Manager Lingo

There's a lot of it flows round here. They're always talking about hymn sheets and ducks.

I really don't understand most people's use of "going forward" though. I keep getting emails saying something like "so hopefully by the end of that period x will have outsold y, going forward". THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE ANY SENSE!

Another thing a guy does, if our boss asks him a question which has a bit of a vague answer, every single time he will say "I don't know it's like..." then suck the end of his finger and stick it in the air. EVERY SINGLE TIME. :mad:

As a recent entrant into to the management world I'm trying my damnedest to use normal words properly; hopefully it won't affect my job prospects! :p

Having said that it's not only management types. The amount of sales guys I've spoken to who insist on saying "ourselves" and "yourselves" makes me want to reach over and strangle them!
 
karl-pilkington-is-too-sexy-for-you-19144-1286921457-42.jpg


Wooooooosh you're talking Bull****!!!!
 
Another one that riles me is the use of the term "the business". I purposely use "the company" when people use that term and it catches people off guard.

People here use it as if "the business" was a person, as if this nebulous entity lives and breathes. "Does the business understand?" "Have we gone back to the business about this?"

I've questioned several people on who "the business" actually is, and it's normally resulted in several action items for people to go away and find out exactly who they're talking about. I wonder if left unchallenged how many areas of the company miss out on vital information because some ball jostler in a meeting used "the business" get out clause?
 
BigDannyO said:
Having said that it's not only management types. The amount of sales guys I've spoken to who insist on saying "ourselves" and "yourselves" makes me want to reach over and strangle them!
Click to expand...

I hate people misusing "myself".

At the last place I worked, people would always finish letters with "If you have any queries, please contact $name or myself."

ARGH! Myself is reflexive! The only person who can contact "myself" is me, the only person who can contact "yourself" is you. Retards!
 
Buster2312 said:
Manager at my old job used to use 'sense-check' as in...

'Bob can you sense-check these numbers for me?'

Everytime he said it I wanted to punch him in the face.
Click to expand...

That would drive me insane.

We have Energy Champions and Project Sponsors too, those terms annoy me.
 
It does make me laugh/cry when the terms used actually make less sense, or take longer to say than the plain English versions.

Low hanging fruit = the easy ones
Synergies = doing the same things
Singing from the same hymn sheet = working together/in unison

I'm actually on a conference call at the moment, listening to people blab on about codswallop as I type this. Feels particularly pertinent. Thank you for this thread. :D
 
No, because sometimes people working together results in negative synergies. If everyone is brilliant as an individual but a terrible team worker, then they won't achieve synergies even if they work together.
 
My old boss used to have phrases for different types of workers, like oh xyz is a 'Blameless Bob', and xyz is a 'Clockwatch Chris'. That was pretty annoying.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom