So, following on from the ‘apprentice’ thread, what’s the best cliche you’ve heard in the workplace?

I’m forever being asked to ‘sharpen the pencil’ on deals, to put ‘all my eggs in one basket’, ‘touch base’ with people to make sure we ‘are singing off the same hymn sheet’.

I was once told to shoot for the moon, he reason being that even if I missed, I’d end up amongst the stars. (the purveyor of such wisdom was most put out when it was pointed out that the moon is much nearer to earth than the nearest star…)

However my absolute favourite…. ‘Tom, we really need to ringfence the unicorn on this one’.

WTF ARE YOU SAYING?!?!?!

That’s a great one!
Just off to the toilet to ringfence the unicorn.

I’m now plotting to use “ringfence the unicorn” at work. I might just run around the office, shouting it repeatedly.

“If you re-invent the wheel one more time we’re going to need a wheel warehouse”

“Fill yourself full of Win!”

I once received an email requesting “bi-directional commentary between ourselves and the supplier”.

“Firstly, we have signed a transformational outsourcing deal with xxxx which will deliver an increase to our cost synergies from the £112m per annum in 2013, which we will still hit on time, to £143m per annum by 2015. This deal de-risks the embedded value, contractualises the delivery of the cost synergies, and it de-risks the execution of our plans, allowing us to focus on the other opportunities we have as a business.”

A verbatim quote from a recent email.

Oh, and another favourite around here is “what will success look like?”. Guh.

I received the following email yesterday – from a guy who got up at 05.15 to send it.

This is the whole email in response to me very nicely pointing out he was being a bit of a knob. I believe it’s in English but it’s not something I understand – maybe it’s scouse 🙂

Absolutely, it remains on my radar, and make the assumption and add a risk, prior to be advised otherwise. This is just one facet of the overall picture, and we need to gain traction in order to obtain agreement on a baseline architecture within the TSA.

“If you re-invent the wheel one more time we’re going to need a wheel warehouse”

“Fill yourself full of Win!”

I like both of them, I’ll be using them as my own from now on.

“Firstly, we have signed a transformational outsourcing deal with xxxx which will deliver an increase to our cost synergies from the £112m per annum in 2013, which we will still hit on time, to £143m per annum by 2015. This deal de-risks the embedded value, contractualises the delivery of the cost synergies, and it de-risks the execution of our plans, allowing us to focus on the other opportunities we have as a business.”

What in the name of God does this mean.?

“ringfence the unicorn” user is obviously a top bloke/burd as nobody could come up with that with serious intent. He’s a bullshit bluffer or the highest order

clasps hands and prays to god that it’s true (while “they” aren’t looking 😉 )

Upon being given a task by our overall Manager, my Line Manager once said this;

‘Right, we’ve been given this caged monkey, let’s get it to the zoo’.

Luckily I work in an environment where laughing directly in someone’s face and calling them a k**b doesn’t get you immediately fired.

What in the name of God does this mean.?

Exactly

In my office managers are always whanging on about ‘workshopping’ things, and referring to elements of our work as using the word ‘space’ (e.g. ‘in the z-series space’).

Not bull poo of the same order as previous posts, but still gets on your nerves after a while …

We also get a lot of our ‘offshore’ colleagues requesting we ‘do the needful’ … (?)

“Let’s run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.”

In the context of a meeting to decide how best to word a questionaire email to the users.

I’ve also heard “Let’s throw it at the wall and see what sticks.”

“Utilising our synergies” was always a particular favourite.

One of the guys here announced that he’d “socialised the initiative with the primary customer”

So, you mentioned something to the bloke in passing in a corridor then!

‘Right, we’ve been given this caged monkey, let’s get it to the zoo go spank it’.

😀

run it up the flagpole

how about “let’s see who’s first to jizz on this biscuit”

“we either bodge it to ss or bend everything back and reindex the whole system”

I’m just off for an interactive 360-degree bipartite horizon scan with one of the crew, just before he walks the plank on this one

😯 [absolutely gobsmacked] 😯
People actually say shit like this??? 😯 and expect to be taken seriously??
No wonder the countrys fooooked!!!

“we either bodge it to ss or bend everything back and reindex the whole system”

I like this. We should make a concerted effort to get bike-related phrases into the bullshit bingo play space.

