wank words

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What are the best business-style wank words you've come across?

e.g. "we'll bluesky that problem" "guys, GUYS! are we singing from the same hymn sheet?"

Today at a meeting with our CEO in which 70 people were informed of imminent redundancy, I picked up a few classics (cue Swiss Tony style voice):

"Visualise with me a fried egg. The people in the yellow yolk are doing their fair share of overtime, but THE PEOPLE IN THE SOFT WHITE RING ARE SLACKING" "this business faces evolutionary problems and we need to migrate our people into new embedded roles before a nuclear winter comes down"

Sadly the prospect of a summer of swimming and lying in bed all morning was snatched away from me when they informed me I still had a job.

― Alasdair, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Hah hah! At my old job, we had an e-mail thingey that did the rounds called WANK WORD BINGO!!! It had to be outlawed from the office because meetings would be punctuated by random shouts of "BINGO!!!" whenever the Director would say anything like "actualise the potential of our colleagues using our e-business protocols".

There is a site somewhere which has a random wank-word generator aimed specifically at eBusiness. It's GRATE!!!

― masonic boom, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

We apparently are a business that moves at "internet speed". My part of it certainly moves at the speed with which I can hit explorer and load up the forum of a morning.

― Tom, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Surely in a fried egg the white bits are solid and its the wobbly yolk which requires the support of the rest of the egg. Which is of course the problem with such piss poor metaphors.

Of course in can be usefully invoked in reverse. I told a member of staff that I would like to see him pinned to his desk until the job got done. And then got out the drawing pins....

― Pete, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

"Think outside the square" = those saying it, often incapable of doing it.

― AP, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Ditto on the bingo. Too much random gibberish is spoken here for us not to do it. Current favourite is 'moveable feast', whatever that means.

Even worse than the wank phrase is the wank gesture. One of the sneior members of staff here always announces that a serious point is coming by licking his finger and marking up an imaginary point in the air. Unsurprisingly he also frequently employs the finger quotes gesture of satan.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Isn't Easter a moveable feast. Unlike - say - the visit of the internal auditor. (Though I can see a crucifixition parallel coming in here.)

I have also found them useful as codewords to more clued up members of my staff. Let's go brainstorm this item = let's go to the pub.

― Pete, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

The company I work for has just undergone a "workforce re- alignment". In other words, they've sacked 40% of us.

― Madchen, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

The bullshit generator is here and there is also the Dilbert missi on statement generator which is also good.

Personal pet hate: 'leverage'

― m jemmeson, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

"seamlessness" - I spent two years asking what, precisely, this meant, and two years getting no useful reply.

― Tom, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Working as I do for an American company, I am constantly amazed that it is the *British* who are the worst offenders at this kind of thing. "Think outside of the box" has been touched on already... "Have you asked the question?" tends to reduce me to a slack jawed, glassy eyed wreck... I think the real irritant is that somwhow the use of these phrases is supposed to imply competence - when all it really does is complicate, confuse and annoy. "Keeping everyone in the loop" drives me bonkers too.

More importantly Alasdair, how are you managing to spend so much time on this blessed thing if you're still in full time employment? Is there a thread for "Ways of avoiding detection when using the internet at work"? Point me there someone...

― Andrew Williams, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I believe that thread started with a reference to cunningly placed mirror sunglasses, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. Nick's on holiday (again) - can somebody else fill in?

The people in HR here have security screens which mean you can only see what's on the computer if you are sitting directly in front of it. Skiving bliss!

― Madchen, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I think everyone in our IT department who was supposed to monitoring internet activity has been laid off, so I don't worry much about what I do online at work anymore.

It was funny when my company was laying off people they were saying things like "There is no place for selfishness in teams", implying that people who were angry about being laid off were selfish because their job wasn't benefitting the company, etc.

― Nicole, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Here is the mirror shades thing.

Am going to a "Technical Seminar in Final Funding Unit Claims and Individualised Student Record Data Audit Arrangements 2000-01 to 2002- 03" tomorrow, so will no doubt have more to contribute to this then :)

― Dastoor Stand In, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Oh, fuck yeah, lemme at that corporate sector!

