Corporate bollocks ...
 

MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch

[Closed] Corporate bollocks that you have spouted

45 Posts
32 Users
0 Reactions
84 Views
Posts: 0
Free Member
Topic starter
 

Today I managed "this could result in a loss of granularity of the data and consequently our ability to identify actionable emergent trends."


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:07 pm
Posts: 7186
Full Member
 

BINGO!


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:08 pm
 DezB
Posts: 54367
Free Member
 

I envy you, I really do. I am completely incapable of spouting such drivel.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:13 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
Topic starter
 

The worst of it Dez, is that when you can do it - you recognise others doing it. It becomes very hard not to get angry and go into Jeremy Paxman mode during meetings.

I need an outdoors job. Horticulture or something. Maybe that won't feel so dirty.

Anyway, time to go and step in the diphoterine emergency shower.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:17 pm
Posts: 20763
 

A customer told me that his customers order was ‘in flight’

I could see myself throwing myself off a building as I responded ‘Ok, let me know when it lands’


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:19 pm
Posts: 1294
Free Member
 

Was it air mail?


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:23 pm
Posts: 20763
 

Sadly no


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:25 pm
Posts: 17303
Free Member
 

A customer told me that his customers order was ‘in flight’

Halfway down the stairs?


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:27 pm
Posts: 17
Free Member
 

I'm going forward with an integrated cloud solution, in parallel I'm pushing forward with several digital twins.

To be fair it's no more bs than engineering speak


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:27 pm
Posts: 34483
Full Member
 

I used "Robust response to a single event" this morning. It's not so bad that it doesn't actually make sense. But what I actually meant was "I'm going to tell them to **** off, as this is unlikely to be what they think it is, we have better outcomes than all the local hospitals, and I'm not being drawn into their idiotically pointless politics"


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:28 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
Topic starter
 

Ask him next time something is delayed, using some nautical themes, eg whether the customers order has been "lost with all hands". or keeping with his aeronautical theme why his KPIs have entered an "<i>uncontrolled 500mph vertical dive"</i>

<i></i>See how long it takes for him to catch on.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:29 pm
Posts: 10980
Free Member
 

Corporate speak is everywhere, just listen to a flight attendant spouting drivel like "we will shortly be arriving into Manchester...."  and  "all mobile devices should turned off at this time...."


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:31 pm
Posts: 13408
Full Member
 

Let me give you my elevator pitch. We don’t go after the low hanging fruit or a quick and dirty offering, we break through clutter to leverage a class leading, customer centric solution to your fulfilment issues, we will calibrate your expectations to ensure you no longer expect par for the course. We’re not trying to boil the ocean here, it is what it is, but what we do is offer a paradigm shift that is a real value add money maker, this is mission critical work and we want to offer synergy between the client piece and the best in breed offering that you have. In truth this is thought leadership that means you’re not herding cats as you bayonet the dead. Let’s have a V2V and I can explain the high order thinking that is really me just doing my job.

Not mine, but truly beautiful.

I asked for some "customer-centric branding" today, it was perfectly reasonable in context but by gosh i felt dirty.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:33 pm
Posts: 20763
 

Not me but heard this the other week...

We are currently on approach to.... Harrogate station.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:34 pm
Posts: 28
Free Member
 

Very proud to say I have not been the sort of womble that spouts corporate drivel.

At a first meeting with the new Uber Boss,  one down from the Vice President of our org ( revenue of €1.5B a year ).

Him: What issues exist in your area that I should be aware of ?

Cranberry: Well, the software that we make our customers use is crap.

The software is getting fixed. 🙂


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:47 pm
Posts: 17
Free Member
 

At a first meeting with the new Uber Boss,  one down from the Vice President of our org ( revenue of €1.5B a year ).

lol no corp speak but got the revenue figure in, nice


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:52 pm
Posts: 8937
Full Member
 

Cranberry, that kind of honest can work really well or, if you work for a company with the wrong sort of senior people, can get you well and truly in the firing line.

I've not had to leverage any organic synergies yet in my new job, but the old job saw me doing more spinning than an 80's hip hop master on a waltzer.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:53 pm
Posts: 45716
Free Member
 

I asked for some “customer-centric branding” today, it was perfectly reasonable in context but by gosh i felt dirty.

Resign from the STW forum immediately and head off to be a monk in the woods while birching yourself for the next 10 years....


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:55 pm
Posts: 6902
Full Member
 


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 2:56 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

I'm not normally very good at that stuff but I did once manage to drop "articulate the end game" into a presentation I was giving.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 3:08 pm
Posts: 17
Free Member
 

 We don’t go after the low hanging fruit or a quick and dirty offering,

TBH though what easy quick phrase would you replace both of those with? It actually makes perfect sense as to what it is describing.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 3:10 pm
 DezB
Posts: 54367
Free Member
 

Thanks scutler 😀

Do you have similar for "Heads Up"? and other such yank****

and why does everyone now "Take a look"? It's HAVE a look.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 3:18 pm
Posts: 9266
Full Member
 

We had training on 'clarity' for reporting by some guy from London who delivers training on reporting all over the world.

Basically, he said get rid of all the corporate BS - only use where appropriate - e.g. a business specific acronym. The really funny thing is we pulled our Board reports to pieces as part of the exercise - full of corporate crap, that could be said in about half a page rather than 10.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 3:18 pm
Posts: 6902
Full Member
 

one down from the Vice President

If you work for some yanks, one down from the Vice President of the company is usually the bloke that cleans the bogs (except the bog cleaning is outsourced as part of a transformation to realign corporate strategy).


