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After a particularly bullshit bingo full presentation I have been tasked by a colleague with introducing a new bullshit term and I only win if someone outside of the team is seen / heard / recorded using it. This means the customer or one of the other consultancy firms.
There are a fair spread of professions on here who get stuck in similar meetings I am sure so I thought I would share the challenge with STW. No prizes but might add a sense of purpose to those never ending meetings.
The phrase selected was "Don't screw down the nails"
It can mean what ever you want but we have decided it means:
1) To do the job well enough but do not waste time and effort doing more than is necessary.
2) Use the tools you have as they were intended to be used and don't try to use them for the wrong job.
I was tasked with popularising option 1 and she was tasked with option 2.
Please share any meanings for this phrase you will try and popularise or, indeed, any different terms you want to try and get out there. I have ring fenced my unicorn but I was you guys to fly your kite and pray for lightning while hitting the closet crocodile and picking the lowest coconuts in your canoe which you should paddle you own route but avoid the waterfall of isolation.
So, please popularise the expression with meaning 1.
Is "please popularise the expression" some kind of business bullshit? cos I've got no idea what you want
See, where you're going wrong is it actually has some sort of logical sense to it.
Far better having someone repeat back some nonsensical twaddle you made up.
After the popularise comes the monitise💰
I rather like "don't screw down the nails".
I can probably use that tomorrow - but I'm thinking more in the context of 'let's take this bit of work so far, but leave room to pivot it to something else if need be'.
[i]Don't screw down the nails on that policy paper, the Secretary of State will have changed his mind by next week anyway.[/i]
[i]Is “please popularise the expression” some kind of business bullshit?[/i] - Sorry, I have been in called with Accenture and Deloitte all day.
Make the expression popular?
Use the phrase?
Say those words in your meetings?
I appear to have lost the power of English.
Scuttler - I am looking to democratise the conduit of creation to avoid the exploitation of asset monetisation by the entrenched communi-culture
finbar - feel free to add a third meaning to it. The more the merrier. It is a phrase that seems to make sense at first glance and totally depends on how you frame it to determine what that sense is.
To use a phrase that's popular in my office currently, that interpretation is just my hot take on the issue.
See, where you’re going wrong is it actually has some sort of logical sense to it.
Also, is it the wrong way around? "We need to screw down the nails on this."
You could say:
We get paid for knocking nails in not screwing them down.
Screwing the nails down means screwing our margins up.
I hate to say it WCA, but your colleague's explanation of 'right tools for the job' makes far more sense to me (in so far as these things ever do, anyway). You're trying to screw in nails, what you need there is a hammer.
Definition 3 could be "don't overthink it" perhaps? You're trying to drive a nail with a screwdriver when what you actually need to do is just **** it one.
I wrote both definitions and the phrase. We just flipped a coin to see who got what
I'll be socialising this on my next collaborative think-in
Yeah, OK! ...and when someone looks quizzical at option 1, we can say "you know, like Perfect is the enemy of Good? It's like that"
Don’t screw down the nails on that policy paper, the Secretary of State will have changed his mind by next week anyway.
Still makes no sense, which I know is the point, as you don't screw down nails.
The 'correct' phrase which could be used in same context is "don't tighten the nuts"
I'm retired now so I no longer feel the need to ideate, whether inside or outside of a box, and I really CBA to ringfence this particular unicorn.
We need to screw down the nails on this.
YES!!!
Ah, so WCA wants a bullshit phrase used so much that it'll eventually get used by one of his customers via the roundabout route.. got it. I don't work in business, so I'm about as much use as a threaded nail
I’m about as much use as a threaded nail
👊
When you've a hammer, everything looks like a nail...
I use often, but I do a fair few project/programme post-mortems...
would this be a bad time to bring up the hammer screws i just bought in screwfix?
Still makes no sense, which I know is the point, as you don’t screw down nails.
Exactly. Think along the lines of The Apprentice and you'll get it.
All screws are hammer screws if you try hard enough.
We prefer abbreviations for everything.
