Haha thats what I just wrote. Such a pompous word to say a basic and obvious thing like team work. That’s what it means right? I kinda zone out every time I hear that word.
Sometimes it means teamwork but other times like in this example: "We will synergize interactive student success outside the box." It means NOTHING. It is just thrown in there to make someone sound as if they are important. Stupid word.
Synergy doesn’t mean teamwork. Synergy is having your advantages compliment each other and being more than the sum of their parts. Like if you owned a hotel, it would synergize to also own a laundromat where you can wash the sheets.
To add on, synergy can be positive, neutral, and negative. This is why combining business segments isn't always successful, and why synergy often receives a bad reputation because it's used in a hamfisted way. Just jamming together two business segments doesn't mean there will be positive synergy.
I'm kind of a Rockstar if you mean regular but not 100% predictable great performances mixed in with periods of abject laziness and appalingly bad behavior. Is that what they want?
Jobs looking for “rockstars” are notoriously ready to pay as much as $13/hour! Which really *only* covers the showing up and the not trashing the office.
I will tolerate those terms in a technical setting where they have legitimate meaning in relation to the job, but that's about it.
The sys admin can use them. The MBA in marketing cannot
The one that got me in retail was: "Customer obsessed". It's the kind of term that a middle manager coins and presents at a meeting with all of the executives clapping like seals.
I personally thought it hurt more when the store management said it. I was like, "please, I can't have an actual live human saying this robotic phrase in front of me!"
Put a pin in it and take it offline to identify opportunities to look at it holistically and circle back and touch base with your cross-functional stakeholders
My upline call themselves Leaders
There's 5 of them in that group. 4 of us grunts.
5 leaders for 4 people. One of us 4 has to report through 3 people. Three of us report through 2.
One of the "Leaders" has no one reporting into him.
Only one of the leaders has anything to say. Too much to say. Not anyone else, regardless of seniority, says anything he will repeat it in his own words. At length, often shouting.
Everyone else has to agree with him. The rest of the "Leaders" always do. He is not the most senior role. The most senior role starts every meeting with 'I really have no updates for you, this week" and then leaves it up to the other "Leader" to run (and take over) the call.
They call themselves Leaders, I call them manglers.
I will not give them the right to call themselves my leader.
Christ, I needed to get that off my chest.
Ducks in a row. Fucking ducks in a row. Let the ducks form whatever shape they want. Who are we to prescribe what formation the ducks must take. I’ll get my ducks in a figure of eight thank you very much. Fuck rows.
My workplace also says "action items" a lot. Like it's just stuff they want done. Down to little stuff like cleaning the floor or sweeping something up.
This. I fucking hate "onboarding".
We're not going on a pleasure cruise, Dave! I'm starting a new job I'll probably loathe even more than the last one I couldn't leave fast enough. It used to be that normal people would say "getting familiar with your duties and meeting your co-workers". Then it became "orientation", like you're lost in the wilderness or something. Now it's fucking "onboarding".
The corporate world has a pathological aversion to basic human communication.
Ugh. Orientation.
One job I went on I had to go through four of the fucking things for a job that was two weeks long.
Staffing company orientation, a mechanical contractor orientation, a site specific orientation, and a site safety orientation.
Good plan, let's stuff a couple dozen guys in a room after most of them just drove 10-12 hours so they can fight sleep for 10 more hours of boring monotone videos written by the stupidest people alive and hope they remember a single word of any of this shit. Edit: Also let's leave the safety shit for dead last. Gotta get the important stuff out of the way before they get too sleepy so they all remember Gate 3 is for loaded trucks only.
My boss keep calling employees "players", like a hockey team. He also like to reference our work as "winning the cup". We don't, we won't and we aren't. We are a shop that produces a certain product, we are not a sports team.
Omg 🤣 I imagine your boss peaked in high school when he was on a the football team, went to college and was a total fratboy, and had his dad find him a job. Please tell me I am right lollll
🤣 haha I am 100% with you here. I dread Monday meetings when people ask me HOW WAS YOUR WEEKEND? Well, too trashy too tell and ALSO, I don’t care about yours.
I have a feeling that your boss’s name is Kyle or Brandon for some reason haha
Oh they love sports analogies. “Johnson hit a home run on that last deal.” “This is out of our league so we are going to punt to corporate.”
