Real time bulls–t bingo

In honour of this thread, the following exchange has just taken place in our office, very much tongue in cheek you understand (yes, it’s too hot to do any real work…):

“Thanks for responding, today is about us putting our heads together, thinking bigger picture and everyone stepping up to the plate. if we can hit the ground running by thinking outside the box we can 360 that elephant in the room. strategically some blue sky thinking will help us land this as we are all playing to position here and at the end of the day, no one should be on the bus who doesn’t want to be on the bus.”

And in reply

“Your response is par for the course. I think you need to understand that it is vital we ring-fence the unicorn and offer some disruptive innovation here. There is clear a pain point in your business and unless we drill down, peel back the onion and recalibrate expectations we’re going to end up shooting the puppy. You are on the cusp of a dot-bomb deep dive and no amount of pick and shovel work will prevent the imminent paralysis by analysis. Let put together a holistic road map and get it implemented on the bleeding edge.”

Does this get brought up all the time? I haven’t been around these parts for a strong minute.

Have just shared some of these examples with about 100 American colleagues in the room.

Thank you, STW!

There was much laughing. Some of it a bit nervous, along the lines of “oh crap. We really do sound like that!”

It seems that in every industry I have ever worked in, there are too many of these incidents:

In my team meetings I generally end up blurting out phrases such as “you can’t reason with stupid” and “you can’t polish a turd” a lot. As well as numerous other minor sweary rants.

I’m often pulled up on the tone of my communication with colleagues, but told as if it’s a surprise to me that I’ve spoken to someone like a piece of shit, they’re always shocked when I acknowledge I talk like that, and have done so to emphasise my point.

Core – similar experiences myself in a past job. People don’t appear to like when you speak about their failings openly, and accept your own.