...I've always taken this to mean it's OK for me to look out the window.

Move this forward shall we? Bollocks talk - it drives me mad. I hear it all the time. Goes with the territory I'm afraid.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but in a previous job my area manager sent me an almost incomprehensible email which instructed me, once the key phrases had been identified, to 'Think the unthinkable ... and push the envelope ... out of the box.'
It was a Big Ask.

I worked for several major labels and the London office of a Hollywood studio, at fairly involved levels. They were all full to the gunwales with the kind of people I'd never want to spend any time with outside of work.

'Can we do a SWOT?' 'What's the critical mass?' Eurgh.

I once found myself in a conferemce room of a Ramada Inn on a rat infested roundabout at Hanger Lane spending a whole day with a whole load of other middle managers being told to focus, think positive, engage, find the balance and energise.

The longest day of my fucking life.

Soon after that, the hapless set of bell-ends I worked for became unfocused, negative thinking, uncommunicative, unhinged and torpid, screwed a lot of peoples careers and paid them off.

Close of play.

Or as I like to call it, 5pm.

............tends to lead to doing the undoable and having a day off

...get our ducks in a row.

boss told me with a straight face that........
"Golf is the one chink in my corporate armour", wanker.

I have been, on occasion, exhorted to implement something or other in said manner. As opposed, one assumes, to 'going backwards'.

Mission Statement?

OK, it's not corporate bollocks speak, but it's a concept that used to drive me mad.

If there was an important meeting, my boss would hold a pre-meeting about the meeting.
And, often, a pre-pre-meeting-meeting.
And on one god-forsaken occasion, a pre-pre-pre-meeting-meeting.

Saw a wonderful t-shirt years back: "Want to avoid doing any actual work? Why not hold a meeting instead!"

the lot of them.

Where I am working at the moment it is all travel metaphors - "We need to get them to join our journey" (translation: agree with us) or "I am on Mary's bus" (translation: I agree with Mary). Etc. Till COB.

I worked at Mercury in the 90s where there was a notorious change programme called IMAGINE where we had to learn a new corporate language - it was all "value atrocities" and "authentic commitments" and offer/counter offer/decline responses". There was a special thought police called "Imagineers" who were "value runners" there to sniff out value atrocities. Scary.

and reallign your core purpose.
And stay away from brown paper fairs (what the fuck is a 'brown paper fair'? Anyone?)

Actually, I've just found out:
http://www.w3j.com/4/Process_Engineering.html

... which basically mean the usual terminally head-numbing meeting but with a couple of stale Peak Freans on a plate in the middle of the table. High-level strategies are discussed, and we are ordered back to our teams to cascade information.

!

No snappy buzzwords.

Just levels of beaurocratic bollocks.

Much as I have always poured scorn upon Management Bollock Speak, it is important as a way of giving people a perception of self-value. Talk the talk, walk the walk. Or something.

Low hanging fruit ie quick wins - I must admit it doesn't make me wince as much as gender inclusive......

And why we are at it - how come councils etc can ignore car parks, pavements etc when it comes to gritting - shouldn't they do a risk assessment first - or have i missed something ?

...having a 'thought shower'? Do please crawl off and expire.

"Problems": NO! They're "Opportunities!". Much better.

"Redundancies": too negative. We're "rightsizing" the company. Yeah.

etc. etc. etc.

Reading this thread makes me very happy that I left my corporate job last year. Having much more fun running music classes for toddlers. Happily, corporate-speak hasn't spread to the under 5s yet.

'Mission Statement' worth having:

JFDI

/jargon ends.

that is, "to discuss options... (to) right-size, re-engineer and focus" a struggling part of our business the guy concerned describes as having a "negative profit issue."

If he spent as much time on talking with his colleagues concerned and getting them behind some fairly basic actions we all know are needed as he did on crafting quasi-intellectual, blame-deflecting e-mails full of gobble-de-gook and meaningless euphemisms, we mightn't be in this position.

This means that if someone leaves, they are not replaced.