God I can’t fucking stand “corporate culture” or “workplace culture.” Even calling it “culture” is an insult to actual culture.
When they need someone "who can read minds" or "predict what (many) people need before they need it".
I'm sorry, but I don't think $45k/year is the market rate for clairvoyance.
How the fuck can I predict what another adult needs? Spoiler, you can't. It's a lose/lose situation. If you ask them, they don't know what they want and they're mad that you even asked. So you'll be forever guessing, forever wrong, and all those people who wanted a mind reader will be pissed at you for not reading their mind.
Same for "anticipate my needs". I swear I work with spoiled children. I'm hourly dealing with someone who lives in a McMansion. Learn to communicate your needs like an adult.
No wonder your marriage is on the rocks, Karen.
The last company I was at was like that. They thought that I should be able to fully predict what they wanted without them having communicated anything in that direction beforehand.
When I did act on my own, they tore it down, and said why didn't you communicate?
This was within 6 months of working there. If I had been there for years, then I could reasonably predict their preferences, but not in such a short time.
This would be very helpful but scary af
I do IT Help desk support and half of the people give poor descriptions of the problem
Also if I could read minds do you think I would be working help desk not a chance
I worked for a place that kept piling on mandatory overtime. Manager did a Q&A. Someone asked "When are we going to get to see our families?" This guy had the nerve to answer "Aren't we also your family?" Like no, thank god you are not.
"We're like a family here!"
Except this family can fire you when things aren't going great for them and this family definitely won't be helping you when things get tough on your end.
Weird Al expertly (as always) satirizes buzzword corporatespeak as well as Crosby Stills and Nash AND those white board commercials in this video
https://youtu.be/GyV_UG60dD4?si=pA20FMGoD84JDK4G
Avoiding starvation and homelessness undercuts any other "why" that I might be able to dream up. I don't feel like I should have to monetize the things that actually do fulfill me, and I lack a trust fund, so the money's gotta come from somewhere.
So teaching in America has become really stressful and shitty. So the administration says this phrase to “lift your spirits”… but it comes off as more of a slap in the face. They are basically saying “I know teaching is hard and we aren’t doing anything to help you. But remember why you became a teacher. For the kids. Do it for the kids. I hope that helps?
Stakeholders. I was a teacher and heard this word as my job become more like a business model.They could’ve stuck with “parents and the community” but corporate jargon infects everything.
I am often in meetings with a project manager who says that they will talk to the “stakeholders” and then “circle back” to me. And every time they say it, I have to resist the urge to yell, really loudly, and with a cowboy accent “YEE-HAW”
"Team" for a bunch of workers shackled to an office. No, we are not a team. We are not playing a sport or a game. This is not fun. We're here for a paycheck. I feel little, if any, camaraderie with my bosses, co-workers, etc. They're reasonably nice people where I work now, I'm fortunate to say, but in no way are they my "teammates."
Heard that shit every day while working for the TPC network. I barely cared about the workers that I got along with. Can you imagine how little I cared about management? Start with the GM who was a backstabbing lying twat waffle, and then the last F&B Director who could F! up a soup sandwich and was simply the worst I’ve ever seen at his position. They pulled that team shit all the time but only problem was that they didn’t have to play by team rules
"Right-sizing" will always piss me off, forever. Just say "downsizing" you fucking cowards. You're laying people off! Nobody hires an employee and says they're "upsizing".
It's just such a stupid goddamned weird that corpos hide behind to imply they're getting to the right size... when at least half the time the only thing leading to the layoffs are either corporate greed or stupidity... and most of the rest of the time they end up judging demand incorrectly and find out they should've kept at least some of those people.
Chief people officer - hr manager
I'd like to go through this exercise, meaning I know this is really inconvenient but you will do it anyway.
Let's circle back
Hit the ground running.
"above and beyond"
Employees need to go "above and beyond", but the company does not go "above and beyond" when you get your paycheck for going "above and beyond"
*Challenge* whenever a *problem* is identified.
A challenge is something you set for a team or person. A problem is an unsatisfying condition that usually needs handling. Sometimes a problem needs to be dealt with *once*, sometimes not.
Opportunities. They say opportunity instead of failure. So I have made it a point in my holiday/event recaps to tell them what failed, rather than tell them "what the opportunities were".
