favorite / least favorites buzzwords from work

[ERD50]

This is more of a syntax issue than a buzzword, but it annoys me when I hear people starting out a sentence with "So....." almost as of they were telling a story.

"So.....I just got my car detailed."
"So.....how is your new job?"
"So.....I hear your house sold."
"So.....what are you doing this week-end?"


So....what is with that? I find it annoying.

Interesting link about this.

So It Turns Out That Everyone’s Starting Sentences With ‘So’ – Lingua Franca - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education

There was a LOT of follow up on the use of 'so' in this thread. Funny, I had noticed that in the Science Friday podcasts (mentioned in the linked article). It seems that these really smart people did a lot of "so..." to explain things. It didn't really bug me, but it happened enough to make me notice, and I did think they were trying to frame it as a story ("So the next thing we thought of was...." "So if you want to go to Mars....", "So when these two chemicals combine...).

Not so much a buzzword, but I HATE it when people use the word "literally" when they describe something figuratively.

Co-worker, returning from lunch: "We literally starved to death waiting for the waiter to bring our lunch."

Me: "Oh, can I have your stapler then?"

-ERD50

 

[Amethyst]

I agree that few people ask how you're doing because they really care about you and what you're doing. What some seem to be looking for is:

1) Oh, hah, you have really boring weekends, a really boring life, and you've just proved it to me. Now I can feel superior to you, whereas before, I was a little worried because you seem smart and cool.

2) I had a cool weekend, but it's not cool to just launch in and start bragging about it; to be polite, I'm going to let you go first.

I'm interested in parents' kid stories. Some of them are really funny.

Amethyst

This one's always annoyed me, because nobody really cares. None of my coworkers care what I did over the weekend, any more than I care what they did.

!

 

[Amethyst]

Eat your own dogfood

That, and "self-licking ice cream cone" are two common phrases I find revolting. Still, the ice cream cone analogy is at least useful. AFAIK, Standard English doesn't have a good idiom for "something perpetuated for the sole purpose of perpetuating it." (If one exists, someone here will surely provide it).

I had to have the dogfood one explained to me, and never could understand why "use your own products" wasn't good enough.

Amethyst

 

[ERD50]

That, and "self-licking ice cream cone" are two common phrases I find revolting. Still, the ice cream cone analogy is at least useful. AFAIK, Standard English doesn't have a good idiom for "something perpetuated for the sole purpose of perpetuating it." (If one exists, someone here will surely provide it).

"Famous for being famous"? Like Paris Hilton.

I had to have the dogfood one explained to me, and never could understand why "use your own products" wasn't good enough.

Amethyst

I get the intent, but it makes no sense to me unless you are a dog who makes dogfood. Dog food is made for dogs, not humans. Why would we eat it? "Eat your own cooking", or "you made your bed, now sleep in it" would make more sense.

-ERD50

 

[Mr. Paul]

Reach out

I had a discussion with a fellow about doing some business. I called him 3 times and each time he closed the conversation with "thanks for reaching out." Decided I wasn't going to be able to stand that even one more time.

 

[ABQ2015]

"Governance"

"within the Enterprise"

Sorry, I'm an engineer but not a trekkie.

 

[Silver]

I just remembered one more: Heavy Lifting

Supervisor: "Your department will need to do the heavy lifting with '_____' process for awhile because X department has so many vacancies"

Usually that temporary "heavy lifting" became the permanent expectation.

 

[LoneAspen]

In thinking about it more, I did recall some phrases where I work that I've heard multiple times:

"unicorn" - Some product feature or ability somebody wants that's unattainable.

"move the needle" - As in to move forward in reaching some goal, usually a deadline or a sales number.

Re: "self licking ice cream cone" - LOL, I've never heard that one before. I might have to start using that one at work and see if I can start a trend.

 

[RetiredAndFree]

"I'm sorry, can you repeat the question?"

Repeated hundreds of times during teleconferences over the years by people clearly multi-tasking instead of actually paying attention, always preceded by a long silence as they hurried to get their phones off of mute.

"Multi tasking" would be another. It doesn't exist. Period.

 

[Khan]

Dogfood

That, and "self-licking ice cream cone" are two common phrases I find revolting. Still, the ice cream cone analogy is at least useful. AFAIK, Standard English doesn't have a good idiom for "something perpetuated for the sole purpose of perpetuating it." (If one exists, someone here will surely provide it).

I had to have the dogfood one explained to me, and never could understand why "use your own products" wasn't good enough.

Amethyst

The explanation I heard for the "dogfood" was that it came from IAMS, which was a local business.
"How can we ask others to buy our stuff if we aren't buying it?"

 

[audreyh1]

For some reason all hackneyed sports analogies really annoy me. It's like EVERYBODY is supposed to identify with them, when in reality only a subset of people do.

Particularly when used in ED/Viagra ads. I'll never forget whats-his-name "get back in the game!" TMI TMI !!!!!!

 

[audreyh1]

I remember lots of shifting paradigms when I was working, but that didn't really bug me.

Thankfully, I don't hear much of these buzz phrases nowadays.

 

[audreyh1]

Me, too. In fact, one should never miss a chance to bring cats into the conversation. Derails all pompousness immediately.

A.

Great advice!

 

[John Galt III]

Optics. Wrap my head around it. Actionable.

 

[jim747]

It seems like SO is being replaced by LOOK.

LOOK...We've been doing this...
LOOK...the market is going to do this or that.

 

[truenorth418]

Let's touch base

I have a hard stop

Who's on point

When's our next one on one

Let's get some 360 feedback

Please engage

Thanks for reaching out

 

[Corporateburnout]

Pulse Check (to check employees morale)

Laser Focused

KPI (key performance indicator) instead of metrics

Circle back

 

[truenorth418]

Lets do some goal setting

I'll cascade my goals

We are aligned.

 

[zedd]

Let's take it to the next level.

Diversity and inclusivity

The net-net of this is ...

 

[MRG]

'Nobody's leaving untill customer XYZ says it's working'

 

[itsmyparty]

We had a person in the group who always used the latest 'words' ... Which did seem to impress some of the executives. But recently reading about the definition of a psychopath..think he was/is one...and this was a part of his method of manipulation. He constantly used the word 'overarching' ...that was 10 yrs or so ago...still hear it occasionally today.

 

[Amethyst]

Lately, I've been hearing the phrase "Free chicken," as in "We're just free chicken to them."

It seems to mean "Because we already do X as part of our job, and we work with organization Y, Org Y expects us to do all their X work, instead of paying someone else to do X."

 

[gcgang]

What are some of you favorite (or least favorite) buzzwords from work? Off the top of my head, here's some of mine:

24/7
Push the envelope
Low hanging fruit
Let's take this off-line

Let's reposition into this SPACE.

Holistic.

And of course, the secret to success, " PLASTICS".

 

[Rosie]

Heh, a friend just tweeted:

I am in a meeting where people say things like "provided her concurrence" rather than "agreed."

Poor guy.

 

[lemming]

I hate "does that make any sense" said every third sentence to get you to agree to drivel.
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