But the doozy I heard was that due to redundancies, pay freezes etc we will be "shrinking to greatness". FFS in excelis.

to become a Teacher and reading this thread brings back a lot of bad memories.
Fortunately, the school I work at is largely devoid of such garbage, we are to busy dealing with the kids. However, the occasional training course brings me into contact with a plethora of such verbiage. It is rare for me to last a day at one of those without having an eye rest after lunch.

Never to say 'no problem' (too negative, apparently) or to apologise to customers, whether something's our fault or not. Bobbins.

I think the world would be a better place if customer service people were allowed to speak normally instead of being forced to use certain phrases, 'buzzwords' and the like.

I once took out a mobile phone contract and the bloke on the phone said "I'd like to take this beatiful opportunity to welcome you to..." How's that better than:

Customer service person: Right, that's all set up for you Mr Bounce.
Me: Cheers, thanks a lot.
Customer service person: No bother.

?

David Brent quotes Pop not coporate bollocks.

I replied "Do you mean less crap?"

I didn't last long.

People have started "reaching out" to me. Particularly in emails accompanying press releases. I'd like to reach out to you about our new flavour of Pot Noodle...

I reckon there's no jury in the land would convict me if I set about them with a cricket bat.

the leisure continuum, optimized a needs-driven leveraged finance platform to effect a clothing manufacture/retail interface solution.

On Friday, I bought a shirt

Can someone from the upper echelons of Word Towers please carry out one forthwith. I'm worried about the amount of tea I am spluttering onto my keyboard...

There's not too much of this bollocks where I work. I often wonder what would happen if someone replied to one of these missives asking for a translation into everyday English?

You are describing my life. I rely on weekends for remission.

I suugest we park this for now and put it back to the top of the pile later and see if it gets more traction then.........

My latest CB horror? A load of us were told half of us would be laid off.
CB version? 'Physical resources will be impacted going forward'.
Damn this language to hell. Alas, nowadays the first little boy (or girl) to point out that they can see the emperor's bits faces a grim future.

I suggest handing out 'buzzword bingo' cards at larger meetings, as we used to at my last place of work.
Small card divided into nine, with corporate bollo to be ticked off. The winner announces 'house' with a couple of small coughs.

Another way of preventing these little demons from infecting our lives too quickly, is finding a friend to compete with in inserting as many references to, say, types of fruit as one can.

off line?

slavishly followed by good old Britain. Even all these baseball analogies seem to have taken hold, you can read them in The Word as well, and how many of you know the first thing about taking a raincheck/ stepping up to the plate/ ballpark figures/ curveballs/ etc.? Just as insidious and inane and asinine as Bollockspeak IMO.

NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS!

Cable and Wireless had a CEO called Dick Brown, whose approach simply involved firing everyone possible. The grim joke was that after "downsizing" and "rightsizing" we now had "Brownsizing" to deal with.

He got fired shortly after. Oh how we wept.

I once heard a director say that we should "be the first to put a vapour-trail in the blue sky scenario". I was so amused by this that I put it on the BBC website as a Brentism. I then got it sent back to me as "things David Brent said" about fifty times by various parties over the next six months.

I work for myself now and the only journey I have to undertake is when I get on the train or in the car.

and remember that success is a journey, not a destination.

Our language has been hijacked by corporate America. But more importantly, think of how much time this wastes when we could be doing more constructive things (or doing things more constructively). AND we're expected to be contortionists with nose to the grindstone, ear to the ground, finger in the pie, toe in the water, and shoulder to the wheel.

Some of the management concepts are ok but much of it is just common sense sprinkled liberally with bullshit (originally a contribution from rural America, but spread around liberally by corporate America).

The bit at 2.44 is priceless!

given that I don't work in a publishers or a film production company, I have no idea why...

(waves at Mr Hepworth)

by holding a deep dive meeting.