N.C.T and a H.C.B?
Y.D.R.
Sorry, I have been in called with Accenture and Deloitte all day.
Ive had quite a few projects like those over the years, and we're probably overdue another one about now for the usual "sorry we've just spent millions on transformation management consultants so we can't afford pay rises this year".
It's bullshit meetings like those that mean I cannot wait 'til retirement.
[looks at calendar] Only 25 years to go. Bollocks.
With meaning #1, there's a very distinct risk that you'll appear to be a moron with no clue about DIY*.
We need to screw down the nails on this.
That just sounds like a stupiderer version of "Dot the i's and cross the t's" that similarly implies that the user doesn't know about DIY IMHO.
I quite like usage #2...
IANA business leader though so I'm not sure I'm the right person to screw that nail on this.
*Whereas of course, we know you're an expert at DIY
I managed to get our Sales Director to use the phrase "hunt for the long tailed armadillo" in a public conference presentation he gave.
We can do this.
Sorry, I have been in called with Accenture and Deloitte all day.
You absolutely have my sympathy, you poor sod
And now just finished a KPMG call.
Trying to remember why I gave up booze and what alternatives there are in the current situation. I have about half a bottle of Oramorph that might ease my mind
Laudanum Fentanyl, perhaps?
I’m about as much use as a threaded nail
I suggest you read up what a ringshank nail is....they are damn useful.
The definition needs no further refinement. There's no need to screw down the nails on this more than we have. I'm ready now to socialise this helpful phrase, envisioning adoption across the piece.
I've been trying to introduce a phrase for ages, but have yet to hear anyone else using it.
'As the pig walks', self explanatory really, the opposite of 'as the crow flies'
It seems sensible to me, but getting things widely adopted can be tricky. Good luck
I suggest you read up what a ringshank nail is….they are damn useful.
You keep your ringshanks......................
I give you the Nailscrew !!
WCA - I read that screw-nails thing and the phrase “another screw in his coffin” sprang into my mind. And now I can’t get it out.
WCA – I read that screw-nails thing and the phrase “another screw in his coffin” sprang into my mind. And now I can’t get it out.
There are some 'special interest' videos on that very topic but not on YouTube I suspect
I got called a corporate citizen with direct interactive hardware.
Felt a little sick after tbf. it jumped right off the lips of the person saying it too.
One of my colleagues asked if wage slave was a better term..
Glad it was on teams
We need to screw down the nails on this.
That just sounds like a stupiderer version of “Dot the i’s and cross the t’s” that similarly implies that the user doesn’t know about DIY IMHO.
Surely that's the point!
It isn't supposed to make sense, it's supposed to be utterly moronic but plausible enough to sound catchy.
My brother and his partner used to drop the phrase 'yeah well its all bread for ducks really' into as many conversations as possible, but also in as many contexts as possible and with as many different inferred meanings as possible.
"coming down the pub?"
"sorry, can't got to wait in for the plumber"
"thats a shame"
"yeah well its all bread for ducks really"
or
"finshing at lunchtime tomorrow looks like its going to be a blazing hot weekend the so the boss is letting us all away early"
'You lucky bastard"
"yeah well its all bread for ducks really"
Screws and nails? Reminds me of a story a friend tells about his granddaughter . . .
After attending church one Easter Sunday, the little girl (then aged about 5) asked "Daddy, Daddy, why did they nail Jesus to the cross?".
Her dad tried to explain in an age-appropriate way, but she interrupted: "No Daddy, I mean why didn't they use screws?".
In your efforts to popularise this phrase I hope you don’t go chasing squirrels round the tree in order to get results.
I think i am going to have to signpost you to the external communications department for a redirect on this one.
Although in my job, telling the trade guys not to hammer in the screws would kinda make sense
I think you are a perpetrator of both mono and polysyllabic terminologically misappropriated inexactitudes myself.
I can easily use this for collaboration on a document for an ever-evolving project. "We don't want to screw down the nails because x will migrate to z but not in the timescales we need to socialise a first draft".
Audience will love that shit too.