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Server FaultWiki: Irritating phrases you are subjected to in "the enterprise"
[+43] [77] username
[2009-05-19 18:53:39]
[ fun off-topic ]
[ http://serverfault.com/questions/10043] [DELETED]

I am "deploying" a very silly question, but it could be amusing.

What especially irritating "business" terminology are you subjected to at work?

The one that annoys me most actually is "the enterprise" which apparently makes you sound more dangerous than just "enterprise"

alt text

(1) Oh God, take that picture out!!! (ugh, haha :) - squillman
(3) Nah! Leave it in; it demonstrates the superflousity of the integrated challenges presented in his synergistic ... Hell, I tried... - gWaldo
[+77] [2009-05-19 19:20:02] Tim Howland

Irregardless of the synergies we find when enhancing our "web 2.0" ubiquitous utilization, enterprise-quality, shovel-ready progressive monetization schemes, we cannot eschew obfuscation assiduously enough.


(7) haaa, you are the man. +1 for hitting an insider with my dept in "Irregardless"!! - squillman
They don't say 'schemata'? Philistines. - chaos
You missed "theoretically" and "I have some room on my plate" or "My plate is pretty full". - sparks
(1) You didn't shift your paradigms. - Richard
+1 for shovel-ready. - msanford
+1 outstanding... - bedwyr
The great part about people using "irregradless" is that it's considered incorrect en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless - SpaceManSpiff
Bingo! You filled my buzzword bingo card (businessbuzzwordbingo.com) in one sentence. Amazing. +1 - rschuler
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[+43] [2009-05-19 19:17:10] WerkkreW

"Let's take this offline" as if a meeting is "online"


What would you suggest as an alternative to this phrase? - Brian
(6) How about, "Let's take this out back." - flashkube
(5) Or, "We can talk about this later", how does that work?! - WerkkreW
Funny thing is, i tend to use this phrase in phone meetings, where it'd be appropriate... if i wasn't working remotely and hence, always communicating "online"! - Shog9
(4) & you know it's really code for STFU - Nick Kavadias
(3) Even funnier: "I'll email you offline" - gbarry
Let's deal with this directly (as it almost always means "just the two of us"). - Richard Gadsden
Nick has it right! - msanford
In a similar not, I've come across non-native English speakers talking about "preponing" meetings. (As contrasted with postponing). - RJFalconer
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[+37] [2009-05-20 13:59:53] Pauk

"We'll need to touch base on that."

It just sounds all wrong to me.


(3) Thank you. People say this everywhere, not just in business, and I just HATE it. - Chris Lutz
(1) That phrase always reminds me of a "teacher" I had, that was particularly dumb. - Brad Gilbert
(11) I avoid using that phrase, especially with women. - spoulson
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[+34] [2009-05-19 21:00:52] Adam D'Amico

Lately, I'm hearing a lot of "ask" as a noun. As in, "What's the ask here?" "My only ask is..." Maddening! The word they're looking for is "request," but apparently they're attempting to economize on syllables. That or they think it sounds cool. Either way it's idiocy.


That gets me to. I've been railing against, "architected," for years. The word you're looking for is "designed!" Unfortunately that one seems to have stuck. - sysadmin1138
Totally agree... "architect" is NOT A VERB. Actually, the same can be said of "leverage." - Adam D'Amico
(4) Never heard the "ask" one before, hope I never do again. - Brian Knoblauch
Haah! I have - and it's so lame! Always the damn incompetent project managers that vomit this type of speech at meetings. - Xerxes
@Adma OMG...tell me you are joking. - Netais LLC
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[+30] [2009-05-19 19:38:43] Knox

I was once in an organization that had one of those top level management guru's come in and give classes. One of those /sarcasm on/ enlightened /sarcasm off/ chestnuts that they taught us was that your viewpoint is not necessarily someone else's viewpoint. They did so by changing the verb "see" to a noun and capitalizing it. Since the CEO enthusiastically adopted this change, you had to put up with people saying,

Remember, your See is not my See.


