idiotic phrases you hear in the workplace

Quatre Mains

at this stage in work we're all familiar with stupid expressions such as 'think outside the box' and 'guestimate'. We have a manager who regularly comes out with humdingers such as ' lets take a snapshot at 10,000ft of the situation' and 'where's the smoking gun in all this?' I just missed hearing another classic the other day after someone messed up - something about the phantom of the opera anyway. What I'd like to know is what are the best/worst of these you've heard, and even better, I'd love to know if you use them. I've heard managers go on courses where they're taught these things, surely not true?

fintan

"Lets touch base"

"Make sure we are all singing off the same hymm sheet"

I had a boss who used to say stuff like this all time..... the urge to murder was strong!

Shrimp

"The bottom line is..."

Ice_Box

I hate it when people use the word "same" at the end of a sentence.

For example....

I am writing this email. Please reply to same.

"Going forward" is being used far too much now aswell. My new boss says "lets have a pow wow" weh he wants a meeting. Or "lets do a face mail".

KILL EM ALLLLLLLL.

milltown

A regular if a meeting is wandering off topic: "Let's take it offline"

When did leverage become a verb? We need to leverage our key learnings on this one. Mmkay.

tk123

"As per telecon"
"You can't see the wood for the trees" (buh?)
"Think outside the box"
"Thats grrrrrrrrrreat!!!"
"Oh godddddddddd!!!"
"Why would you want a pay rise - you love it here"

alleepally

I used to hate the phrase "right now" when used to end a sentence. As in... "We're looking into that problem right now..." HUH, no you're not... You're talking on the phone. Stop speaking like GW BUSH with a thick Roscommon accent you moron...

Another good one is "I hear what you're saying..." ... Yep, you got two ears so I presume they work just like mine... What are you trying to cover up with your management speak.

"That's super"

"Good job guys"

I agree with the GOING FORWARD sentiment. That has to be THE most annoying and pointless phrase.

There are more but my therapy sessions erased them from my mind to recover from years of being an office worker!!! Thank God I'm out of it now though...

Deadwing

"Why are you sleeping the toilets?"
"Where have you been for the last 3 days?"
"We'll have to see about getting you a raise" <- like it was ever going to happen :rolleyes:

OLDYELLAR

i love this one , i use it a lot , theres no I in team!love it me so sad

SprostonGreen

Some daft cow of a team leader said once "You dont work for me, I work for you".

In that case I'm off home early, finish all my emails and call backs.

So happy I left that place.

Jivin Turkey

I have to admit "going forward" is one I use alot, but then its required given the work I do.

But I hate "Lets touch base", "Just to make sure we on the same page", "No my daughter is off limits".

ixoy

Argh! "Going forward" - spit. We constantly hear that at work. I've actually nearly sniggered aloud at its stupidity when we've been in meetings (thankfully I wasn't heard). I mean I'm in a company that's supposed to be able to express themselves - why the cliche?

Oh we also used the word "synergy", to an extent where we're naming a product after the daft word.

At least there's an ad on TV parodying the stupid phrases... even if the guy in it is a smug twat.

unkel

"but at the end of the day"

Lenny

One that we used to use to each other in aib was "Thats not the AIB way"

RasTa

"Allways upsell"
Wrecks my head the most. In a freakin video shop! Yes sir would you want a home cinema system or a mobile phone with your 1.50 kids rental ?

SantaHoe

I love buzzword bingo like this
There was a website posted on boards some months back with some real hum-dingers on it.. can't remember the url though.
Google for "buzzword bingo" and you'll come across some nice ones.

robbie1876

fintan wrote:

"Lets touch base"

I hate that one so much. I used to have to say it as part of a telesales spiel. I was supposed to say to clients "I want to touch base with you" but I always messed it up and ended up saying "I want to touch you...."

I don't work there anymore...

