50 Office-Speak You Love to Hate

Lucy Kellaway was on a mission to get rid of the corporatese phrase "going forward" that she hated so much, and wrote a post about it on the BBC Magazine. Her post garnered so much reaction that the BBC culled the top 50 office-speak phrases that should definitely be banned.

For example:

1. "When I worked for Verizon, I found the phrase going forward to be more sinister than annoying. When used by my boss - sorry, "team leader" - it was understood to mean that the topic of conversation was at an end and not be discussed again."
Nima Nassefat, Vancouver, Canada

2. "My employers (top half of FTSE 100) recently informed staff that we are no longer allowed to use the phrase brain storm because it might have negative connotations associated with fits. We must now take idea showers. I think that says it all really."
Anonymous, England

3. At my old company (a US multinational), anyone involved with a particular product was encouraged to be a product evangelist. And software users these days, so we hear, want to be platform atheists so that their computers will run programs from any manufacturer."
Philip Lattimore, Thailand

4. "Incentivise is the one that does it for me."
Karl Thomas, Perth, Scotland

5. "My favourite which I hear from the managers at the bank I work for is let's touch base about that offline. I think it means have a private chat but I am still not sure."
Gemma, Wolverhampton, England

As a stakeholder in this issue, I wouldn't want to wrongside the 2.0 demographic so let's conversate, drill down and incentivise a holistic approach to this challenge. We'll definitely need to pre-plan from the get-go in order to go forward together. After I get my ducks in a row, I'm actioning 110% of my effort to rid the world of office-speak once and for all.

Link

Previously on Neatorama: The Origin of Words You Hear A Lot in the Office


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My Boyfriend and coworker spent an afternoon recently, emailing back and forth to each other in the dreaded corp speak. I condensed the emails into a website for a fake company call CORE TEK.

http://lmbenigni.googlepages.com/coretek

It's a great way to kill 10 minutes at the office... Be pro-active! Create synergy! Right-sizing is the key!
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oh god i hate "teamwork" and "team-player" SOO much. i understand the connection we're supposed to make with it, but JEEBUS! it's just an ideal image they want us to associate with..

Be a team player, golly-gee willikers!

hmmm.. How 'bout you go f*ck yourself and I'll collaborate with my co-workers instead.
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I had taken a two week vacation while I was working for this company a few years back. Upon arriving back to work, my boss comes up to me and says, "how was your break? are you feeling refreshed?! energized?!" It's like those lines spoiled my time off by incorporating my vacation and time off with my work.
I just imagined then and there repeatedly bashing his face in with a stapler.
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ugh, corporate office talk BS. Some of the women I know have this idealistic fantasy of working in a stuffy 'cozy' office setting. I can seem them now standing by water dispensers or coffee machines saying crap like "idea showers" and "let’s touch base about that offline" in a breath that reeks of sour coffee. All the while their work skirts and pantyhose reek of their sour smelling feces mingled with crotch sweat from sitting all day on their cubicle desk chair that reeks of collective ass.

I can see why that cubicle office guy went ballistic in that video. Probably went nuts from the smell of his own swamp ass and sour coffee breath or he finally 'seen the light'.
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