(24) This made me so mad that I almost voted your answer down. - Doug Chase
LOL!!! very funny. - Knox
(4) see. n. 1. The official seat, center of authority, jurisdiction, or office of a bishop. Well, now I'm offended ;-) - Matt Simmons
NOW it all makes sense. :) Good point. - Knox
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[+27] [2009-05-19 20:09:15] Chris Ballance

Is This Good for the COMPANY?
Is This Good for the COMPANY?


(7) +1 even though you're obviously spreading FUD for Intertrode - username
Oh yes... If the people are the company then... is it good for the people?? Usually that's a big he!! no! - squillman
You mean penetrode? - Matt Simmons
@Matt en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space unless you were kidding, in which case, I'll take myself offline (see above ;) - msanford
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[+27] [2009-05-20 00:15:26] aphoria

Let's leverage our core competencies by forming a cross-functional team that will map-n-gap the requirements. Then, we can implement a preemptive solution that enhances communication both vertically and horizontally in the organization.


(2) Nice! I'm going to use that at my next performance review :-) - 20th Century Boy
lol...let us know how it goes! :) - aphoria
Haah! Very nice! - Xerxes
(4) I'm absoutely appalled that I don't even have to translate that to understand what it means... 0-O - Ryan Fisher
(2) I find that buzzwords tend to work on two categories: the feeble-minded, and those too proud to appear as though they don't know what the buzzwords mean or what on earth the speaker is trying to convey. Trouble is how difficult it is to tell the two apart. - Kyle Hodgson
(1) What is 'map and gap' ? - SirStan
(3) Are you my CEO? - prestomation
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[+24] [2009-05-20 17:24:39] Pauk

I get this a lot, for some reason it drives me up the wall.

Long winded email ending with -
"Can you please advise on this?"

Which I read as:

"I have no idea what I'm doing / I can't be bothered, can you do my work for me?"


I get them all the time from one user that ends "Please advise." Which is much more frustrating than "Can you please advise on this?" At least your user took the time to write a complete sentence. - MarkM
(4) I know exactly what you mean, I get the simple "Please advise" a lot. Perhaps its just part of their email signature? - Pauk
Nope, this user doesn't have a sig so 9 times out of 10 there's nothing at the end of his emails. - MarkM
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[+19] [2009-05-20 13:43:17] nickd

This whole discussion is giving me the hives.

I just hate Going Forward so much. Why not just from now on?


(2) in the future. future plans. as we proceed. proceeding. as we stride forth, hand in hand. There a many replacements for this horrid and viral phrase. - Sam
Well obviously because if they say "from now on", they've not been explicit enough and people will start going backwards... naturally. - Xerxes
Repellent, isn't it? I have to hear about our "go-forward assets" all the time. - Xiaofu
Going Forward can also mean stop what you've been doing and start doing things my way. - John Gardeniers
(1) I started hearing that phrase a lot since the 44th president of the US started dropping it on campaign stops and speeches like rain in Seattle. - Luke has no name
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[+18] [2009-05-19 19:01:08] squillman

Any tech term used incorrectly by someone who refuses to learn..... Don't get me wrong, if someone says something incorrectly because they just don't know but then starts to use the correct terminology then I'm allll good with that. It's the people that say "yeah, ok, whatever..." that get me.

I'm especially fond of "I need more RAM, I don't have enough to store all my pictures / MP3's / Videos" (that shouldn't be on your machine anyway....)