May I throw into the pot a little one dreamt up by our Government - 'Performance Planning'.
I mean seriously, you employed me for my skills as a designer don't ask me questions I haven't a fuckin' clue about and can influence in no manner whatsoever, like:

Q. How do we address Step 2 in the Performance Plan - Making the Service More Efficient?

A. Sack you and most of middle management ya cnut!
supplementary A. 1.1. Do you honestly think I read that piece of shite?
supplementary A. 1.2. Where do I find the time to read the aforementioned, at my last PRD you told me my performance wasn't on target?

Don't get me started on PRDs, it should be PDR anyway!!!

I could go on about my 6 years of hell under a woman who held meetings for just about everything, ground the team to an halt, caused division and hatred that ended up with me in hospital from stress related problems. But I won't, not yet I need to make a Gant Chart (apparently) and write a few thoughts, plans and visions down first.

Oh BTW, she was shoved sideways two years ago and finally left after (yet another) restructure.
Probably with a decent 'package' but isn't that allas the way?

<<>>

In a presentation today a speaker revealed his company's goal (it may have been a Mission Statement, I wasn't paying that much attention) was to "Provide market information provisions."

I mean, what?

I've been on a few of these.

The most memorable was a couple of years ago when 150 of us were trooped into a lecture theatre to be faced with a troupe of actors who proceeded to beat upon different coloured plastic tubes with sticks.

Each different coloured tube played a different 'note'.

They ran through a tune of sorts then divided us all into sections each holding a coloured tube and stick. We were then conducted, each hitting our tubes when pointed at so playing the tune en masse. What larks, Pip.

Just what that utter bollocks was meant to demonstrate or achieve has never been adequately explained. All I know is that the next day after it our corporate entity went right back to its petty political back-biting.

(column & podcast) is likely to appeal to most of those posting on this thread. "Twaddle thrives amid the turmoil" is particularly apt.

The next person who says they're going to 'reach out to someone' and 'get some face time' will be pushed off their wheely chair. 'Face Time'? I just imagine people in a room stroking each others faces and sighing. Bleugh!

.. as a means to leverage the enterprise solution. Then I am going to have a cup of tea.

Outsourcing - 'you're fired'
Rightsourcing - 'you're fired'
Offshoring - 'you're fired'
Onshoring - 'you're fired'
Downsizing - 'you're fired'
Working smarter - 'you're fired'

Hasn't reached me yet but awful to see this loathsome tidemark creeping up the sides, the lies make it worse.

The source of most bollockry is Harvard and specifically the MBA.

My former boss was sent there and came back convinced he'd been transformed from salesman to academic genius in a year.
As if Harvard was going to piss off lucrative corporate clients by failing anyone.
Consequently in the mid 2000s he was spouting a lot of free market crap most of which (in particular the management parts) had already been revised or recanted by the original theorists.

So what did I learn?

a) When the boss says 'They've put their tanks on our lawn' walking over to the window to look for them is apparently unhelpful and may result in redundancy

b) When (dear God) a publishing company decides to 'express its vision' by inventing a new word ('boundarylessness' - I swear this is true, obviously 'ubiquitous' was too difficult) it's time to leave anyway.

We like doing that when we aren't leveraging strategic advantage or having bake offs.

contextual symmetry in field-of-vision re-alignment synergy

I straightened a picture

In the 80s I had an Area Manager who was a knob and liked to use any buzzword he could lay his hands on. I would receive missives from him with all those early phrases like 'let's take a helicopter view' etc, so, I started to place made up buzzwords/phrases in my correspondence with him and see if he would adopt any of them, and guessn what? He sure did. The only one I remember was 'run it up the flagpole and see if it swims'. The first time I heard this come out of his mouth was unbelievable. Buzzwords/phrases, made for twats.

…that we had to put "more frontline troops at the coalface".

When I suggested that we send the troops to the frontline, and put the miners at the coalface, I was asked to come and see the manager who'd made the quote, who informed me I was now "on his list" and no longer regarded as a team player.

I was also accused of wasting time when I dialled a number (from memory) rather than using a speed dial key.

His most memorable quote though was, responding to a comment I made "I see your cue is chalked, but I'm not quite sure which pocket you're going for" (poorly concealed hilarity ensued).

