, and it stuck with me.)
One of the great joys of my previous position was that I was supposed to wander the halls like the Ghost of Meetings Past, straying into meetings as the feeling took me, and then ask:
0) Why are you all having this meeting?
1) Do you folks have an agenda for this meeting?
2) Is this a regularly-scheduled meeting? If so, what is its purpose?
3) Are you using Powerpoint?
4) Is there something more productive you could be doing now?
My first real job was working for a notorious CEO (of a very popular computer manufacturer) who was known for having bad days where he'd storm into meetings and ask "What the f*** do you people do for me? Why aren't you doing it now?" Same thing only different. Talk about boot camp for an ambitious young girl like me... Funny thing is, nowadays I kinda miss that kind of candor. At least you always knew where you stood.
At a school I once worked in, we were frequently reminded to tell students to "remember to continue to stand in your greatness."
That could soooo easily be twisted into something that involved standing in a fart zone, sorry I work with kids
I'm sure what would be going through my mind would be "If I were really 'standing in my greatness' I wouldn't be here."
ApatheticNoMore
3-18-11, 2:40am
I'm sure what would be going through my mind would be "If I were really 'standing in my greatness' I wouldn't be here."
Oh yea!!! Me too.
Also, if they use words that I actually use when referring to my own personal growth (um I don't use "stand in my greatness" for that, a bit too arrogant for my tastes :D, but I mean in general), I think: "ugh, you can't have my soul, it's not yours! Those things are sacred, you have no right ..." They'll also use all these values words: "ugh you can't have my values either, they aren't yours either! You can sometimes have my time, that is all"
So you see why I have issues with their BS meetings. I'm just exposed to way too much BS talk, which I have the stupidity to take seriously (because I can't block it out entirely, because I'm trapped there in a meeting room for who knows how long) and then I rebel against it and just make myself angry. And they go SUPER HEAVY on the values talk, laying it on really thick.
I think I'd get PREACHED AT less in church and with more justification!!! (because they are supposed to be obsessed with values issues, a corporation is merely making a profit and needs of course to be legal and hopefully not too corrupt, but sermons on how employees should improve their character all the time? Just yucky!)
That could soooo easily be twisted into something that involved standing in a fart zone, sorry I work with kids
Middle schoolers?!
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