(6) But it's so easy to get the terminology correct because "everything is a hard drive" itwire.com/content/view/25082/1141 - username
chuckle Yeah, good point :) - squillman
I'm sure there's a Star Trek reference in there somewhere, "We need more RAM Cap'n!!" - Joseph
Terminology deserves a topic of its own. "Do you use Firefox?" "No, I have Yahoo" - gbarry
'I need more RAM. I only have 120 gigabytes now.' GRINDS MY GEARS - cop1152
(3) «I'm especially fond of "I need more RAM, I don't have enough to store all my pictures / MP3's / Videos" (that shouldn't be on your machine anyway....)» Our brain dead f'tarded IT dep't is denying us 4G RAM upgrade because they say we just want to "boost our PCs". Same for hard drives beyond 160G. Yeah cause running a few VMs and Eclipse, while trying out the f'd up database upgrade script we received a week late the day before going live is fitting just fine in 2G. Oh but 2G is good enough for the receptionnist, so it should be good enough for everyone. - niXar
(1) @niXar - my solution was buy my own. 2GB was about 25 bucks shipped. "Huh, how'd that get in there?" (whistling tunelessly) - Moose
@niXar - dude you should get a new job. If your IT department is giving you VMs and eclipse as tools, then they are gay. If you are a programmer, you shouldn't have to put up with the IT department. You should be part of it. @Moose - You payed your own money to benefit your company? I'd just mention it in my performance review as a reason why I under perform. - sims
@sims: that's what I chose to use, the IT dept is not allowed to touch our Linux machines (I work in the production dept, which is entirely distinct from the internal IT which are just Word+Excel donkeys). "You payed your own money to benefit your company?" -- it's that or jump out the window out of frustration "I'd just mention it in my performance review as a reason why I under perform" -- not much help when the person doing the performance review (my boss) is aware of the problem and can't get the fscktards to budge - niXar
Wow, sounds like a pretty crappy company to work for. I hadn't up until now considered my job that nice, but I guess I'm very lucky. =) Our IT dept consists of my manager and I. We do everything from software development to upgrading RAM. I don't beg for new hardware. I just pull something out of the bin - the next dev server. LOL... After all back ups and versioning is where it is at these days... - sims
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[+17] [2009-05-19 18:58:04] chaos

"It is what it is" is getting a little overplayed. But, hey, it is what it is.


(2) I am very guilty of overusing that phrase. But it is what it is. - Chris Ballance
Often used in place of a conclusion or reason for the preceeding idea, as in "I have no explanation for what I'm saying, but this phrase will make it seem deep." - Kara Marfia
I often say that when there's nothing more to be said, and nothing else can be done about that fact given the current constraints! :-) - Brian Knoblauch
(3) Haah! You're not the pointy-headed boss of Dilbert are you? ai.autonomy.net.au/wiki/PEAS/Performance/TuringTest - Xerxes
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[+16] [2009-05-20 01:58:50] Kev

"Thinking outside of the box" - really hacks me off.


(6) Anybody who tells you to "think outside the box" is not doing so. - Kief
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[+15] [2009-05-19 21:14:46] l0c0b0x

"Problemtunity"

uh!... I can't even type it!

*pukes


(1) Ooo, I know that one... - Zoredache
(7) It's not a problemtunity, it's an opportulem! - mmyers
(1) Crisertunity! (Homer Simpson) Or more simply: "Every cloud has a silver lining!" - LapTop006
(1) Or every silver lining has a black cloud. - John Gardeniers
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[+13] [2009-05-20 13:40:11] Joseph

"You can ping me offline."

Why don't you just say, "You can ask me after the meeting."?


(15) Just send back an ICMP unreachable. :-) - Brian Knoblauch
@Brian Knoblauch: NAK - chaos
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[+12] [2009-05-19 19:18:33] chaos

Oh, "thought leadership". I'm getting really sick of thought leadership. It wasn't so bad when it was just at work, especially as the company actually has meaningful thought leadership in its field. But when I started having to hear it from annoying noobs in my hobby, it became way too much.


(2) Anything with the root "lead" in it really. "The leader in ...", "The leading provider of ..." - Jeremy Huiskamp
(1) Some of us in the real world call that "Brainwashing"! - user13846
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[+10] [2009-05-19 19:54:27] flashkube

Stop saying that my by boss is Joe Smith but I have a dotted line to someone else! What does that even mean?

