Buzz Words, Catch Phrases, and Manager Speak? 162
rivendahl asks: "I have not seen, or perhaps not looked hard enough, to find an article that taps the core of the American business; buzz words. Personally, I hate buzz words, 'clik' words, cliches, catch phrases, and management speak (lingo). One of my favorite pet-peeves is the term, 'going forward'. This whole new concept of 'going forward' grates [on my] nerves. I currently work at a large international company. I have moved departments in the last six months. In my previous department we were made to read books and attend classes on 'positive, forward thinking' and 'action items', as well as classes on 'accepting total accountability'. It made me sick. Please, I ask the Slashdot community to share your displeasure or buzz words along with a few of your most hated management catch phrases."
I'll give you my input on that action item... (Score:3, Interesting)
I invented a piece of jargon once (Score:5, Interesting)
One day I was talking to an important prospective customer, a customer who did a lot of different things with their media. They asked me how one system could solve problem X and problem Y, when problems X and Y didn't really have much to do with each other at that company.
"We don't consider asset management to be a single problem," I said. "Instead, we think of it in terms of a problem space. There are lots of problems that can all be called asset management problems, even though they don't really have anything to do with each other. Rather than trying to solve the asset management problem-- of which there really is no such thing-- we instead apply our technology to the different problems we encounter in the asset management problem space."
A week later, the entire fucking marketing department was talking about problem spaces. "Problem space" became a synonym for "problem," which is the exact opposite of what I mean. I sat in on a marketing meeting once, and heard the marketing manager say, in all seriousness, "How are we doing on those data sheet problem spaces?" I nearly lost it.
That company is now teetering on the brink of collapse. I'm no longer with them-- I was ousted by the president because I guess I laughed too hard at his use of the word "paradigm" one time-- but if you get somebody in your office talking about a "problem space," throw him out immediately.
"Doublespeak" Resources (Score:3, Interesting)
My Cultural Anthropology class had an assigned reading on "Doublespeak": Language, Appearance, and Reality: Doublespeak in 1984, by William D. Lutz of Rutgers University. It reviews gems like TV's with "nonmulticolor capability", and "ballistically induced aperture in the subcutaneous environment" (a bullet hole).
Lutz, along with being a Professor of English, was involved with the National Council of Teachers of English Committee on Public Doublespeak (that's a mouthful), as well as the editor of the Quarterly Review of Doublespeak.
The NCTE has only a placeholder page [ncte.org] for their Quarterly Review, but it does offer some useful information on their mailing list. A search for "doublespeak" on the same site brings back many hits for their George Orwell Award [ncte.org].
Oh, man. (Score:2, Interesting)
"Let's take the 30,000 foot view and drill down from there. Going forward, let's leverage our deliverables in an impactful and robust way."
The improper use of "impact" is one of my favorites. Call me anal, but "impact" is not a verb. It is a noun. One cannot "impact" anything, and the only thing which may be impacted is a tooth.
Oddly enough, The Economist hates this too (Score:3, Interesting)
Oddly enough, The Economist's Style Guide [economist.com] is dead-set against this sort of buzzword bullshit.
They've got a great list of unnecessary words [economist.com].
Here's an excerpt from their section on jargon [economist.com]:
I notice they sell a hardcopy of the style guide, you could use it to bludgeon problem co-workers to death.
Mark Twain might have said it best:
Re:Resources... (Score:2, Interesting)
I once had it out with a few people in a meeting. I was working for the software development organisation for an internet bank. Not once in my first five months there was the opportunity to use "resources" instead of "people" passed up. It most annoyed me when it was used in the singular: "We have a new resource starting on Monday..."
During a meeting, therefore, upon the third or fourth time the word was used to describe people, I ask that we stop doing that and return to the employees their humanity. No one of the 4 or 5 others in the meeting would agree that lumping people with PCs and meeting rooms was less than fair. In fact, they all agreed it was acceptable for the word to be applied even to them.
It wasn't until I pointed out that if they were throwing a party, they wouldn't invite 12 resources, or that their children were, therefore, resources or that they wouldn't refer to the CEO of the company as a resource that they began to see what I was talking about.
My tactic that day didn't create much effect, but at least I think I impressed enough one of the people present.
Éibhear