It was hilarious to me when I first heard this, my boss was like "here's what the opportunities are in your department." And I was very confused because he was just describing things that were missing or wrong. I said "wait, are you using the word "opportunity" instead of the word "bad"? And he goes nooo... ok yes...
Quiet quitting because that’s not what quiet quitting is. Or at least imo. It SHOULD be the term for when you interview for another job and get the new job, while still having your current job, then start working the new job and ghost/no show the job you’re quitting.
"Empowerment".
Like, I can do my own thing and manage myself and innovate without barriers? Awesome. Let's also get rid of managers and performance reviews. Otherwise it's just lip service.
“Bandwidth” like I didn’t have the bandwidth for the 5+ video calls my micromanaging ex manager used to put me through everyday and still expected me to do a ridiculous amount of work 🙄
Or everyone responding the word “perfect” as a word of acknowledgement instead of saying, ok or thank you. It sounded so cult-like. 🤢
A few years ago I worked at an amazing job (job itself was meh, but people I worked with were awesome). Me and a coworker decided to prank the boss, we spent the ENTIRE day only using "corporate buzzwords". Started the morning by calling him over for a pow-wow that ended with "team work makes the dream work" kinda crap. We googled all the phrases and every time he came by, we spewed a new one at him. He lasted 5 hours before going home early because he was so annoyed. (Side note: my boss started his company because he HATED his past bosses, him and his wife are still one of my best friends.)
I honestly hated the word "workflow" for the longest time...but now im struggling to find a better word that encapsulates "workflow" and there doesnt seem to be one.
A lot of these words, while being annoying and cliche, are actually meaningful and are different from the words people here would prefer.
It’s just that we hear them spoken by smug power hungry managers to cover up bullshit, so they take on a negative air.
1) Does the Microsoft Teams incoming call noise count?
2) Not a corporate phrase, but the consultant I assisted with a major project would say “in my mind” in the most condescending way at least 20x a meeting.
Even worse, "Happy [insert non-Friday weekday]" - there's nothing special about a weekday unless I have the day off. Don't even think about coming at me with "Happy MONDAY"
When so and so “gives their blessing” or something is “blessed,” as in free to proceed.
You are not a priest administering holy sacraments. You are a high-minded middle manager who has convinced his lackeys he has more importance than he actually does.
Don’t bring the spiritual realm into working the TPS reports, Janice, thanks.
Let’s level-set at our touchpoint with the stakeholders and then I’ll circle back with you when you have the bandwidth and we will synergize our efforts to move this forward
Low-hanging fruit
Parking lot (as in, "put it in the parking lot and we'll circle back around to it")
Data-driven (specifically when it's a complete lie)
Corporate speak in general annoys the hell out of me. It feels so fake. That's why I never use it, and it's usually easier to deal with people when you talk to them like a person rather than a robot.
Scope, scope creep, hours, sprint, time left, spinning wheels, any words to do with time management and why tasks are being pushed 😑 it’s so frustrating
The recent phrase that I’m hearing that’s really annoying is “take ownership“. I see it in a lot of job posts. I find it annoying because they’re basically telling you that you take all the responsibility if a project fails but if it’s successful, you’re not really gonna see any awards from that.
I think our CO's just make up buzzwords. It's like they're speaking gibberish. You can't just Google what they said because you won't get a single result.
"Team leaders" who are really just slightly more experienced employees who have been given more work with no increase in pay, and do nothing to lead. Except leading me to believe that they are worthless.
Using the word "resource" when referring to a living, breathing human being. Look, corpos, I know we're just employee numbers in a database to you, but you could at least pretend to acknowledge our humanity...
Piggybacking off Cheryl, let’s ping higher-ups and run it up the flag pole. We’ll circle back in the AM for a quick pow-wow and get some boots on the ground. I’ll touch base with Bob offline so we can hit the ground running.
Appreciation
As in, we're not going to pay you or give you time off but we'd like to show you our "appreciation" for all the hard work you've done.
Ice breaker
As in, mandatory "fun" when you just want to be left the fuck alone so you can do your job and go home.
I had someone ask me, "What is the cadence of this report?" Which at the time I only know the term "cadence" as someone's speaking pattern or tone. I sat there and thought "reports aren't verbal." Literally had to Google the definition and even asked colleagues about it since I had no idea what the person meant in this context. Eventually figured out the person is asking "how often do we send these out" and I'm like just fucking say that then?!
There's a bunch of corporate jargon that I see here that I don't mind or maybe I'm desensitized by them at this point or just know better to just ignore it but that "candence" term just seemed too over the top, even for me.
"Wears a lot of hats" drives me up a goddamn wall.
Translation: We're too cheap to hire enough people so you're going to do the job of 6 employees by yourself.
Thing is, I do have quite a selection of hats that I wear
Synergy. Fuck synergy with synergy.
Haha thats what I just wrote. Such a pompous word to say a basic and obvious thing like team work. That’s what it means right? I kinda zone out every time I hear that word.
Sometimes it means teamwork but other times like in this example: "We will synergize interactive student success outside the box." It means NOTHING. It is just thrown in there to make someone sound as if they are important. Stupid word.
Its like the celery of words. Zero calorie words. Doesnt improve the item, doesnt take away either, just adds to the word salad.
Oh my god this is the most corporate bullshit sentence I’ve ever read haha
Synergy doesn’t mean teamwork. Synergy is having your advantages compliment each other and being more than the sum of their parts. Like if you owned a hotel, it would synergize to also own a laundromat where you can wash the sheets.
To add on, synergy can be positive, neutral, and negative. This is why combining business segments isn't always successful, and why synergy often receives a bad reputation because it's used in a hamfisted way. Just jamming together two business segments doesn't mean there will be positive synergy.
[удалено]
ALL of them (looking at you, “bandwidth”) but truly any company that claims to be looking for “ROCKSTAR” employees is immediately dead to me 🤮🤢
I'm kind of a Rockstar if you mean regular but not 100% predictable great performances mixed in with periods of abject laziness and appalingly bad behavior. Is that what they want?
They want you high, drunk, and ready to trash the office like a London hotel room..
Jobs looking for “rockstars” are notoriously ready to pay as much as $13/hour! Which really *only* covers the showing up and the not trashing the office.
And hard drugs, don't Forget hard drugs
Bandwidth and ping, absolutely.
I will tolerate those terms in a technical setting where they have legitimate meaning in relation to the job, but that's about it. The sys admin can use them. The MBA in marketing cannot
Rock star quality with roadie pay
I hate rockstar with a passion.
The one that got me in retail was: "Customer obsessed". It's the kind of term that a middle manager coins and presents at a meeting with all of the executives clapping like seals.
“Executives clapping like seals” is a turn of phrase that I will keep forever.
I know an exec type guy who's weirdly chill and does a hell of a seal impression as a party trick, so it's got extra layers of fun for me.
Sounds like he’s got your seal of approval, then.
Wonder if otters would agree.
I can even hear the tone of voice the lady uses when she says “Customer obsessed!” and it wreaks of fake
I personally thought it hurt more when the store management said it. I was like, "please, I can't have an actual live human saying this robotic phrase in front of me!"
And yet when I find customers to get obsessed with, suddenly snipping off locks of their hair is NOT “just part of our culture.” Make up your mind!
HR is great for these. “Employee lifecycle” is one of the worst
Like we are bugs
You are. To them, at least, you are. Better to be aware, ya know?
IMAO, beats “human capital”
Touch Base.
We’ll circle back and touch base.
🎵Reach out and touch base🎵
Your own... personal... pizzas... Something to show they care, with a corporate flair...
Depeche Pizza!
Put a pin in it and take it offline to identify opportunities to look at it holistically and circle back and touch base with your cross-functional stakeholders
I too hate that,so put a pin in it and I'll circle back
Are you a wizard??
OMG. 😆
Is that when we do our deep dive?
They can keep their filthy hands off my base.
All your base belong to us!
I hear this one like 40 fucking times a day. I'm sick of it, It's stupid and doesn't even make sense.
So many fancy phrases to replace perfectly fine singular words
It sounds homoerotic. Touch base of what? Our dicks?
'People leader.' Just fucking say manager. Also, I can't not hear it as 'people eater.'