Also, I've got people typing re: in the middle of a sentence to mean regarding. I had a college teacher that actually said it in a lecture. Annoying.


i do "per" every two seconds now, which is worse - username
agreed. worse. (ignore these extra characters that were required to make this comment) - flashkube
Dotted line means you have someone else who isn't technically your boss, but can give you stuff. - Orihara
I didn't mean that I didn't know what it means. - flashkube
re: makes me very crazy when spoken. Wankerspeak indeed! - Kyle Hodgson
It's also a possible misuse of the Latin in re. en.wiktionary.org/wiki/in_re - Dennis Williamson
I often see people who fully spell out every other word use "-/w" or "/w" instead of "with". - John Gardeniers
(2) Having a dotted line to someone else means that you're fucked. You can now be responsible for more things, but have power to manage less things. - Adriano Varoli Piazza
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[+10] [2009-05-20 03:41:17] mryan1

"Let's exploit our synergies and be pragmatic with this approach"

"I'll circle back with Sally and get you an answer"

"Let's make sure we have all our ducks in a row"


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[+10] [2009-05-20 16:33:28] Martin Brown

110%

As in "I'll give it 110%".

Surely that is impossible.


Depends on where the 100% stands. If somebody is doing nothing most of the time, he may actually give it 110% this time and do something. - ldigas
(15) 110% is possible for very large values of 100. - squillman
(3) and don't call me Shirley - Thomas
(4) Obviously, it goes up to eleven. - CesarB
@ldigas - 100 per cent. Think about it. If you have 1.5 cakes, you do say I have 150% cakes. You can say I have 3/2 cakes. It's improper, but 150% is pure vomit from some "leader" trying to be smart. Most leaders are leaders not because they are smart, but because they enjoy domination. - sims
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[+9] [2009-05-20 05:35:10] Steven A. Lowe
  • right-size, re-organize, and empowerment - this typically means the same old hierarchy in a brand new jargon suit
  • takeaways - supposedly the things you learned or have to do or remember after a meeting, makes me think of fast food drive-through windows
  • synergy - that word. i don't think it means what you think it means.
  • going forward - as opposed to spinning our wheels
  • market space - pretend to be intrepid explorers instead of salespeople
  • "bugs" - when they're not really bugs, i.e. when the users simply changed their minds or lied to us

(5) Argh bugs when they're feature requests really ticks me off - Oskar Duveborn
(2) Especially when it is a Windows standard UI behavior that is questioned... like.. "that's how Windows works, damnit!" ^^ - Oskar Duveborn
(1) Right-size - Firing people we don't like and giving cushy jobs to friends - LapTop006
Yeah man, those bugs suck. It's really funny that when people use "bugs" and "debug" for non-software issues. If they only knew where the term came from. - sims
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[+7] [2009-05-20 04:25:38] Tim Post

At a meeting, I was trying to come up with a 'nice' way of saying 'the client is too stupid to notice, anyway.'

So, the best I could do was:

"I don't think were adequately exploiting the limited capabilities of our users"

We were discussing merging some major changes into production that would break some functionality for a very short time.


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[+7] [2009-05-19 19:20:36] Mikeage

Action Items.

As opposed to what? I have a new assignment: inaction!


(1) As opposed to discussion items. Comes from old-fashioned committee meetings; you had three types of items; discussion items (where you had a chat about something), action items (where you told someone to do something) and decision items (where you decided what was to be done) - Richard Gadsden
(1) Yeah, I actually like this one. At least if you come out of a meeting with some "action items", you feel like it wasn't a complete waste of time. - Blorgbeard
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[+6] [2009-05-21 10:05:11] Chopper3

Being 'Looped' into an email chain - it's 'sent' or 'copied' there is no loop you brainless fcukwit!


You clearly haven't experienced a long chain of inane email interoffice babbling, where the 'reply to all' keeps amassing lusers. Or, it might have to do with the image 'kept inside/outside the loop'. Which is relevant. - Adriano Varoli Piazza
I hate being in the loop. I'd rather find out because I was "out of it." - sims
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[+6] [2009-05-28 22:46:29] user1871

The word "actioned", used instead of "done".


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[+6] [2009-06-02 03:58:45] Rog

Solutionize, incentivize, ...


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[+5] [2009-06-02 04:18:45] MikeJ

"Getting on the same page..."

"Make sure we are all on the same page"


(1) I'm pretty sure that came from my junior school teacher :-) - ldigas
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[+5] [2009-05-20 07:23:17] Alex Andronov

When your boss says...

