Bulls**t bingo

Did this nonsense start with ‘Object Oriented’ ? Object Orientated

Orient is a verb. So oriented would be its past participle. Orientate is a variation on orient. From the French orienter meaning ‘guide’. From where we get the word ‘orienteering’ I suppose.

But I have to take issue with ‘onboarding’. Surely to enter a state described as ‘onboard’ you simply ‘board’, like you do at the airport, or when enjoying a spot of piracy. Likewise ‘leverage’ is a noun derived from the verb ‘to lever’. So you should ‘lever’ something rather than ‘leverage’ it. However ‘to lever’ means something a bit different from ‘to leverage’, so things are evolving and I suppose I and the rest of you pedants need to get used to it. Onboard the new ideas, so to speak.

“Oh yeah – we’re eating our own dogfood here” came the reply.

I used to hear that. In fact, in-company beta testing became known as ‘dogfooding’.

Thing is, it’s not just business. Heard (repeatedly) on planes: “we’ll be taking off momentarily”
😯

Oh, and another (possibly apocryphal) one. I heard a couple of years ago that people in BBC meetings were being gently encouraged to stop saying “brainstorming”, as it was considered offensive to people with epilepsy.
I think they replaced with some even more awful phase.

Dogfood thing was cisco-speak without a hint of irony for years. We used to use another word starting with dog but rhyming with hit.

My favourite was an epically self-important training consultant standing up in front of about 15 hairy-bottomed software engineers and declaring ‘Gentlemen, today I’m am going to share with you the secret of stabilising the event horizon”

I’ve laughed so much I thought I’d have to remove a rib 🙂 He didn’t take it well to be honest. Especially as one member ‘of the core development team *ahem’ would raise his grubby digit every 10 minutes and innocently ask ‘is the horizon stable now, it looks like it is, but I am squinting’

Happy days 🙂

The best one I ever heard was as I was walking past the desk of a lady in her mid fifties, training someone on how to fill in some spreadsheet or report.

The message was “you type the numbers in the boxes this time, and I will watch you do it to make sure you are doing it right” but what she actually said was “do you want to jump in the driving seat now, and I’ll ride shotgun on this one”

Top Class

today at work, new guy on the phone to a customer.

‘this is the go to bat book, this is the bat workers bible’

bulb end.

Got this from a mate via email earlier today.

just got off a conference call with a Project Manager who had some of the best turns of phrase I have ever heard – “we need to stop wading through treacle and grab this elephant by the trunk and sling it over the wall” to describe the lack of progress being made on a major problem that isnt really an IT issue. I was in stitches.

In a meeting about a key trans-national delivery failure situation, I offered to imbibe the product and urinate across the Atlantic, facilitating a distributor smile outcome. I scored a secondary goal by making a co worker wet his pants 🙂

hairy-bottomed software engineers

😆

I hate that my uni tutor says “diss” short for “dissertation”, as in “how’s the diss going?” Academics are not cool and should never try to be – cringeworthy!

I was told I needed to ‘sharpen the pencil’ yesterday while discussing a budget increase on my project.

I’m still not entirely sure what it means, but I think he wants us to spend less money.

Is it because the pencil gets smaller, as should the money, or was he suggesting we were inefficient and needed more precise tools?

Or was he going to stab me with it.

Maybe the pencil was just blunt… 😕

this is the go to bat book, this is the bat workers bible

“bat workers” – that’s superhero code, obviously

My (American based) company has just added a slogan to go with the name on company logos. ‘Five years out’. Apparantly to our colonial cousins, that means we are five years ahead of the competition. To my English ears, that means we a five years behind…. Agree?

Not really in the same league as the stuff posted here but at work they call training sessions Focus sessions.

We have one guy at work who repeatedly uses “there’s a duck in the hedge” to mean that something isn’t quite right. Fortunately, I’m the boss so I can tell him what to do with the duck. I’m not even sure I know what the problem with a duck in a hedge is so as to result in the phrase meaning something is wrong

If you hit a duck while driving and the impact flung the duck into a hedge, then there is probably going to be something seriously wrong with the duck if you got out to have a look.

Maybe that’s it…although it’s a bit morbid though.

A little update.

Yesterday the MD told a group of grown ups (and me) they should always be trying to ringfence the crown jewels. 🙄

I think our MD wants us to wear cod pieces to the office. 😕

I think you need to visit a, uh, ‘specialist’ shop for that.

I work for a US Financial Services company……

“reach out” or talk to to anyone normal
“heavy lifting” meaning actually doing something
“plumbing” detail I think
“Monday thru Friday”…….

To quote but a few….