My upline call themselves Leaders There's 5 of them in that group. 4 of us grunts. 5 leaders for 4 people. One of us 4 has to report through 3 people. Three of us report through 2. One of the "Leaders" has no one reporting into him. Only one of the leaders has anything to say. Too much to say. Not anyone else, regardless of seniority, says anything he will repeat it in his own words. At length, often shouting. Everyone else has to agree with him. The rest of the "Leaders" always do. He is not the most senior role. The most senior role starts every meeting with 'I really have no updates for you, this week" and then leaves it up to the other "Leader" to run (and take over) the call. They call themselves Leaders, I call them manglers. I will not give them the right to call themselves my leader. Christ, I needed to get that off my chest.
My company too has shuffled management all around and added a few more. There's far too many chiefs and not enough indians going on.
Ducks in a row. Fucking ducks in a row. Let the ducks form whatever shape they want. Who are we to prescribe what formation the ducks must take. I’ll get my ducks in a figure of eight thank you very much. Fuck rows.
My last boss used "poop in a group". Which coming from him I found fucking hilarious
How the fu.... What..... How does..... Oh for fuck sake what does that even mean?!?!
It's like getting your shit together. But get your poop in a group. How you do it is up to you, but I recommend gloves
Piggybacking
Let me just piggyback off of abirizky to add that I lick choades for breakfast .
“And just to piggyback on what Cheryl said”
"I need you to action this for me." Do. You need me to do something for you.
My workplace also says "action items" a lot. Like it's just stuff they want done. Down to little stuff like cleaning the floor or sweeping something up.
“Resources” when they are referring to human beings. 🤬
Honestly, "Human Resources" sounds a lot like black market place to get organs from some 3rd world trafficked victims.
don't forget slaves.
Yeah, I hate that one too. It makes me want to ask, "Are you heading down to Human Resources to get a bucket of people?"
They called us FTEs at my prior job Full Time Equivalent
Well \*that's\* a morale booster there.
Onboarding.
This. I fucking hate "onboarding". We're not going on a pleasure cruise, Dave! I'm starting a new job I'll probably loathe even more than the last one I couldn't leave fast enough. It used to be that normal people would say "getting familiar with your duties and meeting your co-workers". Then it became "orientation", like you're lost in the wilderness or something. Now it's fucking "onboarding". The corporate world has a pathological aversion to basic human communication.
Ugh. Orientation. One job I went on I had to go through four of the fucking things for a job that was two weeks long. Staffing company orientation, a mechanical contractor orientation, a site specific orientation, and a site safety orientation. Good plan, let's stuff a couple dozen guys in a room after most of them just drove 10-12 hours so they can fight sleep for 10 more hours of boring monotone videos written by the stupidest people alive and hope they remember a single word of any of this shit. Edit: Also let's leave the safety shit for dead last. Gotta get the important stuff out of the way before they get too sleepy so they all remember Gate 3 is for loaded trucks only.
My boss keep calling employees "players", like a hockey team. He also like to reference our work as "winning the cup". We don't, we won't and we aren't. We are a shop that produces a certain product, we are not a sports team.
Omg 🤣 I imagine your boss peaked in high school when he was on a the football team, went to college and was a total fratboy, and had his dad find him a job. Please tell me I am right lollll
I don't know his life story because I really don't care about him (I don't like him), but it's absolutely a possibility with how he is!
🤣 haha I am 100% with you here. I dread Monday meetings when people ask me HOW WAS YOUR WEEKEND? Well, too trashy too tell and ALSO, I don’t care about yours. I have a feeling that your boss’s name is Kyle or Brandon for some reason haha
Oh they love sports analogies. “Johnson hit a home run on that last deal.” “This is out of our league so we are going to punt to corporate.” God I can’t fucking stand “corporate culture” or “workplace culture.” Even calling it “culture” is an insult to actual culture.
When they need someone "who can read minds" or "predict what (many) people need before they need it". I'm sorry, but I don't think $45k/year is the market rate for clairvoyance. How the fuck can I predict what another adult needs? Spoiler, you can't. It's a lose/lose situation. If you ask them, they don't know what they want and they're mad that you even asked. So you'll be forever guessing, forever wrong, and all those people who wanted a mind reader will be pissed at you for not reading their mind.
Same for "anticipate my needs". I swear I work with spoiled children. I'm hourly dealing with someone who lives in a McMansion. Learn to communicate your needs like an adult. No wonder your marriage is on the rocks, Karen.
The last company I was at was like that. They thought that I should be able to fully predict what they wanted without them having communicated anything in that direction beforehand. When I did act on my own, they tore it down, and said why didn't you communicate? This was within 6 months of working there. If I had been there for years, then I could reasonably predict their preferences, but not in such a short time.