Spare me now, scold me later

... you know no good will come of this.


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[+5] [2009-05-20 13:37:19] Jim

"Let's arm them with the information they need."

You're not a general. You're not leading anyone into battle. Also, I'm not exactly sure how anybody informed about last months time reporting data could feel "armed."


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[+5] [2009-05-19 21:31:42] duffbeer703
  • "Out of scope"
  • "Let's implement an ITIL-based governance strategy"
  • IBM sales pitch presentations and the crazy PowerPoint graphics in them
  • "Enterprise Cloud"
  • The whole Project Management pseudo-religion: "I need your updates to the Change, Communication, Quality, etc plans"
  • "What's our Web 2.0 strategy"

(11) Disagree on the "Out of scope". That's a real phrase with a concrete meaning. - spoulson
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[+5] [2009-05-19 23:21:02] Tom Willwerth

"reaching out to"
As in, We're "reaching out to" our clients.

The more you analyze it the less it makes any kind of sense.


(1) Bingo. I wasn't even thinking of this one, but when I read "reaching out to" I immediately bristled. Yep, that one drives me absolutely nuts. - Chris_K
I feel for you, but I just can't reach. - squillman
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[+4] [2009-05-20 02:01:54] 20th Century Boy

"We're all in the same team" Usually applied by a manager to underlings when he wants something done. Normally prefixed by "Come on, let's pull together".


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[+4] [2009-05-20 13:50:27] ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells

At one place I worked a few years ago they admitted guiltily to using 'Resource', but they did coin 'Wankerspeak' as a phrase to describe this type of language.


(1) +1 for the term - I shall now add it to my list things to use at next scrum! - Preet Sangha
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[+4] [2009-05-21 14:59:49] community_owned

Reduce Headcount

Usually used in marketing. As in, "With our system, you'll increase ROI and reduce head count." Synonymous with "Using our stuff means you can fire a bunch of people."


(4) Even worse when combined with "bodycount". - msanford
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[+4] [2009-06-15 12:59:37] lavinio

Referring to individuals as "resources."

As if everyone were interchangeable.


Or, for that matter, referring to anything that can't be bought as a resource... - Jason Antman
That is kinda what the entire concept of "Human Resources" means, and all. The objectification of the workforce goes way beyond buzzwords... - chaos
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[+4] [2009-09-24 19:36:19] Keith Barrows

Boss - "You are not meeting expectations!"
Me - "What are my expectations?"
Boss - "Those things you are not meeting."


True story and I hate bosses who talk in circles and never give a straight answer.


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[+3] [2009-08-18 21:44:39] Dennis Williamson

Opportunity

It's a problem, OK? No amount of euphemizing is going to make it stop being a problem. Now let's stop singing campfire songs about it and come up with a solution (no, not that kind, the kind that the word originally meant).


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[+3] [2009-07-23 18:12:28] MarkM

Calling a person a "backup" to someone else bothers me. Just because I have similar skills and access as someone else does not mean I am a "backup" it means I can do their job if they get hit by a bus. Which leads me to my next favorite. When people say "If you were hit by a bus tomorrow would so and so be able to do this task." Honestly, if I got hit by a bus tomorrow I wouldn't care who picked up my slack.

Not necessarily a phrase, but improper use of blind copying someone on an email makes me want to throw punches.


(1) +1 for "if I got hit by a bus tomorrow I wouldn't care who picked up my slack." - msanford
I like being the backup. Whenever something goes wrong... "I'm just the backup, NMFP." - Jason Antman
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[+3] [2009-06-02 04:18:36] Rog

Engage in a dialogue

Doesn't anyone talk anymore?


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[+3] [2009-05-21 14:56:05] squillman

Please advise.

This bit of data looked like this yesterday, but today it looks different.
Please advise.
-Joe User

Uh, yep. You're right. It looks different. Hmm. Maybe someone changed it.


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[+3] [2009-05-20 01:51:44] DevelopingChris

It doesn't happen that often, just deal with it.


