Overused Words in Banking

As the name suggests, I want to know what words you guys hate/hear the most. This can be anything from small catchphrases to pretentious words that add no meaning.

The word I hate the most is robust.

SO many firms use it when talking about recent deals.

 

Daily highlights: Don't kill yourself on this It shouldn't take long How is your bandwidth looking? can we comb through the deck one more time massage these numbers What are you staffed on right now? Can you circle back Is everyone on? Spinning your wheels Can you shift gears? Industry leader Poised to capitalize on Robust Seasoned management

 

I think this might be the worst, my manager had said this 4 times in one week once, 2 of which were out of context, I thought I was going to go insane

Quant (ˈkwänt) n: An expert, someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.
 

Absolutely HATE the word "please".....that would seem counter-intuitive as it is a manner of being polite, but any e-mail starting with "please" will be followed by some complete bullshit request...it's never a reasonable or meaningful assignment.

 

Most of the folks I work with don't speak English as a first language. Once the office catches on to a new word it gets added to everyones lexicon. It's funny because a lot of phrases seem completely alien to them, but are perfectly normal.

Last month it was "outsized" - as in "a possibility for outsized returns". By the end of the month they would say "traffic is outsized today".

This month they're using "touch base".

One hand, one million dollars, no tears.
 

I received some offshore support from an Indian office and they loved saying “thrice” and “for the same”.

Quant (ˈkwänt) n: An expert, someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.
 

Shits stupid until years go bye and you start saying it.

These phrases are really just a way to autopilot and seem smart. I can have a phone convo while looking at shoes and just mutter nonsense.

 

"..." is one of the most peculiar "isms" in my opinion. In my experience, it's always really friendly/innocuous/humble types like admins that finish their emails with "...". These are people that I know for a fact are wonderful people, but I simply can't read "..." without thinking it's heavily passive-aggressive.

Array
 

Cranking: Saw 'cranking' already, was the best day when I was chatting to a girl about how I was cranking at work till 3 last night, and she starts laughing, because apparently she understood cranking as wanking while you cry, which, really, wasn't that far off.

Cold Towel: I fucking hate cold towel. Let me read this tomorrow with a cold towel, I'll do a cold towel on this later this weekend etc...

Global: On a side note, we had an RFP where we were trying to prove how much global reach the bank had, MD said "add global to the book". So we added a few 'global's, next turn, he added the word global another 30+ times in a 25 page book. It was fucking ugly, though we did win the sell-side.

 

From someone who just finished the bulk of their recruiting:

"Flat"

I fucking hate the word flat. Every HR rep and their fucking mother always yelps about how "flat" their culture is and how its soooooo much better than everyone else. What does that even mean? Its become so overused at this point that it is effectively meaningless. Like yea I get it, I'm sure I'm going to have LOOOOOOADS of interaction with the senior MD's, cause its so FUCKIN FLAT. What form will that interaction come in? Who tf knows! Could be seeing the rage in a Lazard directors eyes as a keyboard rockets towards my supple, young intern head, or that weird bald spot on the back of Loyd Blankfien's head as he walks right past me into the elevator.

Im sure many places truly do have a flat culture (as I've seen for myself), but for the love of god please give some legitimate examples of this, not just some overused buzzword.

"one for the money two for the better green 3 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine" - M.F. Doom
 
stev0026:

Are you jamming on something right now?

The worst. My VP would ask me this everyday.

 

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