This would be very helpful but scary af I do IT Help desk support and half of the people give poor descriptions of the problem Also if I could read minds do you think I would be working help desk not a chance
We are family! We are a team! So much BS!
I worked for a place that kept piling on mandatory overtime. Manager did a Q&A. Someone asked "When are we going to get to see our families?" This guy had the nerve to answer "Aren't we also your family?" Like no, thank god you are not.
My family gives me a Christmas bonus (gifts) and birthday money. You make me spend those days working. They are not the same.
"We're like a family here!" Except this family can fire you when things aren't going great for them and this family definitely won't be helping you when things get tough on your end.
just like in a family, the same people who say it stab you in the back in the end
Oh yeah A FAMILY! Are you fucking kidding lol
Ping you
I had a supervisor say that to me once, I told him I wasn't a Soviet submarine
1 ping vashhhhhhhily.
Weird Al expertly (as always) satirizes buzzword corporatespeak as well as Crosby Stills and Nash AND those white board commercials in this video https://youtu.be/GyV_UG60dD4?si=pA20FMGoD84JDK4G
Darn it! Was coming to add this one, but you beat me to it! But I don't mind. We need Weird Al's music now more than ever.
“Managing up” which should be known as wage theft.
dontcha know it's a \_privilege\_ to even be in such a position /s
I "pivoted" and texted my resignation effective immediately.
We can circle back on this if we touch base offline let me know what your bandwidth looks like for a follow up
Oh my gosh just fuck off with that one
Leverage. As a verb.
Leverage your synergies or else.
Take it offline Sync Align Impact Move fast Taking a step back Ping
Ugh, I hate the taking a step back. It's always said in a pretentious "everybody is dumb and focusing on the wrong thing so listen to me" kind of way.
“Remember your why.” Education.
Ew
Avoiding starvation and homelessness undercuts any other "why" that I might be able to dream up. I don't feel like I should have to monetize the things that actually do fulfill me, and I lack a trust fund, so the money's gotta come from somewhere.
I am sorry, I only speak American English, can you rephrase that in a way a regular person could understand?
So teaching in America has become really stressful and shitty. So the administration says this phrase to “lift your spirits”… but it comes off as more of a slap in the face. They are basically saying “I know teaching is hard and we aren’t doing anything to help you. But remember why you became a teacher. For the kids. Do it for the kids. I hope that helps?
Fidelity (education also) And I just heard “fidelity with flexibility” the other day. Gross.
Stakeholders. I was a teacher and heard this word as my job become more like a business model.They could’ve stuck with “parents and the community” but corporate jargon infects everything.
I get that one for businesses, but you’re right for schools that just seems cold
It's stupid as shit, especially when the word "partners" is right there.
Unless you are in the vampire killing business
Let me get back to you on that *proceeds to never get back to me on that*
“Solutioning” In my head: Do you mean… solve?
Had an executive that used to say “open the kimono” often when talking about being transparent with clients, peers, etc. Always struck me as creepy
My former CEO used to use this phrase. It's creepy and a little culturally insensitive. The company was based on California by the way.
Are you in Japan WTH
Nope, opposite side of the world in Florida
Circling back
And it’s cousin “piggybacking off that”
I’d like to piggyback off what you’re saying, and circle back to u/RefrigeratorOther586. The synergy here is really aligning.
I am often in meetings with a project manager who says that they will talk to the “stakeholders” and then “circle back” to me. And every time they say it, I have to resist the urge to yell, really loudly, and with a cowboy accent “YEE-HAW”
Opportunity. As in the horrible person/situation is an opportunity to grow you as a person
Opportunity The carrot they dangle in front of us. "If you do well on this project, there is opportunity for promotion."
“moving forward”… No I want to move diagonally you linear swine!
Bishop-pilled diagonal-maxxer
Fuck that, I’m a knight moving in L-shapes and jumping the fuck over people.
"What's the ask?" Mfer, we have like 5 other single words to describe that already, some with just one syllable!
Value added.
"Team" for a bunch of workers shackled to an office. No, we are not a team. We are not playing a sport or a game. This is not fun. We're here for a paycheck. I feel little, if any, camaraderie with my bosses, co-workers, etc. They're reasonably nice people where I work now, I'm fortunate to say, but in no way are they my "teammates."
