Saturday 12 February 2011

The A-Z of Corporate Wank

A is for Action
To ram the turgid square peg of a noun into the dry and chafing round hole of a verb resulting in an awkward mouthful and everyone involved wishing it hadn’t happened.
See also: ASAP

B is for Blue Sky Thinking
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: 
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows 

Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

Rather than words comes the thought of the last verse of Philip Larkin’s poem, with its description of space as being as vapid and meaningless as this phrase.
See also: Bottom out

C is for Cascading Information
Or you could, just, you know, tell people.
See also: Church (broad)

D is for Ducks in a Row
It’s as if the Mayor of WTF was visiting on the day corporate land said to itself, “What wouldn’t be obtuse or confusing at all is if we had a longer, more metaphorical way of saying ‘be ready’.”

E is for Envelope
Not the tangible paper ones that you stuff; no, I’m talking about the abstract conceptual ones that you ‘push’. Most people think this expression means to be at the vanguard of new and original ideas and practises, but they’re wrong. Actually the correct definition is: ‘To rehash the same tired shite that someone else did much better about five years ago’.
See also: End of play

F is for Fly it up the Flag Pole
I can think of another ‘F’ you can do to your flagpole. And you can ‘F’ off while you’re doing it too.
See also: Flesh out

G is for Going Forwards
Why use one word when you can use two? The word you’re looking for is ‘progress’ by the way, but your use of ‘going forwards’ demonstrates your distinct lack thereof. Back to 1986 with you!
See also: Granular

H is for Holistic
“You mean like knitting your own muesli, astrological homeopathy? It’s different, but I don’t NOT like it…”
“Oh, you meant doing TV AND online. Again.”

I is for Ideation
Let’s ideate with the lights off and then we can experientialise our cogitation in complete comfortability.
See also: Incentivise; Impactful

J is for Jargon
Jargon? Jog on.

K is for Keep Our Powder Dry
I get where this came from; like, if you were preparing to go into battle you wouldn’t want your gun powder all soggy, etc, etc. But bringing war analogies into the corporate world feels a little bit World of Warcraft-y. How paranoid are you anyway, Gandalf?
See also: KPIs

L is for Low Hanging Fruit
This expression always, always makes me think of men’s dangling ball bags; so I guess if you want people to think you’re talking bollocks, keep on using it.
See also: Leverage

M is for Myers Briggs
“Yah, I’m an INTJ type”
“Really? I would have said more like U-C-N-T”
See also: Managing expectations; Meeting room etiquette

N is for Niche
Exactly the same as mainstream but with a different logo and font.
See also: Net result

O is for Offline
‘Let’s take this offline’, or rather ‘Let’s talk about this in person rather than emailing each other from 3 feet away, because then I can say whatever negligent and offensive thing I like and no one can prove it’.
See also: Obfuscation

P is for Paradigm
When talking about the way things were then and the way things are now, using the word ‘paradigm’ makes those things sound important, even if they aren’t.
See also: Professionality

Q is for Qualitative
You can’t argue with Quantitative data – numbers are numbers. But calling something qualitative immediately lends legitimacy to whatever made up adducement you are trying to retro fit to your flimsy argument.

R is for Radar
A conceptual instrument used to measure the inverse relationship between an individual’s importance and the amount of time spent visible on it.

S is for Strategic
Invoked as a reason for doing something for no otherwise discernable reason.

T is for Touch Base
‘Base’ as in the lowest common denominator; sub-standard, below par, uncivilised? Because this is that. Besides, if I want you to touch my base, you’ll know.
See also: Topline

U is for Usage and Attitude
Otherwise asked daily by laymen of one another thusly; “Do you like it?”
See also: Understanding (gaining of)

V is for Video Conferencing
Also known as ‘pissing around with wires and ‘phone pods’ in a boardroom for 20 minutes while everyone stares at a frozen image of someone in an identical boardroom in another country before giving up and calling Phil the IT guy, who just patches you all onto a call and you’ll just have to send the powerpoint presentation over on email afterwards’.
See also: Verbalise

W is for Workflow
Or, to give it its proper name, ‘being busy’.

X is for X Communication
Ha, you sent me an email about that thing just as I was sending you an email about the same thing! I guess we should have a phrase for what just happened there to afford it more importance than it warrants huh?

Y is for Yes
What you should always say to everything, even if you mean no.
(NB: only applies to corporate wank, not sexual relations obvs)

Z is for Zero
Nothing. I got nothing for Z, but cut me some slack hey? I think I did pretty good with ‘X’, and what?