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[+3] [2010-11-18 05:14:37] i.am.intern
  1. Visit Accenture.com [1]
  2. Read some paragraphs from any of their offered services
  3. Head explodes
[1] http://www.accenture.com/

40
[+2] [2010-09-07 16:59:06] gWaldo

"Glocal"

"Bandwidth" and/or (Processing) "Cycles" (of a person)

"Challenge" to mean problem

"Methodology" - The science of creating methods?

http://unsuck-it.com/ is a fantastic resource for all of these!

UPDATE

"Industry Leader" has been so overused by no-name nobody companies with 0% market share that is means exactly nothing*.

(* Unless, of course, the industry you're leading consists of only companies in your business sharing your exact company name. So, an industry of one.)


41
[+2] [2010-07-06 17:25:42] Luke has no name

"Facilitate" and "leverage".

We always are checking how to "leverage" people or resources. Why can't we say "use"? Contact?

"how can we facilitate better monitoring?"

Blah.

You know, all the jargon is simply business shorthand. Some of it, annoying as it is, becomes unambiguous shorthand, which is not a bad thing in the business area. Every profession has jargon; why is it that only business-related jargon gets picked on? Some of it is useful.

That said, a lot of it above is really, really annoying. Hey, I answered my own question!


42
[+2] [2010-07-06 19:02:54] Tatas

We've got some "customers" that want this.... Since when did USERS at a university become "customers" for services that they pay nothing for.


43
[+2] [2009-05-19 20:31:17] Justin Scott

"We should schedule a meeting to discuss this." I've found that the meeting/work ratio increases exponentially with the size of the company. It's like Brooke's Law for management.


"Planning the Plan" on the whiteboard in office space was priceless... - MikeJ
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[+2] [2009-05-20 17:08:51] nedm

Anything including the word heuristic in a business sense or utilize in any sense. It has been a long, long time since I've heard someone say "utilize" when it added anything beyond "use."


45
[+2] [2009-05-20 07:45:03] Mikeage

I spent a lot of time in testing, and one project manager would always use sanitize as a verb form of "run sanity test". Every time he asked us to sanitize a build, I felt like a sanitation engineer... especially since I was working with garbage most of the time.


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[+2] [2009-05-30 21:57:01] Helixso

All great stuff, but let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. You need to sync your core values with this crowdsourcing. Then, ballpark the best practices and ensure this allows for adequate professional enrichment.


47
[+2] [2009-06-11 06:07:10] Andrew
  • At the end of the day
  • Due diligence
  • Let's take this discussion offline
  • Circle back around
  • Ping
  • Let me know

(1) No one ever uses "at the beginning of the day". To quote Pinky the lab rat, and me after being up overnight on an outage, "Brain, why can't it be the Noon of Time?!" - dmoisan
Well, the first and the last are not "enterprise" phrases. They've been in the english language for some time now. I'm sure some of the others have as well. - ldigas
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[+2] [2009-06-15 12:05:27] community_owned

My boss likes copying everyone else around him, but always tends to screw it up... he once heard someone say, "Talk is cheap; it takes money to buy whiskey." (Not sure what that's supposed to mean anyway).

His version when he tried it out was, "Whiskey is cheap, it takes money to, uh...buy... " At that point he confused himself and moved on. It's something like this everyday.

+1 for the "Please Advise" mentioned elsewhere... I have to stop myself from strangling the nearest passerby when I read that in an email.


49
[+2] [2009-06-30 06:39:32] matt

Me: the strategic enterprise deployment phase is coming to an end, to be followed by the strategic enterprise pre-production phase

Boss: yes. which in turn will be followed by full-scale enterprise deployment

me: entering the first phase of its product lifecycle.

Boss: we're stepping up to the plate, having brought a lot to the table

me: better buckle down and pull yourself up by the bootstraps because theres a long road ahead.

Boss: yeah, but we're swinging for the fences while everyone's way out in the left field. right off the bat, we play hardball.

This was a sarcastic exchange, but I thought it was entirely appropriate.


50
[+2] [2009-08-04 20:40:12] Keith

Long winded email that offers nothing concrete. Pure fluff. End it with "thoughts?"