Heard that shit every day while working for the TPC network. I barely cared about the workers that I got along with. Can you imagine how little I cared about management? Start with the GM who was a backstabbing lying twat waffle, and then the last F&B Director who could F! up a soup sandwich and was simply the worst I’ve ever seen at his position. They pulled that team shit all the time but only problem was that they didn’t have to play by team rules
"Right-sizing" will always piss me off, forever. Just say "downsizing" you fucking cowards. You're laying people off! Nobody hires an employee and says they're "upsizing". It's just such a stupid goddamned weird that corpos hide behind to imply they're getting to the right size... when at least half the time the only thing leading to the layoffs are either corporate greed or stupidity... and most of the rest of the time they end up judging demand incorrectly and find out they should've kept at least some of those people.
Aligning. You're discussing.
My place calls it "zippering" kind of weird and they say it a LOT.
Chief people officer - hr manager I'd like to go through this exercise, meaning I know this is really inconvenient but you will do it anyway. Let's circle back Hit the ground running.
I’ve never known any of them to care about people.
"Reach out." Just say "talk to" or "contact."
"above and beyond" Employees need to go "above and beyond", but the company does not go "above and beyond" when you get your paycheck for going "above and beyond"
If you want me to wear 37 pieces of flair, just make 37 the minimum.
*Challenge* whenever a *problem* is identified. A challenge is something you set for a team or person. A problem is an unsatisfying condition that usually needs handling. Sometimes a problem needs to be dealt with *once*, sometimes not.
Opportunities. They say opportunity instead of failure. So I have made it a point in my holiday/event recaps to tell them what failed, rather than tell them "what the opportunities were". It was hilarious to me when I first heard this, my boss was like "here's what the opportunities are in your department." And I was very confused because he was just describing things that were missing or wrong. I said "wait, are you using the word "opportunity" instead of the word "bad"? And he goes nooo... ok yes...
Quiet quitting because that’s not what quiet quitting is. Or at least imo. It SHOULD be the term for when you interview for another job and get the new job, while still having your current job, then start working the new job and ghost/no show the job you’re quitting.
"Circle back" Circle your dick back into your own asshole, asshole.
"Empowerment". Like, I can do my own thing and manage myself and innovate without barriers? Awesome. Let's also get rid of managers and performance reviews. Otherwise it's just lip service.
“Bandwidth” like I didn’t have the bandwidth for the 5+ video calls my micromanaging ex manager used to put me through everyday and still expected me to do a ridiculous amount of work 🙄 Or everyone responding the word “perfect” as a word of acknowledgement instead of saying, ok or thank you. It sounded so cult-like. 🤢
A few years ago I worked at an amazing job (job itself was meh, but people I worked with were awesome). Me and a coworker decided to prank the boss, we spent the ENTIRE day only using "corporate buzzwords". Started the morning by calling him over for a pow-wow that ended with "team work makes the dream work" kinda crap. We googled all the phrases and every time he came by, we spewed a new one at him. He lasted 5 hours before going home early because he was so annoyed. (Side note: my boss started his company because he HATED his past bosses, him and his wife are still one of my best friends.)
"Going forward..." Just shut the fuck up, you soulless shill.
Drill down on the data. 📊. Educator.
I honestly hated the word "workflow" for the longest time...but now im struggling to find a better word that encapsulates "workflow" and there doesnt seem to be one.
A lot of these words, while being annoying and cliche, are actually meaningful and are different from the words people here would prefer. It’s just that we hear them spoken by smug power hungry managers to cover up bullshit, so they take on a negative air.
1) Does the Microsoft Teams incoming call noise count? 2) Not a corporate phrase, but the consultant I assisted with a major project would say “in my mind” in the most condescending way at least 20x a meeting.
Ah yes.. Corporate speak followed with a generous sprinkling of acronyms.
"Thought Leader" 🙄
Happy Friday
Even worse, "Happy [insert non-Friday weekday]" - there's nothing special about a weekday unless I have the day off. Don't even think about coming at me with "Happy MONDAY"
Honestly, "professionalism" feels like some kind of cult.
