Annoying corporate jargon

I actually heard somebody mention "think outside the box" today in a meeting, and I almost lost my lunch. What types of Jargon get on your nerves? There's loads on buzzwhack, but here are my top 25 annoyances. Which ones annoy you?

1 - Think outside the box
2- (This one's a gas) "Natural Tea Break" (logging of away-desk/bathroom break time, particularly in call centres)
3 - Downsizing (ie making redundancies and annoying both employer and employee)
4 - Outsourcing (ie can't be bothered to do it yourself, so pay someone)
5 - Wrinkle (aka challenge, but really means problem)
6 - EBITDA (if you see EBITDA mentioned in a powerpoint, run a mile. It can only be boring stats)
7 - Venting; to vent (aka having a good whinge)
8 - SMART (Specific Measurable Agreed Realistic Time-bound. In other words, anal...arghh)
9 - Walk The Talk
10 - Walk The Floor Management (ie hovering around, looking like a spare wheel, and getting on the nerves of all employees)
11 - "Seamless" (usually combined with "integrated")
12 - E-business/E-commerce (ie 1% of the activity and effort happens on-line, and 99% happens off-line)
13 - B2B (ie we only deal with other businesses, because we hate whinging private customers)
14 - Networking, particularly at conferences (having a good gossip and drinking a lot)
15 - CRM, or CRM IT solutions (doing what you're supposed to do anyway - look after your customers)
16 - Contact Centre (previously call centre, no doubt this will replace also the german use of callcenter with kontaktcenter!!!)
17 - Deliverable (somebody comes to your office asking about deliverables, run and hide. Take a natural tea break or something)
18 - Helicopter View (I've seen this in job adverts quite often...)
19 - Vertical Markets (usually best studied while horizontally reclining with a martini in one hand)
20 - Work-Life balance (I'm guilty of using this one big time. Erm, you live, and you work. We've been doing it for centuries - in former times even with large extended families and in more poverty-stricken eras)
21 - Grow the brand (products need to photosynthesize, you know...)
22 - Event Management (organize training sessions, conferences, annual sales meetings and you're now skilled as an Event Manager)
23 - Escalate, to demand an escalation (complain to your colleague's boss because they ain't getting the work done quick/good enough)
24 - SME (already confusing because it's either Subject Matter Expert or Small and Medium Enterprise - either way, you deserve another natural tea break for it)

25 - (And everyone's favourite when compiling a CV) "multi-tasking"

Related topic: Bullshit Bingo

We can't do that it's cost prohibited.
Cubicle etiquette
Global perspective.
Top down management
Employee driven results
Paradigm shift
Customer oriented results
Cornering the market
Squash the competition

Is your cubicle comfortable?
What do you think Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford would do about this situation?
Raise, please.

26. Incentivise

I detest the word "synergy" and it seems to be one thrown about in meetings a lot. Why can't people just say what they mean and keep it simple instead of spouting out fancy words in a feeble attempt impress colleagues and business partners? Why can't they just say, "Right, guys. Let's join forces and go out there and kick everyone's ass."?

27 Re-calibrate our expectations

28. *Every company/institute name with the word Europe in it, is a joke* For example, 'European Commission', 'European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Company', 'European Parliament', 'European Space Agency'...you get the idea.

29. "You're fired!"

MBWA - Management by Walking/Wandering about.
Paradigm Shift - Everythings changed! But looks remarkably the same.
Paradigm Paralysis - Everything changed and you havent adapted (uhm wait my job is still the same).

Then theres all the freaky "Quality initiatives" - each one better than the last (honest) and remarkably the same...
First it was TQM (Total Quality Management), then came QI Story (Quality Initiative Story), now its Six Sigma and we all need white belts and black belts and god knows what other colour belt in powerpointing your way to looking active.

30. Garden leave
31. Corporate manslaughter
32. FYEO (For Your Eyes Only)
33. AWOL

How about Vertical Register? - I discovered today that the British work on a vertical register, adn the Germans/French/etc on a horizontal one - and there´s me wondering why nobody understands me here!!!

"Going Forward"

Bullshit Bingo

"blue sky thinking"

oh and "joined up thinking"

been capturing a few 'low hanging fruits' lately

We need to move up the value chain leveraging our enterprise-wide synergies to deliver end-to-end solutions delivering demonstrable business value while striving to provide transparency and visibility to our stakeholders without sacrificing our responsibilities as a caring corporation!

Timeliness.
Synergy.

Beat me to it. What the hell does this mean?

a more vague version of 'targetted Blue Sky'
i.e. we had no idea what we were doing but got very lucky!

My personal hate- the PC 'Thought-shower'. Apparently can't say brain-storm in case the spastics take offense. Bah!

"Thats sexual harrasment!"

Translation: I have them by the balls.