*ponders something about zip ties and heli tape 😆

“Firstly, we have signed a transformational outsourcing deal with xxxx which will deliver an increase to our cost synergies from the £112m per annum in 2013, which we will still hit on time, to £143m per annum by 2015. This deal de-risks the embedded value, contractualises the delivery of the cost synergies, and it de-risks the execution of our plans, allowing us to focus on the other opportunities we have as a business.”

That would make sense if the grammer was sorted out a bit, I hate long sentances joined with comma’s…

Let’s run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.

This was used in 12 Angry Men, the 1957 film, where the Robert Webber character uses a whole series of such cliches to hide his inability to make a decision. Bizarrely, something used to take the mickey is now said seriously again.

That would make sense if the grammer was sorted out a bit, I hate long sentances joined with comma’s…

Not to mention spelling and punctuation. 😉

“That’s potentially another roadblock to add to the bucket if there’s the potential for pushback from our key business stakeholders.”

A bucket of roadblocks. WTF would that look like? Would the bucket be massive or the roadblocks tiny?

“That’s one to get on your radars.”

A simple one, but “going forward” rips my knitting. If everyone would stop saying those two words together I think half my meetings would finish noticeably more quickly. Its a completely pointless phrase. You’re planning stuff. EVERYTHING is in the future.

Anyone remember Drop the Dead Donkey? The spirit of Gus lives on.

“Jill, could you come for a quick scuba in my think tank?”
“Today is tommorow’s tadpole of opportunity”

‘Ringfence the unicorn’ is pure gold I will try and remember that one 🙂

Happily, I don’t work in this sort of environment. HR recently tried their luck with “Onboarding” but were swiftly told to sort that sort of thing out and it’s become “new staff” or something less vomit-worthy.

The most over-used phrase at our place is ‘leave it with me’ closely followed by ‘going forward’ at the end of every sentence? Like an inflexion? Going forward?

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

I was recently told by a former colleague that I was considered “elitist” by a lot of people at my old workplace because I shunned bullshit bingo in favour of more correct English.

Some good ones here! Sadly, a lot of them are ones I recognise!

“We are at a nexus, with pipeline projects from many stakeholders.”

Translated: We’re skint and don’t know what to do, but hopefully one of our funders will cough up soon.

Just back from the US, where such language is used as a normal means of communication.

I’m sure that anyone who uses such utter rot instead of real language is only doing so to hide their lack of intelligence.

My absolute favourite has to be “boil the ocean” as in “let’s not boil the ocean here”.

Anyone who uses “synergies” in a serious way should have a long hard look at themselves.

And the annoying use of the word “right?” at the end of every sentance to try and muster a response to indicate that they are indeed correct or thinking that they are not correct is wrong. Words fail me………..

I shunned bullshit bingo in favour of more correct English.

?

I’m sure that anyone who uses such utter rot instead of real language is only doing so to hide their lack of intelligence.

This! Also add competence to intelligence. I’ve been in meetings where peolpe have waffled on like this for hours without saying anything of meaning or relevance.

Well to be fair, in most companies, the main aim in meetings is to get out of them having wasted some time and not got any more work handed to you.

Anyone who uses “synergies” in a serious way should have a long hard look at themselves.

It does have valid uses. I never mind hearing it when you’re talking about buying companies, mergers etc as that’s one very good reason to do that sort of thing. In far too many cases I’m reminded very much of the quote from The Princess Bride “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. “

“Synergies” is the one that makes my teeth itch.

I may try and see if i can facilitate the phrase “drown the mole” whilst keeping my face straight.

I had someone asking if we could “integrate our synergies” once.

I laughed at him.

I find that scorn-filled laughter is the only way to deal with idiots like that.

granuality

I used to play the “Buzzword Bingo” game prior to meetings or presentations. You’d pick the latest phrase and wait until some k**b would utter it. First one out of the hat bought the first round.

Some favourites: “Let’s get all our ducks in a row”, “Our synergistic approach….” and “key”.

As in “This is key”, “The key skillset”, “Key operational effectiveness”.

We have “Key” meetings FFS!!!!!!!!!!

And when did the name signs and posters become “signage”??????/

CFH – Sounds like you completed the task perfectly. He was an idiot, you pointed it out. I believe that integrated all available synergies.