Mornings were always "sparrow fart"… He never went home, he went "back to the ranch" and milk was called "cow juice".

Twat!

Undoubtedly, but excused on the grounds of relevance, I hope.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/None-Your-Business-Philip-Bryer/dp/1847531695/re...

who is fond of skiing, I've always found 'across the piste' particularly irritating. Worse, it's started appearing regularly on the Today programme.
Although I heard 'across the piece' the other day - maybe I've just been mishearing it all along.
Although 'piece' isn't any less worse...

Dilbert by Scott Adams is a rich source of humour about all this sort of bollox.
Never having been fond of Management By Objectives, I knew we'd jumped the shark when everything went to Commitment Based Management, because it was all so much more relevant and focussed.... While still suffering the general codswallop and buzzword bingo stuff mentioned above.

Used substantive factuality strategically and in need-to-know outcome focussed and assymetric tactical deployment ranges whilst mindful of mission-critical alignment

lied

"Stepped up to the Plate" after "Taking a Helicopter View"?

http://www.bullshitbingo.net/cards/bullshit/

Altogether now.............

...asked to do a 'braindump' on recruitment in the photography industry. On closer inspection this turned out to be someone asking me to write an article on the subject.

My office has just been "Pacesettered" - this means that some knobhead from Unipart who's getting paid Christ knows how much a day comes round and tells you how a white board can make you do your job better. I have never heard so much management bollox as I have in the last few weeks - and this complete bellend tries to tell me that working like a robot is good for morale.
Some of the terms are listed below for your delectation and delight and this is in a "Glossary" I'll have you know. I mean some twat is being paid gazillions to explain that a "Daily meeting" is "a meeting held every day". Well fuck me sideways thanks for explaining that to me Mr Unipart factory man !
I think my favourite though is "Deep Dive" which means precisely nothing.
Oh and "In Flight Checks" - for Christs sake this is H M Reveenue and Cutoms we're talking about not Virgin Airlines :

Collapsed Teams
Teams that are disbanded during periods of low work activity
e.g. Christmas and other holiday periods, and whose members are placed on other teams.
Daily Meetings
Team meetings held every day that are led by the front line manager (band O) to discuss performance, quality, problems and other issues affecting the team.
Deep Dive
An event where leaders prioritise and focus on a few performance issues.
Exceptions
Work that does not fit easily into a process and needs to be sifted out and dealt with as a special case.
Flip Teams
Teams which are changed from working in their normal process to working another process, particular to meet periods of increased demand.
Go and See
An activity to make senior leaders more visible to front line staff that requires them to observe what is happening in the office and see for themselves how teams are working.
Hot Desking
When staff move desks temporarily in order to undertake a different part of the same process, or work in a different process altogether.
In Flight Checks
Quality checks undertaken by band O quality managers on current work being done in the teams. Feedback is provided immediately to staff and errors are resolved before the work leaves the team.
Kick Off Event
An event which aims to establish an operational performance focus with leadership teams.
Management
An event where senior leaders launch their own programme
Launch for front line managers driven by local needs.
Performance
The boards that every Lean team has, that outlines the team target Boards for the day, the resources available and progress towards the target.
Performance
Events for frontline staff where leaders engage frontline
Improvement staff in activities to address issues and find solutions.
Event (PIE)
PIE Training
A programme to develop in-house capability to run local PIE events.
Standard
This is the standard solution for undertaking the process across all
Process teams and sites which are responsible for undertaking a process.
Standard Work
These are the physical instructions that staff have on their
Instructions desks that enables them to undertake their work to the same
standard as other staff on different teams or different sites.
Stretch Target
A target set higher than the normal operating output, designed to challenge performance.
Visual
This is the whole concept of using visible information via the Management performance boards and workplace assessment to manage the work.

Most recently my manager went on about "sweating my assets". I have no idea what it really means but the mental imagery was extremely offputting.

"It's all about ownership".

can someone clue me in, please?