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 3:19 pm
Posts: 77704
Free Member
 

I've used "going forward" on more than one occasion.  Every time, I wince inside.  Problem is, hear this bobbins so often that it sticks and you can't help it.

I heard a project coordinator referring to an engineer being on-site as "air-side" the other day.  I was about ready to drive down to Birmingham to beat him to death when I realised they were talking about an airport and air-side actually means something (it's the other side of security).


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 4:13 pm
Posts: 56846
Full Member
 

I regularly ‘conceptualise’ things, and discuss this at great length.

I’m a designer. Some customers would be disappointed if I didn’t spout utter bollocks. It goes with the territory. Like fixing them with a look of withering contempt and telling them they’re wrong. They love it! 😃


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 4:17 pm
Posts: 56846
Full Member
 

I’ve spent a lot of my career working with people like this. Everything’s relative, so anything I say tends to pale into insignificance


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 4:20 pm
Posts: 8930
Free Member
 

that kind of honest can work really well

Honestly?


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 4:34 pm
Posts: 3072
Free Member
 

i just had a similar situation

the reference data is sh1te

aka all our data and IT is W***

ps. we lost the ability to spot trends years ago


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 4:35 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Nevermind corporate BS try Police BS: sat in a meeting where someone "determined" that the "commensurate nomenclature would be deployed" - this was in relation to numbered signs on coaches transporting football fans to a game. IKYN! The fact that this happens each and every time a game takes place at that stadium means the quickest answer to the question asked was a simple "yes".


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 4:45 pm
Posts: 34483
Full Member
 

and why does everyone now “Take a look”? It’s HAVE a look.

one is a synonym of the other, they're both perfectly fine English


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 5:12 pm
Posts: 3
Free Member
 

Dont do it to me cos I will get arrested and you will be in hospital


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 5:14 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Run it up the flagpole, see if it flaps 😂


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 5:18 pm
Posts: 1294
Free Member
 

Not mine, but my company described itself as 'offering a range of products and services to a range of customers'.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 5:21 pm
Posts: 50252
Free Member
 

A sort of from me...

Some years ago, my employer at the time brought in a new CEO who was, without a shadow of a doubt, a weapons grade fin de cloche. Said individual then brought in some of his 'people' to work with us. (Disrupting and ultimately disbanding a very succesful team by doing so, I might add).

One of the berks parachuted in to my bit of the business at the same level as me tried to position himself as the boss of my boss. Didn't go well. However, we (all British) noticed that he (Merkin) would parrot anything that anyone said when he thought they were saying clever things.

So, taking our cues from Edmund Blackadder, we began to use such contrafibularities as interfrastically and compunctuous.

It was with great delight that we stood at the back of a crowded room and listened to him use our neologisms in his presentation.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 5:38 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Jeez Rayban... some day's I feel like I do nothing BUT spout corporate drivel but the last time I told a customer that they were losing granularity of their data and compromising their ability to predict and prevent a F**ing big F**-up... I meant every word of it...

That was to an engineer ... I had to then reword this appropriately to explain to management!


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 5:40 pm
Posts: 5062
Full Member
 

The next BA that refers to information and or documents as collateral is getting a hoof in the slats.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 5:58 pm
Posts: 1375
Free Member
Posts: 9266
Full Member
 

In my job, I have to keep anything technical 'out of it', so I stick to simple English - I'm an accountant talking to very clever Academics - so it's 'you've got x still to spend, you've spent too much, etc'.  They don't understand accountancy.

It's not big and it's not clever to use twaddle - say it how it is. It doesn't sound impressive but people say 'thanks for that, I understand'.

Saying depreciation, deferrals and accruals to an accountant is easy, just don't say that to someone else - lights off, they don't listen.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 6:56 pm
Posts: 1106
Full Member
 

At least an employee of Über might have a legitimate reason for using word "journey" in its correct context!


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 7:24 pm
Posts: 17
Free Member
 

At least an employee of Über might have a legitimate reason for using word “journey” in its correct context!

LOL, journey is probably one of my most used ones, describes exactly what is going on, a trip from A to B where people have to travel in non literal sense. It's about getting from where your business/problem is to where you need it to be.


 
Posted : 25/07/2018 7:27 pm
Posts: 7671
Free Member
 

I got one of "those" looks from senior management in a staff meeting when I said "I understand the meaning of those words just not in the context you are using them".

Also asked if we could talk in simple English and not corporate bullshit because as teachers our job is the make complex things simple and not the other way round.


 
Posted : 26/07/2018 7:47 am
 Nico
Posts: 4
Free Member
 

I write software that is used by shops. One client wanted all references to "staff" amended to "colleagues". Sainsbury's do that tannoy thing, "This is a colleague announcement. Could Jason please go to aisle 6 and clean up the mess that some customer has just created by dropping a box of eggs, thank you for shopping at Sainsbury's Lower Slaughter".

On the train the other day I notice I was a customer, not a passenger.

Newspeak.


 
Posted : 26/07/2018 11:37 am
Posts: 5484
Free Member
 

Anything to do with having a "face to face" or "moving forward" or "lets have some dialogue on this". ****en lame middle management tripe.


 
Posted : 26/07/2018 11:40 am
Posts: 17
Free Member
 

On the train the other day I notice I was a customer, not a passenger.

Some of that is a perception shift, passengers are just another form or cargo - as a customer you remind staff that you are paying for the experience.

Sometimes also referring to the people you work with as colleagues makes things more inclusive, less us and them.

Don't really see the problem with either


 
Posted : 26/07/2018 11:41 am
Posts: 3747
Free Member
 

I just searched my sent items for "yourselves", "ourselves".

Got quite a few hits that were not being used reflexively.  The shame...


 
Posted : 26/07/2018 11:52 am