Office jargon

Tex Mexico

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/oct/22/a-z-modern-office-jargon

Obviously we've all dealt with this, and obvious we all to a man think that these terms are only ever unironically used by complete tossers, but I'm just wondering what are your best anecdotes about having been subjected to them, and what your reactions were?

I'll start - I was once very nearly sacked on the spot for this - I got an email from the training team in the call centre where I worked, which requested that from then on, for each call we took, we had to look for the solution to whatever problem in the database, even if we already knew what the solution was. This was bad enough, but to add insult to injury the wording wasn't "look it up", it was "positively interface with the knowledge toolset".

I had just been told that I would soon be expected to re-apply for my own job, so I wasn't feeling all that co-operative. I sent a group reply which also included the general floor manager, which basically implied that the only reason we had a training team was to teach everyone a raft of obscure bullshit jargon, and asking if they wanted me to do the job I was hired to do or follow the new instructions the management were handing down on a daily basis, because the two were mutually exclusive, and maybe we could cut a few costs here and there if we looked into getting rid of people whose job it was to invent more work for people who were already too busy.

It wasn't well-received.

VimFuego

I was contracting for the NHS (herts SHA, the bit I worked in was basically responsible for training and recruitment of staff, and for paying the associated costs) about 9 years ago now. I was mostly involved in helping set up a new computerised system. They had monthly staff meetings and as I wasn't on staff I wasn't usually required to attend (which suited me) but one time they wanted me to brief everyone else on the new system and its progress. So I went along and sat through all the usual very boring things where each section head told us what they'd been up to that month. At the end of each bit, the equality and diversity lead would ask if there were any E&D implications to whatever had been said, to which the standard mantra was that E&D was central to whatever they were doing. I was so bored I was really tempted to shout out bingo whenever she spoke, but discretion told me this would be a bad idea. Then it got to my turn to bore everyone senseless with what I'd been doing. I got to the end and thought "I've lost em, better end on a joke" and before I could engage my brane I said "and don't worry, there are no E&D implications in this". It did not go down too well and oddly enough when they decided to make my role a staff one, I was not asked to apply.

guitarfishbay

Acronyms are the worst thing in offices.  People fire off acronyms during discussions thinking it is quicker but a lot of the acronyms are fairly similar and half the time nobody has a clue what is going on.

Always makes me think of the text at 1min in this clip from Ali G.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARYKOaBUOtU

Phil_aka_Pip

I call it CAWS (Corporate American W@nk Speak)

bertie

our HR department  live and breath by it.

Phil_aka_Pip

There's nothing wrong with acronyms when they're a convenient label for something that would otherwise have a long name AND everyone knows what you're talking about.

Maybe @VimFuego's faux-pas was because ED also stands for Erectile Dysfunction, which might have been a sore point with some of those managers

VimFuego

nah, they were all wimmins.

frankus

A necessary evil in multinationals.

Being resistant to the new is a good thing though, it shows people how adaptable you are and your capability of communicating with others on their terms.

No one likes a show off, do they

Phil_aka_Pip

VimFuego said:

nah, they were all wimmins.

ah maybe they were pissed off 'cos their menfolk weren't "exceeding expectations"

chillidoggy

Most of the HR and the other managerial types I know use "meeting-speak". Thus, apart from one or two, they are actually not real people. They also modify their language when dealing with any member of the public, or suppliers. I often try to tempt some of the more resilient ones out from under their management-speak rocks, and I'm generally successful in getting them to drop their guard.

Those that are uncrackable, and thus no fun at all, I endeavour to avoid.

CabbageCat

In my work we regularly frig, we have SCAT legs and we work for a BJ.

frankus

perhaps if you leveraged their mindset you'd precipitate a paradigm shift and get a ROI

dogload

Iwas once in a meeting with my then line manager (now departed) who loved all that jargon. She asked me how I saw this thing 'being escalated forward'. I had to ask what she meant exactly by the term 'escalate forward', to which she replied 'advance'. I then had to ask why she didn't just say that, and was asked in a most hurt tone 'why was I being like this?'

So I decided to try and introduce my own jargon, using DIY terms like 'putting the skim-coat on the situation' or 'spoke shave within the acceptable tolerances'. The look on her face as she tried to process these new bits of jargon was priceless.

mike_l

our "supervisor" thinks abbreviating everything makes hi sound intelligent.

he just sounds like a thick twat who doesn't actually know what he's talking about.

so to send parts back we have to do a PTR*, fill out a RF** and do a MP***

*permission to return

**returns form

***minus purchase

guitarfishbay

mike_l said:

our "supervisor" thinks abbreviating everything makes hi sound intelligent.

he just sounds like a thick twat who doesn't actually know what he's talking about.

so to send parts back we have to do a PTR*, fill out a RF** and do a MP***

*permission to return

**returns form

***minus purchase

This is exactly what I meant.  They're only really shorter when writing them down, when speaking out loud the difference in time taken is negligible.  Unless you're saying them like they're words, which makes it more confusing.

IanSavage

Teaching is lousy with acronyms - once you've worked out which kids in a group are G&T, EAL, SEN (for which they can be SA or SAP)or BESD (as notified by the LEA or SENCO) you need to check their IAP in order to assign their ELP, which you then communicate to your assigned LSA or LST to try to avoid those with a PSP being removed to the LSU.

 

I'd love it if I was joking, or even exaggerating. I'm not.

EricTheWeary

I use a lot of jargon at work but, I think, I don't use it on the public. Teachers - who should know better- are really guilty of this ^. My kids school reports are basically a foreign language.

Deadman

The military are hands down worse for their tla's.

bertie

Deadman said:

The military are hands down worse for their tla's.

try working in ICT ,  they even changed the name to fit in with a TLA 

Rocker

RTFM.  Always works.

PolarityMan

Rocker said:

RTFM.  Always works.

I liked it when they got to Xmas no.1.