Trendy management speak bollox

[Xtro]

Supposed "consultant/management" speak bollocks really pisses me off. In meetings I NEVER use any but so many others do here its like being surrounded by a billion David Brent's.

To relieve some boredom a friend and I started collecting phrases and gave points if we attended meetings where people used certain ones.

Ones that are common and low scorers are :

"We need to be all singing from the same hymn sheet",

"We need to ensure we have all our ducks in a row".

That kind of thing anyway, you get the idea.

Sometimes we'll chuck a phrase back to see how they handle it.

I was in a meeting yesterday where someone described a certain group of people as "too secular. They are working in chimneys" to which I replied, "I agree. We need to actively promote blue skies thinking". This threw the bast for a second or two then he had a look of "ooh! I'll write that shit down!" on his face

The best one I heard was from a NZ guy who (without ANY sense of the irony at ALL) said, "In situations like this you just have to bat off the crocodiles closet to the canoe".

FFS!

ANY AND ALL EXAMPLES most welcome

 

[Testin da Cable]

"This meeting is not geared to solving our problem, it's about coming up with sollutions"




not quite what you wanted, but there you go

 

[~Lazarus~]

1. BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
2. SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.
3. ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
4. SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to die in the end.
5. CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.
6. PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.
7. SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.
8. STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiney.
9. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the shit out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
10. ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.
11. OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake.

 

[Flimgoblin]

are you on the DNRC mailing list?

plenty of examples there

My team was giving a demo of the latest version of our software to
the visiting French upper management team. One of the French
executives asked if a particular feature was implemented according
to the specifications. I replied, "Yes, well, at least according to
the spec du jour." We had a good chuckle, then my boss looked right
at the French executive and said, "That means 'of the day.'"

Did I mention that our visitors were from France?

also www.salmondays.tv has some amusing management BS in the odd short film.

 

[Testin da Cable]

dilbert owns j00

 

[Flimgoblin]

You know those demotivators?

I actually saw some motivators in a shop the other day...

my personal favourite demotivator is

Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's a lot of money to be made in prolonging the problem.

 

[Testin da Cable]

I wasn't aware 'motivators' actually existed

 

[Tom]

Was it Bridget Jone's Diary that had some kind of game like this in it?

 

[whipped]

I just physically hate any manager that uses the word "Proactive". How can you possibly be active before you are active. You'd already be active. God, you could make a Doctor Who episode out of this one. "The Proactive Paradox"

 

[Flimgoblin]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
I wasn't aware 'motivators' actually existed

neither was I till I saw them...

was something like:

Quality: The race for quality has no finish line.

uke:

 

[lynchet]

Putting things on the back burner

 

[Wij]

We really need Reubs in here. He's the expert. Maybe I can attract an admin to get him with a controversial picture...

 

[nath]

You fucker, flimgoblin. I very noticably chuckled at that one and someone sitting nearby noticed.

"Hey nathan, what's so funny about that very important work you're doing over there"

nghh :|

 

[|WarpiG|]

Originally posted by ~Lazarus~
1. BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

LOL its my office =)

 

[Will]

Lets think of my work phrases...

"On the bus delivering excellent customer service"

"A one-stop shop for customer satisfaction"

"I don't feel you are on brand enough"

I feel too ill to go on.

 

[Summo]

Common ones at work are...

"We need to discuss that offline." ie. talk about it after the meeting.

"One service, one team" Utterly laughable as my company seems to actively gear all its practisies towards turning it's few genuinely good people into jobsworths.

"I need to flick off an email." My female boss used this one a lot until we explained what 'flicking off' meant to us.

There's more, but thinking of work while at home isn't natural.

 

[PR.]

Heh, I started my new job two weeks, ago and I've barely seen anyone. I sit on the ground floor in a small room admininiinining. So I don't hear all that kinda stuff although its equally painful to have people working around you who thinking MS Access is a good database for multiple users on multiple sites

 

[Gumbo]

We need to step back from the business and take a helicopter view....

This from retail managers, ffs it's not rocket science......

 

[LTF]

Originally posted by PR.
Heh, I started my new job two weeks, ago and I've barely seen anyone. I sit on the ground floor in a small room admininiinining. So I don't hear all that kinda stuff although its equally painful to have people working around you who thinking MS Access is a good database for multiple users on multiple sites

PR your job sounds scarily like mine :/

 

[~YuckFou~]

"We need to think out of the box"
"Let me run this up your flagpole"

From one of our guys Genuine.

 

[Lester]

Ahhhh we are satisfyingly free of such talk.

Our everyday workspeak usually consists of "eh up, here's Picasso features."

And "You've gobbed in my tea haven't you?!"

Oh and "No I do not want a new fucking electicity supplier!!!1"

 

[*Kornholio*]

"We don't want any show-stoppers this time..." - one used at my last job alot. Always left me thinking 'this is construction, not fucking broadway'...

 

[~YuckFou~]

Originally posted by *Kornholio*
"We don't want any show-stoppers this time..." - one used at my last job alot. Always left me thinking 'this is construction, not fucking broadway'...

This has now evolved, they are now referred to as "Car Crashes" or "Train Wrecks".

 

[*Kornholio*]

Ah yes, train wrecks is a term commonly used in South Africa. I used it once shortly after arriving here in my first job and was met with some rather strange looks... apparently it was just after the Paddington thing & was quite a sensitive topic... d'oh !

 

[dysfunction]

We've got to go back to grass roots level

And get people in the loop on this project

 

[nath]

We had a fuckwit who said all of these sorts of phrases. He was a prat, no one liked him. He got fired, we rejoiced.

 

[DApea!]

We need to stop dovetailing, get out of the rathole and get a heads up on the issue. Go for the juglar, jump on it and make it happen. Let's look at this from 30,000 feet, people.

 

[Gef]

I think the most commonly used phrase in our office is "nob" ..

i.e. "You fucking nob why has the server been down all weekend"

 

[dysfunction]

Lets make certain we have all our ducks in a row and that we are all singing from the same Hymn book.