Business buzzwords I'm sick of.

[Bake]

Oh. There are so many. But let's start with

VALUE PROPOSITION.

Ok, please don't proposition me. Just tell me you're giving me what I pay for. Is that too much to ask??? You paid thousands of dollars for an MBA so you could say VALUE PROPOSITION???? REALLY????

Another one ...

ENHANCING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE.

I don't want an "experience." I want you to get the shit right the first time. Give me what I pay for. Give me a cell signal that I don't have to hunt all over hell for. Don't fuck up. Don't bill me for shit that I didn't order and make me have to call and talk to some idiot in the Philippines or New Delhi!!!!!!! Is that too much to ask???

One more ...

SHAREHOLDER VALUE.

You know what? I don't give two drippy shits about your shareholders! Once again, give me what I'm paying my damn good hard-earned sweatshop wages for, and don't blow smoke up my ass about SHAREHOLDER VALUE. I couldn't care less about your fucking shareholders. GOT IT???

That is all for now. I'm sure I can come up with more. But spare me your Harvard Biz School buzzwords!!!!




Bake

[irisblue]

1. interface with the customer...

what? you can't speak to the customer? you can't write to them? (a semi supervisor used that phrase, and i laughed and asked if she forgot how to speak english. didn't help my career there)

[meow2u3]

15. Since when did a human customer become a computer?

You interface with computers. You speak to customers. Enough said.

[dana_b]

2. lol - I couldn't agree more

it's as if someone has had too much time on their hands and so they sit around coming up with these inane phrases. Maybe it makes them feel as if they REALLY earned that painfully expensive degree.

[Bake]

3. Another one ... "CUSTOMER-FACING"

Yes, dammit, I'm you're customer and you have to FACE ME!! Talk to me when I call! Preferably in English, the language I was born speaking (but apparently you weren't!).

Bake

[lastlib]

7. "Customer-centric"....wanted to retch when I saw that one!

When I see our quarterly earnings announcement from our CEO, I occasionally have to ask what language he's writing it it--it certainly isn't English! You wouldn't beLIEVE the gobbledygook he spews it that! If the buzz-phrase writer is getting paid by the word, he's making more than any CEO! Sheesh--"Business model transition", "leverage our synergies","expense calibration initiatives"....(What in the HELL is that man talking about??!?) Jeebus!

[bluesbassman]

4. "Circle Back"

I hate that one. This ain't 1850, and we ain't driving cattle.

BTW, the media has been using "walked back" a lot these days to describe somebody backpedaling. What's up with that? I always have to figure out if they really mean backpedaling or if something else is in play. 99 times out of 100 though the truth is that the subject was indeed backpedaling! JUST SAY SO!!!!

[mikeytherat]

5. I prefer, "Stepped on his dick, and hopes we haven't noticed," but I doubt they'll use that.

mikey_the_rat

[lillypaddle]

57. I LIKE that

[kayakjohnny]

6. Or, as I hear every single night on "On Point" with Tom Ashbrook on NPR... an ad for Loomis that has

3 bullshit corporate phrases right in a row....



Fundamental Research

Systematic Risk Assessment

Portfolio Management




Really? Come on, really?

[HopeHoops]

8. Sounds like you need a new paradigm for your TQA product interaction associates.

[Bake]

9. My brain just exploded.

Thanks ever so much.



Bake

[HopeHoops]

11. Look at the marketecture to prioritize the pre-implemented strategizing of the main objective.

[kayakjohnny]

14. You just broke this place.

[KurtNYC]

27. That is worth a 6-figure salary right there.

In my experience, corporate decision making goes like this: the Suit with the most authority makes a decision, then he asks underlings to gather only facts that back up that decision, in the corporate world they call this stage "research."

Then they grind it into some kind of PowerPoint presentation filled with BS buzz words. If the underlings can't use the latest buzz words then they hire a consulting firm and THEY grind out the PowerPoint.

Then is gets presented to the same Suit who made the decision 6 weeks earlier. He pretends to consider all options because he a 'a pro-active leader who thinks outside the box' and he then announces the decision that he made before any of the wheel spinning nonsense began.

