Business Bullsh!t

[brett]

My experience is that there is BS everywhere so just get used to it.

The trick is to keep you eyes and ears open, think before you speak, and use the BS to your advantage. Understand the separation between BS and reality and use this understanding as one of the tools to advance your career.

BS only works to a point in many organizations. Then results take over. Strong on results and light on BS will typically win the day.

 

[rocketjockey]

With an over-emphasis of safety being crammed down people's throats, an employee put a bumper sticker on his vehicle "(corp name), a Workfree Safe Zone". Needless to say the director of the company did not see the humor in it. I won't ID the company, but your tax dollars flow into there at a high rate.

I shared an office with a fellow 1st level manager at Megacorp for awhile. We both had transferred in from other divisions to this very stodgy closed group. Had a banner hanging in our office that said "(Megacorp Division), putting the "NO" in Innovation!"

It managed to stay up for awhile until a high enough manager got wind of it. Office buddy volunteered to return to engineering (I did too but he raised his hand first!), while I transferred back to my old division as soon as a chance presented itself.

 

[O2Bfree]

We have a saying at my company that sums up our corporate philosophy: You haven't gotten to the root of a problem until you see how it's your fault.

 

[CaptTom]

Among the usual MegaCorp BS propaganda were all kinds of catchy sayings about
"excellence". Apparently that was supposed to be our goal.

Yet, when any discussion turned to budgeting, funding, staffing or pay scales, management trotted out industry averages and always set our targets somewhat below them.

Thus I coined the unofficial company motto: "Striving for Mediocrity."

 

[Clone]

Thus I coined the unofficial company motto: "Striving for Mediocrity."

We used to call that "Aggressively pursuing the Status Quo."

 

[GalaxyBoy]

One of my old bosses had his windows screensaver set up with a marquee text that always had some BS phrase set up on it. My last day I configured mine to say, “Insert meaningless phrase here. Use the word ‘quality’ at least once,” and turned it off for the last time. This company was very very small so there was no IT or anything. My old buddy called me about a month later and told me, “They turned on your computer today. They were NOT amused.” Mission accomplished!!

 

[Bamaman]

And after Six Sigma, look at the direction General Electric is going on right now. They overdosed on their own business BS.

After 36 years of business BS in my case, forced ER for everyone 55 and older was indeed a breath of fresh air.

 

[lwp2017]

I once bought a huge stack of 1950s Popular Mechanic magazines on EBay. The ones with the fantastic artwork covers.
Had a big logo, " written so you could understand it"

When a young engineer or technician would simply explain a complex problem and recommended solution with a minimum of jargon and business speak they got a magazine.
In private, in my office, with a heartfelt thank you for doing good work.
Most of them truly appreciated it.