The worst is when you hear people who never used to start to say these ridiculous phrases.

It’s all complete bollocks

I just received a big time BS Bingo brochure presented to some important people for benchmarking … I mean whoever wrote it might be in some sort of high.

I mean … “The sum of our parts is what make us special … ” WTF! I guess that’s true because the rate of staff turnover is rather high here.

😯

The non offensive PC version of ‘brainstorm’ is ‘thought shower’ which is truly dreadful.

Wading through treacle, grabbing the elephant by the trunk and throwing it over the wall is bull5hit, but I quite like the mental picture.

Five years out sounds like they’ve been released from an institution, as in ‘five years out and my carer lets me tie my own shoelaces’

My trouble is that not working in an office this is where I hear most of these pearls

mefty – Member

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 is SERIOUSLY impressive referencing.

Hats. Off.

‘bait and swap’ – the art of selling a person in a tender and then offering up a complete numpty once you have secured the project

‘pressure test’ – as in that idea/concept will need to be pressure tested in a workshop environment

I work in a university, we don’t have customers ffs, they are students.

What makes you think “customer” and “student” were intended to refer to the same person? Customers pay you money, so a smart University may be the one that treats the parents (or other funders) as though they are customers; I have increasingly seen this approach taken – and heard first hand feedback from a parent that the institutions marketing to the parental desires/needs were better! Likewise a really smart university might treat employers as the customers, for the product they produce – educated graduates.

Let’s look at this from a low hanging fruit perspective.

It’s all about the triple bottom line

Where there’s a risk, there’s an opportunity

The above all said at a meeting which I naturally had to note down.

The one that really annoys me now which seemed to start with David Cameron but all politicians and now seemingly every tom, dick and harry being interviewed now use is “Let’s be clear…” before spouting off some bullshit lies

There are some absolute belters in this thread

But the one that made me laugh the most, was unintentional (I think?)

standing up in front of about 15 hairy-bottomed software engineers

Now I’ve heard the phrase “hairy ar5ed builders” before.

And “hairy ar5ed” roofer (etc)

But software engineer !?

Yeravvinalaff

According to my boss I have to give our core brief out to “my reports” so I now have “reports” working for me not staff??

I’m not sure he found it funny when I asked if I had to report my report appraisals or report my staff appraisals next month!

Mind you he often uses the following :

Touch base
Going forward
Ring fence

And has on occasion used

Paradigm culture shift
Eating the Elephant with a spoon??

A girl at work used “Perhaps yourself and myself could meet up next week?” during a telephone call.

I think there are obvioulsy some posters here who also work for US owned IT companies (like me) who have to put up with the worst examples of this.

I find “yourself / myself” is used by junior sales people who are usually calling me to see if I want to switch mobile providers or buy insurance e.g. “I was just wondering if I could talk to yourself about how we could bring some benefit to yourself”…click.

Here’s a new challenge… Bullsh*t Powerpoint pictures used to introduce/enhance concepts being discussed. What is this one obviously telling us?

That the presenter is a ****?

Or they’re about to give a talk on road surfacing and manhole covers?

I work for a very large american company.

I speak the same amount of bullshite now too. Scary. I think I’ve lost my soul too. GIVE ME THE PAYCHECK.

“I’m in the place where…”

“The place that i’m in…”

Makes my teeth go on edge everytime.

standing up in front of about 15 hairy-bottomed Shiny-arsed software engineers

Fixed

That’s better

from an old Dilbert

new CEO, “Quality is my global added value”

I had a conversation with a friend whose boss told him “everyone here needs to think outside the box”. When my mate suggested that surely if everyone was outside the box, that meant that outside the box was the norm and actually thinking inside the box was then more creative. The boss said it was a good point and he’d think about it.

My mate likes to torture idiots.

When my mate suggested that surely if everyone was outside the box, that meant that outside the box was the norm and actually thinking inside the box was then more creative

Ah, I’ve heard this one used in a meeting. And the answer back was “in that case ensure you are thinking inside a different box from the one you are currently outside”

at which point I felt tempted to say “but that means we’re still outside the original box so perhaps we’re still not where we want to be” but I chose instead to choke myself to death with a whiteboard marker.

“Shifting paradigms on a daily basis” is, I think, some variant of “we do three impossible things before breakfast” and sounds incredibly butch, if utterly stupid.

I heard “winnovation” used in an entirely non-ironic sense by our ex-CEO, and had to bite my tongue. He’s one of those stereotypical humourless Americans who smiles a lot then fires you.

“Has he got the MIPS?” foxed me. It’s a dreadful IBM phrase relating to how clever someone is perceived to be, and makes me gag. Used extensively at my place.