[HopeHoops]

30. That sums up the process quite nicely.

[Bake]

31. But it MUST be research "around" a certain topic!!!

Around!!! Got it?



I hate that one, too!

Bake

[Bake]

10. Analysts looking for "guidance" from corp execs:

"How should we think about earnings ... blah blah blah"

In other words, "just tell us what to put in our reports."

Bake

[FloridaJudy]

12. "Mission Statement"

This is not a hostage rescue operation, or an attempt to convert the natives - it's the frickin' hospital, or a middle school, or Wendy's, or Walmart, or whatever. And we're not Navy Seals or Jesuits. Why not just ask "What are we trying to accomplish?" and discuss how to do that, instead of issuing "Mission Statements". It drives me nuts.

[sharp_stick]

13. "At the end of the day" we're going to have to find

a department that's willing to be "thrown under the bus" in order to force the rest of the organization to "abandon their need to work in silos". But you know "it is what it is" and "the data is the data" so if one of you would be so kind as to "run it up the flagpole we can see who salutes".

[OxQQme]

16. Consumer n/t

[Odin2005]

17. "Synergy"

usually it's a euphemism for groupthink.

[undeterred]

18. We're going to Leverage Technology.

What the hell does that even mean?

[KurtNYC]

28. "make more money by firing people" but it sounds better

[hifiguy]

19. It is the deliberate use of language to obfuscate,

conceal, mislead and deceive. In other words, it is a way to lie while making the lie incomprehensible. Writing like this says one thing - the people it's addressed to are in the process of being suckered.

[quakerboy]

39. I think it's even less than that

Some use it with the intent to lie, mislead, deceive.

I strongly suspect that even more use it to hide the fact they know little and do less. Its a way of using language to cover the fact that nearly anyone off the street could do the job of upper management, given half a chance.

So.. suckered, yes, sorta. But in a slightly more mundane, insecure, less intentional evil kinda way than I think you intended to portray.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

20. what are the optics of thinking outside the box?

What is the leverage? Do you have executive potential?

How do you grow the economy instead of make the economy grow?

You have to integrate all your devices so that you can yak on your Bluetooth while either texting, talking on your cell phone, watching videos on your iPhone, or surfing the internet when you crash and die. Great choices huh??

Why is supply-side economics the gospel of St. Milton Friedman of Chicago, but if there is no demand for your product or service, you are screwed?

Oops, I have never taken an economics course but there I go thinking again!!!!

[hay rick]

21. Entrepreneur.

It's a businessman that we're supposed to be grateful to. Became popular about the time they switched from describing America as a democratic society to calling it a capitalist society.

[Populist_Prole]

41. The same time "consumers" replaced "citizens" as the term for the populace at large

[hay rick]

42. Almost spilled my beverage when I read your post.

It's exactly what I would have said. The media piled on that bandwagon and it has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy as Americans have become politically passive consumers rather than politically engaged citizens.

[Populist_Prole]

45. I think the media MADE the bandwagon

The media piled on that bandwagon and it has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy as Americans have become politically passive consumers rather than politically engaged citizens

If I had to name only one reason so many of my working class peers vote against their interests, your above statement would be it.

[Art_from_Ark]

22. Human resources

"We have to reexamine our human resources situation and demand greater efficiency"

[lunatica]

43. Where I work we're called Human Capital and when we no longer work there we're Terminated.

[Art_from_Ark]

54. "Human capital"-- UGH!

That's right down there with "human resources".

Whatever happened to "employee"?

[lastlib]

58. Those all got outsourced to India in order to align our expense structure....

with our income sourcing structure--or some such bullshit.....

"Human Capital" can be depreciated, and eventually written off the books when it becomes worthless or less than salvage value....

Which reminds me of a case I heard about when I worked at the IRS--some pimp in Nevada tried to claim a depreciation write-off on his female prostitutes--claimed they were a depreciable asset with a limited productive life, or something like that.

[ManyShadesOf]

23. "solutions"

[eridani]

25. Business school is where you learn to call a spade

--a leveraged tactile-feedback geomass delivery system.