GoneShootin

Ice_Box wrote:

"lets do a face mail"

I'm all cringed out!

bus77

Deadwing wrote:

"Why are you sleeping the toilets?"
"Where have you been for the last 3 days?"
"We'll have to see about getting you a raise" <- like it was ever going to happen :rolleyes:

LMAO

billy the squid

you gotta spend money to make money
you know this place is usually open on a (incert day that you were absent)
it must be comedy hour, the payroll manager is handing out jokes (refering to payslips)


the bigger multinationals are ****ers for mad sayings though

Had a manager once where I work,

"I have a mortgage too you know"

says he looking at people who werent getting enough to qualify for a mortgage.

another place I worked they give efficiency report sheets to the production lines. efficiency is spelt wrong (spelt effisiency on all of them)

spoon

thing i keep hearing during a soccer match
"physical presence"

Imposter

My companies motto is "Be the first". So we all try to "be the first" for lunch and "be the first" out of there in the evenings and especially on fridays.

Blub2k4

At this point, let us put a stake in the ground, then let's run that one up the flagpole, we can leverage the experience, use it to orientate ourselves and it's a blue sky scenario all round.

Hagar

OLDYELLAR wrote:

theres no I in team!

The correct response to this horseshít is "but there is an M and an E but there is no U. So feck off"

yossarin

OLDYELLAR wrote:

theres no I in team

david brent: "there's a me if you look hard enough"

Mine:
"Why haven't you done that yet?"
"Do you still work here?"

fletch

"When in difficulty always remember the 3 S's" - trouble is I forgot what they were as I walked out of induction

flygirl

I've heard 'em all....

'Let's run that up the flagpole and see who salutes'

'Let's take that one offline'

'We can't have anyone dropping the ball'

'I'm not throwing the toys out of the pram here but...'

'Just giving you the heads up'

'Keep me in the loop'

thinking outside the box, going forward, leverage our key strategic learnings blah blah blah....

Gaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Blub2k4

Fletch wrote:

"When in difficulty always remember the 3 S's" - trouble is I forgot what they were as I walked out of induction

Sh1t, shave and a shower????


Oh yeah, lets put that on the backburner....muahaha

pickarooney

"I want you all to be proactive when giving a ballpark estimate of the number of red flags on this project, which is Joanne's baby."

Try a "hurling-pitch guess", you bogland parrot.

Third_Echelon

Good mother of holy fupp.... i cannot stand 'GOING FORWARD'... my manager has a love affair with this phrase and puts it even in places that it doesnt make sense.... :mad:

This is a part from the summary of my last performance review:

X is a personable/likeable member of the service delivery organisation. He works well with others, and has good technical ability. Going forward X should focus on improving his overall productivity while maintaining consistantly high levels of quality.
It is important for X to effectivly mange his workload going forward.

rainbow kirby

Whenever we have a good day - 'We dominated!'
Any day - 'Preowned, preowned, preowned. We don't stock any new games.'
Last week - 'Joanne, get your loyalty percentage up or Ian's testicles get it!'

IgnatiusJRiley

Third_Echelon wrote:

Good mother of holy fupp.... i cannot stand 'GOING FORWARD'... [/B][/I]

In that case, why is your sig:
"I have recently found that my tolerance to alcohol is not what it once was... clearly regression will be the way going forward"

milltown

Don't drop the ball, run with it.

Third_Echelon

IgnatiusJRiley wrote:

In that case, why is your sig:
"I have recently found that my tolerance to alcohol is not what it once was... clearly regression will be the way going forward"

i think I might change it to that in an ironic stance against the phrase...

pearsquasher

"Lets push the boat out on this one" ..... i'm not a frigging marine engineer

"Its been escalated up the ladder"........ really, how does that work?

"This could be a show-stopper if it isn't resolved"..... like when Tommy Cooper died on stage, like?

I had a boss who would throw phrase after phrase like those mentioned at you like bloody machine gun firing. In the end i had to say... "so what exactly are you saying?".

"The Office" says it all.

MicraBoy

"Your bonus has been zeroised"

and

"We need some dedicated mind space"

Keyzer

Hahahaha, this is a great post...

I work in place where all the managers, and I do mean all of them, are complete muppets. The bumper book of management is given out when you become a manager here.

Words used by managers in a sentences just to make them fancy -
Clarity, spuriosly, succinctly, remit, prioritized, target Audience, paramount and my personal favorite, paradigm. I don't have balls notion what this word means, but more importantly, neither do the people who use this word.