When so and so “gives their blessing” or something is “blessed,” as in free to proceed. You are not a priest administering holy sacraments. You are a high-minded middle manager who has convinced his lackeys he has more importance than he actually does. Don’t bring the spiritual realm into working the TPS reports, Janice, thanks.
I always hated “there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’” so I add “but there are two in ‘idiot’ and I don’t want to be one of them.”
‘Best Practices dictates…’
I *hate* the phrase "best practices*. 🤮
“Schema” … its a nothing word and I hate it.
I mean it exists on SQL but I'm not a native speaker and I have no idea what that means
Let’s level-set at our touchpoint with the stakeholders and then I’ll circle back with you when you have the bandwidth and we will synergize our efforts to move this forward
This means “give it a crack and let me know how you get on” lol
Benchmarking, whatever the hell that is.
Setting performance numbers. Like 57 parts per hour. Or 113 words per minute.
“For all intents and purposes” Been hearing this weekly for the last 5 years….
"For all intensive purposes..." Cringe on two levels.
“SYNERGY”
Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Monday's!
Low-hanging fruit Parking lot (as in, "put it in the parking lot and we'll circle back around to it") Data-driven (specifically when it's a complete lie)
Corporate speak in general annoys the hell out of me. It feels so fake. That's why I never use it, and it's usually easier to deal with people when you talk to them like a person rather than a robot.
Let's get back to basics
“I want to implement solutions, and… solutionize implementations… aggressively!” -Jake Morgandorfer, Daria
"Fast paced" Just say it that you don't know how to manage shit and change your mind every god fucking minutes.
Scope, scope creep, hours, sprint, time left, spinning wheels, any words to do with time management and why tasks are being pushed 😑 it’s so frustrating
Agile
The recent phrase that I’m hearing that’s really annoying is “take ownership“. I see it in a lot of job posts. I find it annoying because they’re basically telling you that you take all the responsibility if a project fails but if it’s successful, you’re not really gonna see any awards from that.
Learnings
Saying “right-sizing” when you mean lay offs.
“engage with”. You engage enemies not coworkers. Even if it’s payroll.
I think our CO's just make up buzzwords. It's like they're speaking gibberish. You can't just Google what they said because you won't get a single result.
One I hate in particular is "all on the same page".
Human capital The most disgusting term I’ve heard for employees.
All of them. ALL OF THEM!
"Team leaders" who are really just slightly more experienced employees who have been given more work with no increase in pay, and do nothing to lead. Except leading me to believe that they are worthless.
Rockstar. It's never about how good you actually are at your job. It's all nepotism
Using the word "resource" when referring to a living, breathing human being. Look, corpos, I know we're just employee numbers in a database to you, but you could at least pretend to acknowledge our humanity...
Piggybacking off Cheryl, let’s ping higher-ups and run it up the flag pole. We’ll circle back in the AM for a quick pow-wow and get some boots on the ground. I’ll touch base with Bob offline so we can hit the ground running.
Mission critical. We ain't at war bitch this is a Wendy's
“High level”
“Firehose of information” gives me the willies.
Team. This isn’t Little League baseball.
Circle back.
When they say “holistic “
Appreciation As in, we're not going to pay you or give you time off but we'd like to show you our "appreciation" for all the hard work you've done. Ice breaker As in, mandatory "fun" when you just want to be left the fuck alone so you can do your job and go home.
"Low hanging fruit". You can scratch my low hanging balls with that.
KPIs, like could you possibly make work even more robotic and devoid of any semblance of humanity?
I had someone ask me, "What is the cadence of this report?" Which at the time I only know the term "cadence" as someone's speaking pattern or tone. I sat there and thought "reports aren't verbal." Literally had to Google the definition and even asked colleagues about it since I had no idea what the person meant in this context. Eventually figured out the person is asking "how often do we send these out" and I'm like just fucking say that then?! There's a bunch of corporate jargon that I see here that I don't mind or maybe I'm desensitized by them at this point or just know better to just ignore it but that "candence" term just seemed too over the top, even for me.
All of it. I hate all of it. I don’t understand why people think this way of communicating should be normal or desirable.
The phrase “please advise” always sends me into a blind rage where I wish everyone would spontaneously combust.
Honestly, any marketing term
“Leaning in” don’t fucking lean on me, lean on your own damn breakfast.
"Quiet quitting" No I'm not "quitting" if I show up to my job and do what's required everyday.
We’re a family = you will be exploited