[BlueIris]

26. "Transitioning."

ACK. Not a word. Stop it.

[Bake]

32. OH that's nothing. How about "incentivize?"

Or even worse, just "incent." Those are NOT verbs!!

Bake

[lunatica]

55. At UC Berkeley we're transitioning by "cohorts"

for the next couple of years. We're also called human capital now and when jobs end it's called termination.

cohort:

1. A group or band of people.
2. A companion or associate.
3. A generational group as defined in demographics, statistics, or market research: "The cohort of people aged 30 to 39 . . . were more conservative" (American Demographics).
4.
a. One of the 10 divisions of a Roman legion, consisting of 300 to 600 men.
b. A group of soldiers.

[KurtNYC]

29. I think we could maximize the productivity of this thread by pro-actively leveraging our

diverse human capital to provide turn key solutions and just in time zingers.

We need to interactively visualize highly efficient benefits and then efficiently develop and deliver virtual wireless services. And of course this will let us dynamically seize pandemic e-tailers.

http://www.atrixnet.com/bs-generator.html

[Aristus]

33. "Associate".

Everybody is a fucking associate nowadays. Sales associate, customer service associate, retail associate, PR associate, etc.

I guess it is to make overworked, underpaid wage slaves feel better about their wage-slavery.

If you ask me, no company should refer to their workforce as 'associates' unless they are paying them a percentage.

[Initech]

36. Another one is administrative assistant.

That's the title they stick the lowest people on the totem pole with so they don't have to pay them real wages and benefits or give them any sort of real responsibilities or project work with no chance for advancement.

[Initech]

34. "Job Creators"

They aren't creating shit! If I hear the damn media use that term one more time I'm gonna throw something at my TV. The only thing that these job creators have created is wealth - more wealth than they could ever imagine - and they want it all for themselves.

[irisblue]

35. this whole thread is scary...

i've heard all of these at the monthly, quarterly and annual meetings at work.....

[Bake]

38. Of course you have.

Because all the corp types think they should use these terms to sound edumacated.

The words don't mean shit, and the execs aren't any smarter for using them, but they think they sound cool. What they lack is any semblance of common sense.

Bake

[bif]

37. "Grow your business".

Ugh.

[YvonneCa]

51. And don't forget to work 'smarter', not...

'harder.'

[YvonneCa]

52. ...and 'Drill Down' of course!

[DemocratsForProgress]

40. "win/win orientation"

"empower"

"right-size"

[argyl]

44. That poor and middle class people "don't have any skin in the game." Truly nauseating coming from

these Wall Street SOB's. They lose billions but get bailed out. And everyone else's skin covered asses are on the line for all their should be criminal deceits.

[Inspired]

46. Cadence, on-boarding, roadmap, vision, 'frictionless', right-sizing, blah, blah, blah. n/t

[Inspired]

47. Oh, and monetize, silos, verticals.

[crunch60]

48. The complaint department is now know as Risk Management.. meaning, what's the chance

we get sued on this one.

[IDemo]

49. "Issue"

What ever happened to good old-fashioned "problems"?

[IDemo]

50. "One-on-one" = a meeting with your boss

Sounds more intimate than I care to be with my boss...

[Major Nikon]

53. Paradigm

I remember many years ago they made us sit through a movie on that word.

We were going through a particularly nasty reorganization at the time. People were getting shown the door, downgraded, moved, and all sorts of other adverse actions. Everyone was pissed off and frustrated. The company hired some kind of PR firm that specialized in these situations. The movie was supposed to make us all feel better about how we were getting collectively fist fucked. It basically said that if we can just get over the idea of change, we'll all be better for it someday. The example they gave was the Greeks who built the Parthenon and how it took great vision and cooperation to make it happen. The presenter was your typical PR schmuck who was all excited about the movie. I raised my hand after it was over and asked the guy if he knew the Parthenon was built by slaves. Needless to say that was the end of that little presentation. I slipped out the back door when the yelling started.

[4_TN_TITANS]

56. "At the end of the day"....

The business buzz for the end justifies the means.