Phrases used are classic bullshlt bingo combos -

This is not in our remit, its the xxxx teams remit (apparently remit=responsibility, but why didn't you use the word responsibilty you imbecile)

Lets work together on this one (eh, no, I'm gonna play champ manager for the next 4 hours so get someone else to do it)

Lets pull together (eh, no, I pull in the privacy of my own home and on my own)

I need the lowdown on xxxx (the f**king lowdown? where are we? out in the wild west?)

Imagine we are a footbal team and we've had a terrible first half, lets come out and take this second half and win the cup (no comment needed)

ionapaul

Ha, I worked from 2000-2003 in San Francisco, dot-com bubble central, and you wouldn't beleive the buzzwords EVERYONE used at that time...not just managers, corporate employees but EVERYONE, waitresses, receptionists, whatever. We couldn't use the word 'use', had to replace it with 'utilize' every time. God, that was annoying. 'Utilizing the modular solution, end-users can leverage the knowledge-base across the entire enterprise and enable the development of a superior paradigm...'

Utilize and leverage, how I hate thee. The Brentmeister General really showed how idiotic this lingo is.

SheroN

If it bleeds we can kill it.

Kêrmêttê

I've had 3 different female supervisors in 3 different offices where the entire staff was female, and the supervisors insisted on calling all the girls "lads".
"Ok lads! Don't forget the weekly staff meeting is at 3pm today", etc. :rolleyes:
Stoopid bints!

Gordon

robbie1876 wrote:

I hate that one so much. I used to have to say it as part of a telesales spiel. I was supposed to say to clients "I want to touch base with you" but I always messed it up and ended up saying "I want to touch you...."

I don't work there anymore...

lol

Personally I always thought of the phrase "touching cloth" whenever "touching base" was mentioned.

Bogger77

OLDYELLAR wrote:

i love this one , i use it a lot , theres no I in team!love it me so sad

I have replied to this with,

but there is a me

The Sweeper

Ahahahahahaha...

Occasionally we have thoughts on things. "My thoughts on that are..."

We regularly take nouns and turn them into verbs - "We can coffee at 11 while we meet on that"

We also take client names and turn them into verbs - "What are you working on?" and instead of saying "The MNGN project", you say "I'm MNGNing".

But the worst thing?

The worst things we're guilty of are "the love" and "a beautiful thing".

If a project has been neglected, it hasn't had the love. It needs to be quickly given the love to make it work. We may have a meeting about how much love it's had so far, and debate whether it needs more love. We have been known to break into singing "where is the love" when we've really f*cked things up.

And what happens to something that gets the love?

We make it a beautiful thing.



...the saddest part about this is that is started as a means of making the day more tolerable.

][cEMAN**

Hagar wrote:

The correct response to this horseshít is "but there is an M and an E but there is no U. So feck off"

Hehehe yeah a classic response. I actually had that "there's no I in team" from a fellow worker (not management). That was my response "There's a ME in team but no U, so feck off". He clammed right up. I hate little smarmy gits who just come into the job and presume to tell you how to do it.

manmusic

My new Favorite is "I gotta piss like a pregnant lady"

Blub2k4

manmusic wrote:

My new Favorite is "I gotta piss like a pregnant lady"

Kinda hard to squeeze that one into meetings with corporate clients?

dictatorcat

My boss is a big fan of "lets get moving on this one" and "lets get the ball rolling". Pisses me off no end :mad:

FX Meister

My old boss used to love "pushing the envelope" and "lets touch base in an hour". Another of his, directed at female employees, was "better call an ambulance now cause she'll need a pelvic x-ray when I'm done with her".
Another was "R.T.F.M., read the f**king manual", god I hated that one.

fuse

"Thanks a mill.."

I hear that around 20 times a day, my hatred for the phrase is growing steadily.

ishnid

Actual quote from HP's marketing bloke in today's indo:

These have the potential to deliver new revenue streams for organisations that can use the technologies as a point of differentiation from their competitors.

My inbuilt corporate bull translator turns that into:
Companies with better technology will make more money.

Why can't these people just say what they mean?

milltown

A classic from the Mc.Donalds training manual, I'm told:

"Teamwork makes the dream work"

Aaaaah!