Which office buzzwords do you hate?

I came across this funny article in the Boston Globe a while back about all the annoying buzzwords people throw around the office.

If terms like "value-add" and "thinking outside the box" make you want to jam a laser pointer into your eye, you are not alone in your suffering. Having been asked to "leverage their core competencies" one too many times, workers all across the country are offering up a collective response: Stop the insanity.

What's the worst business jargon you hear around your office?

 

If I could just "piggy back" on what he was saying... or maybe someone else could kind of "unpack that" a little more.

 

Do we really always need to "crank" or "jam"? There are some additional annoying modeling words, but these are the worst; constantly overused. I can't stand to hear either around the office anymore.

 

"drill down" ... used by a VP to say that you need to "drill down" on a certain topic - i.e. go away and do hours of pointless research for few tangible results

 

"at the end of the day" "let's take a stab at it" "can we circle up" "deep dive" "net-net"

And my favorite, "capacity". John, do you have capacity to model this out to year 2329??

 

let's not hammer a dead horse let's not reinvent the wheel

ahhhhh, how bout let's not throw a haymaker at your eye when you're not looking

 

frequently used by senior bankers to mean "I have no fucking idea and I am an idiot but here is some bs on the subject anyways just don't ask any relevant questions"

 

Earlier I heard' ablolutely, we will touch base next week and have a ball park figure for you' Also 'Lets take this offline' I am going to put a spade through his head soon

 

let's not reinvent the wheel - that one is horrible! Bandwidth, intellectual capital, and ego wall are all equally bad as well

I found this game that Babson made making fun of buzzwords. They call it Buzzword Blending Syndrome (BBS)lol - pretty funny and kills some time: Buzzword Blends

 

We had a sales call from a Canadian HF (who we can't do business with) called Giraffe Capital. My VP gets on the call with me and takes over, before first telling me (on mute) that he will throw in giraffe jokes.

He used: Let me stretch my neck out on this one and guess.. So we can grab that low-hanging fruit Let's paint the spots on the animal

He kept a totally strait face and I was DYING!!!

 

The best post on this thread lol.

amb05:
We had a sales call from a Canadian HF (who we can't do business with) called Giraffe Capital. My VP gets on the call with me and takes over, before first telling me (on mute) that he will throw in giraffe jokes.

He used: Let me stretch my neck out on this one and guess.. So we can grab that low-hanging fruit Let's paint the spots on the animal

He kept a totally strait face and I was DYING!!!

 

bl**dy annoying: "touch base with.." "organize deliverables.." "on that front" "knowledge transfer" "identifying core competencies for holistic improvement.." (this one begs the words "Fk you")

n the way its said..sort of like their swallowing their saliva only to regurgitate it just so that they could play with it...wtf is the exit exit exit???

 

"transition phase" "restructuring initiative"

One time, a head of a team singled out one of the team members after something had gone wrong. "You are so pussy that I should go to your home and fuck you". Needless to say, I caught a "rofl" fit.

 

Most of the above mentioned terms can bring me to the edge. My lease favorite behavior is when some jack**s cannot at least use them in the correct context.

 
johnp686:
another one in my office:

War room. This is not N. Korea. Nor is it the NFL draft. Lets please refer to it as the conference room that it is.

This one made me lol.

 

Do you have time to work on this? wouldn't be so bad...I hate the alternative that all my higher-ups use: Do you have capacity? or at times when doing nothing but pretending to manage has really gotten them in a hurry, just a blank email with subject "Capacity?"

 

"Wow" or "Just, wow"

It's subtle... but slowly this expression seems to have prevailed this year. It is said almost anytime, anywhere, for anything. I always thought it was a generational thing, 18-22 year olds saying it all the time. Now when older folks say this, it makes me cringe.

 

to hate...

lets "go ahead" and put together some "talking points" were all going to have to "step it up" now "boys and girls" yeah, "lets talk about that offline" where going to have to find ways to "create value" around here lets "huddle up" later and talk about this

then theres the most abused - i mean, "it is what it is"

at least there was actually one that made me chuckle....

(in your best country accent) "let's get 'ER done"!

 

Ha, this is great. I think half of you work in my office.

I can't stand:

opine from 30,000 feet get our arms around

This isn't a buzzword, but def one of my least favorite... "what are you doing this weekend?" or variations such as "hope you don't have any plans for this weekend", or "are you going home tonight?" (usually less of a question and more of a statement that its expected I will absolutely, under no circumstance leave the office before sunrise.

 

When your associate comes to your desk and says "we need to get this done" and just looks at you; he doesn't mean "we" he means you, so why doesn't he just say what he means and say "This task is below me and the skills I acquired while I did my MBA at Harvard (I did mention I went to Harvard, you knew I went to Harvard right?) so you need to get on this so I can pretend to look it over and then hand it to our MD

 

We've all heard these phrases a million times. It's interesting that bankers all have the same cliche vocab. It really sucks when you start using them with friends or at informal settings.

Banking > VC > Tech PE; PM me if you would like any advice I'm happy to help
 

"out of pocket" has been getting a big following around here as of late... and I'm ready to shove bamboo shoots between my fingernails.

"I'm going to be out of pocket for most of next week, so lets try to get this taken care of before then"

Out of pocket? You're not a fucking quarterback, you're a fat, divorced middle-aged managing director. You're a poster child for judging a book by its cover, and fucking hating it... fat, rich and obnoxious. The only pocket you need to be worrying about is a lean pocket, ever heard of one of those?

 

We have waves of the most insufferable buzz words being used until you feel like inhaling your own vomit just to kill yourself.

Lately these have been quite popular:

  • we need to get smart on...
  • we need to think smartly about...
  • lets scratch our on heads on this and discuss later...

We have 2 people who have somehow/somewhere heard someone say vis a vis and have become so impressed by it that they feel the need to inject it into just about every fucking sentence they say.

 

Not sure how no one has mentioned "Please advise"

Also:

What are the "takeaways?" "Kindly" (a.k.a. "right the fuck now") We don't want to "double-touch" anything "Action" used as a verb I've got a lot "on my plate" right now (mostly McDonald's)

 
Ovechkin:
Not sure how no one has mentioned "Please advise"

Also:

What are the "takeaways?" "Kindly" (a.k.a. "right the fuck now") We don't want to "double-touch" anything "Action" used as a verb I've got a lot "on my plate" right now (mostly McDonald's)

Only Ops uses that phrase at my firm. I just started there but I know if I read "please advise" in an e-mail I can look next to their name and see OPS in the department tag.

I think a lot of these are essentially ways to hide idiocy behind toolishness.

 

"Please find [attachment]", as if I don't know there are attachments in the email and I need to search for them in the body of the text.

instead it should say "I've attached..." or "Attached is ...".

 
bankbank:
"turn into a pumpkin" when someone becomes unavailable/unreachable (as in: guys, can you get me a draft by 4? i turn into a pumpkin at 5.)

my favorite buzzwords are "pencils down." always music to my ears when I hear that at work.

haha just heard 'turn into a pumpkin' the other day for the first time. i didn't realize it was a thing.

 

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If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 

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