Though I'll probably find true happiness downsizing Value Meals at a local eatery.

― David Raposa, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

andrew: the honest truth is, Tim Hopkins pays me, and a small team of others to make him look good on the internet. Who do you think the CEO I mentioned above was?

― Alasdair, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

We have this thing mounted on the wall beside one door at our office, something they mockingly call a suggestion box, that has a phrase affixed to it's front stating "We can't spell S_CCESS without U".

Kill me now.

― Kim, Saturday, 7 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

"ramp up"

"roll out"

"granularity"

all-time least favorite: "moving forward". can be used in ANY circumstance. "So, moving forward, what are you doing for lunch?"

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 7 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

My fiance does this thing that I call 'being stuck in work mode' which manifests itself in his saying the least romantic things ever at all the wrong times. For instance, it's Friday night and we're trying to decide where to go out for a lovely, quiet dinner and he will start out with "What I propose is THIS,....". It's *almost* funny. heh.

― Kim, Saturday, 7 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Thank god i work in a menial low paid job. Still, sainsibury's still call us 'colleagues', and call for the 'instore janitor' frequently. What's wrong with 'staff' and 'cleaners'? Do we have an out of store janitor somewhere? I know they're not in the car park because the instore janitor is sometimes called to the car park; 'Can the instore janitor please report to the car park where there has been a multi trolley pile up' And what's with this 'report' business? Surely they just turn up and mop? There's no one to report to. Bloody good thing too, the speed they don't go at. Oh jesus, I need a holiday. Oh, I just had one.

― irrationnally irate, Sunday, 8 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

At the sorry shithole where I work (UK offshoot of US technology company) people are promoted to "give the organisation increased leadership bandwidth". Lay-offs are "strategic globalisation initiatives", and when sales go up it's referred to as "gaining traction in key areas". I spit on the yuppie fools who write and speak this crap.

― Dr. C, Sunday, 8 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

four months pass...

These phrases are all really, incredibly, cringe-worthy. Just like the point at which a person, approaching the end of a joke, clearly forgets the punchline. I am so glad I am not alone in mocking the whole thing. I was once told that people, who swore constantly, were stupid as they were unable to think on the spot of something useful to say instead - paralells I draw with these 'phrases'. Its no wonder that the majority of employees havent got a clue about where they stand when they are constantly bombarded by meaningless jargon - the majority of which means nothing to those actually saying it in the first place.

― MIke Williamson, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

My favourite wank words are "Bashing the bishop" and "Strangling Kojak".

― Trevor, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Surely "making a bald man cry', 'milking the snake' and 'shaking hands with the unemployed' are the best?

― Nick, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

But why would you want to shake hands with the unemployed?

― Trevor, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

To show you care about the depeletion of the manufacturing base.

― Nick, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

"Depleting the manufacturing base". I like it!

― Trevor, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

My god - so do I! It makes just enough sense to work.

― Nick, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

two months pass...

I have nothing to say on this subject. I just felt like reviving an old thread, so that Josh would know I'm here.

― Frank Kogan, Saturday, 2 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

five years pass...

my boss uses Covey words. Proactive, reactive, synergistic... stops short of win/win. But seriously is 15 years not enough time to prove that book a fucking joke.

― wanko ergo sum, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 23:54 (seventeen years ago) link

why what's wrong with it?

― Heave Ho, Wednesday, 7 November 2007 00:00 (seventeen years ago) link

"moleskine hack"

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 7 November 2007 00:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Useless self-help abstraction that might titillate and offer hope and make you spend money but does not, in the end, help.

― wanko ergo sum, Wednesday, 7 November 2007 00:03 (seventeen years ago) link

lol xp

― wanko ergo sum, Wednesday, 7 November 2007 00:03 (seventeen years ago) link

"touch base with you"

― CaptainLorax, Wednesday, 7 November 2007 01:17 (seventeen years ago) link

When people use proactive vs reactive and they're less powerful than me, I say in a dumb voice 'Reactive baaaad proactive gooooood' and they give me a funny look.

― moley, Wednesday, 7 November 2007 01:21 (seventeen years ago) link

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