My peronal most hated. when two people get into protracted discussion/arguement in a meeting that the rest of the people their have no opinion on the chair tells them to "take it offline"
ARHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHG must control fists of death!!! My boss at IBM used to say it all the time

agree with every single 'hate phrase' that has been mantioned already.

Don't like 'hit the ground running' either. Not even 100% sure what it's meant to mean.

That's hilarious!

Where I work, "synergy" is currently the fashionable word of choice in a certain specific science/engineering context. I guess they think they're all so cool, using this really sophisticated word that they've learned from the business world.

Oh, and "win-win strategy". And "roadmap".

Strangely, this stuff doesn't annoy me though. I just crack up laughing at it coz it sounds so ridiculous. I especially love the aforementioned "blue sky thinking", "joined up thinking", and "low hanging fruits".

Time for another round of Bullshit Bingo, anyone?

Thankfully, I've heard very few of those phrases at my work. My field is very un-businessy.

quite a few are reasonably useful though aren't they - the alternative to describe it in a long winded way

I mean, hit the ground running makes sense and I can't think of a quicker way of describing synergy.

leveraging
synergy / synergies
all that horizontal / vertical markets crap
hedging
customer-led / customer-facing
six sigma
balanced scorecard
spec (as in "whats the spec on that"?)
offshore
customer charter (british public organisations love this one)
mission statement
EMEA (Europe Middle East Asia)
solution / solutions
turn-key

The term "customer friendly" can frustrate me in the workplace because sometimes I think my boss loses sight of who our real customers are and cowers down to and obliges the people who have the most power at the expense of our real customers.

How do you get a global perspective working in a cubicle?

answer:surf TT.

I hate those dumb asses that wanna be real smart using words that they cant explain if asked(had em by the balls a few times, guess thats why the boss didn't talk to me after a while )

You are the first one to point out the facetiousness in my fictitous jargon (cuticle etiquette combined with global perspective on my post).

You can now move to the front cubicle as you've being promoted to the head pedantic of this thread.

Carry on.

Corporate Jargon is a means for idiots to feel like they can tread water in the shark pool.

I disagree - all parts of business have their own language which sounds nuts to those outside it. These words are all just shortcuts to say something in less words. Yes, most of them sound stupid, but try creating a new word that doesn't!

Meetings I sit in go a lot better when everyone is speaking the same language instead of having to describe or re-describe what they mean in more words. Then again, we don't use any of these phrases or words to hide behind lack of knowledge.

Hold on that's legit stats speak. it actually means something. thats not business speak unless your collegaues using it in different way?

Agree. However, I have noticed in my working life that people who have the better jobs than me use it (although they might be idiots). Should I start speaking like this to get a promotion??


Yeah, but those stupid phrases mentioned here which can mean everything and nothing are still increadibly annoying.

Yeah but he was mentioning six sigma which has a definate (if annoying) meaning.

"Going forward" is my personal hate.

Bascially - yeah you should. me I just got out of the business world instead

Same here, most phrases tend to have four letters and are followed by "pardon my French". A very humane atmosphere

Oh God, yes. What does it mean, anyway?

• low-hanging fruit
• silos
• eat our own dog food
• deep dive
• watching our "IP"

the best thing is listening to our German boss, who speaks with a very thick accent, plop these phrases in all the time. his English is excellent, however and he uses these terms like they were normal adjective and pronouns.

I agree with Beardie: anything with the word 'quality', e.g. quality managements and esp. quality audits.

Some other pet peeves: benchmark, balanced score card, 86, take a rain check (cringe).

hmm this could end up with me getting laughed at, but here goes.
There are some really obvious bollocks out there.. I particularly liked 'thought shower' I mean what the fuck is that?? But some of the other words are quite descriptive and lead to a general understanding, and also often a lot shorter to say, eg 'Synergy' or you could say, '.. gets on well together, or can support each other whilst not being the same... I prefer synergy.
'Seamless' or fits well together. Once again this is quite descriptive. My opinion is that it is more often the person that uses these words for effect rather than for meaning or understanding. that is more annoying, so when the recent snot nosed FNG manager starts talking about blue sky this and out of the box that.. then clearly he is a twat...
just my 2 pence

You have got to be joking!

- Have you checked the corporate Directive?
- We should review the Protocol.

Eating our own dog food
No joke, it seems.

Expense Policy.
Alignment.
Online meetings.
All phone calls are called conference calls.

No it isnt a joke. Many Germans eat dog food. Like some of those in my office who bring in crude slabs of meat and thick sausages to grill whenever theres some celebration. Colourful buffet with salad, smoked salmon, cheese squares and prawns: no chance. They prefer to go back to the age of the Flintstones.

It's leberkasen.

Isnt it Europe Middle East and Africa?