The most appropriate response: "Apparently not." - Dennis Williamson
51
[+2] [2009-08-06 14:01:35] DHayes

Robust. Arrrrgh $#^&!#$^& robust. It gets tossed out there as a meaningless descriptor without pointing to definitive qualities or facts. It is a favorite term of executives that are caught unprepared and need to justify something without committing to it. This word should be stricken from the English language for how much it gets abused.


52
[+2] [2009-08-15 14:37:54] Dennis Williamson

including, but not limited to

It's redundant lawyer-speak. Don't use it. "Including" is sufficient.


The problem is that many (most?) people incorrectly interpret "including" to mean "limited to". - John Gardeniers
53
[+2] [2009-08-15 17:30:26] Dennis Williamson

Best Practices

OK, what is a desirable procedure that is not a "best practice" called? Never mind - I don't care - just give me all your mediocre practices. I'll throw them against the wall and see what sticks. Then you can run them up the flagpole and see who salutes.


"Best practices" are generally one way of doing something, devised by a person or group who are too blinkered to see that there are better ways. - John Gardeniers
54
[+2] [2010-04-25 21:47:15] community_owned

When someone who doesn't realize he has absolutely no understanding of your field of expertise wants you to implement something that would be an enormous drain on manpower / infrastructure / financial resources or just impossible they usually preface their simplistic yet totally impractical request with "It's merely a case of..."


55
[+2] [2010-04-26 02:14:57] Jason Antman
  • The Cloud.
  • Due dilligence
  • Five Nines (when we're talking about a service that gets, at best, one nine...)
  • synergy (when it's not referring to moving a cursor between two computers)
  • best practices
  • Open (when it's referring to the many things that actually aren't)
  • Vendor Neutral (when it's introduced by one vendor)

... and about anything that's on the cover of Network World or InfoWeek.


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[+2] [2010-05-16 17:49:00] Tim Post

Any sports analogy makes me want to run. Recursion here is unintentional. Once someone starts saying "Its like football, if we drop the ball, its how quickly we pick it up ..", meanwhile I'm thinking "Why did you not stay sober on the eve of signing a new client and see my email saying we can't do that in three weeks? Aren't football players sober??"

You don't need a sports analogy to say "We look really bad right now, please help me fix that".

Then there is the 'we', when they really meant to say I look really bad right now and we expect you to fix that.

I love sales people.


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[+1] [2010-05-16 18:02:55] d34dh0r53

I absolutely loathe the phrase "World Class".

What these tools don't realize is that the second I (along with my fellow co-workers) hear a sales or management Johnny use any of this vernacular we immediately tag them as a DB and disregard anything else they have to say. Luckily I work at a place where we can call out our bosses and other employees for use of such language.


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[+1] [2009-06-11 04:46:35] Shawn Anderson

We need a proactive synergistic approach to our methodology.


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[+1] [2009-09-25 00:13:05] amorfis

"Be proactive!"

Isn't "be active" enough?


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[+1] [2009-08-15 14:35:12] Dennis Williamson

Learnings

If there's one takeaway from this offline, it's that we can leverage our learnings to empower our enterprise synergies going forward.


61
[+1] [2009-08-06 11:40:23] markdrayton

"Firing", "shooting", or, worst of all, "flicking" an email.


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[+1] [2009-08-06 13:29:37] sparks

This doesn't classify as an "enterprise" word, but being a network administrator I absolutely hate the assumption that everything is a network problem.

"Well citrix isn't connecting but everything else works fine, make a ticket with the LAN/WAN group that they have an outage"

or

"Outlook won't connect but I'm using my file shares, and the internet. The network is broken"

So many hours wasted proving it isn't a network problem.

edit: Hah that reminds me of one - "I'll ping Bob about that" - When did ping become a word to encompass email/call?


Don't forget, Ping is a brand name of golf clubs. It gives a whole new meaning to "pinging Bob". - Dennis Williamson
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[+1] [2009-08-04 20:38:19] Milner

A great one I've been hearing lately:

Me: So what exactly do you need to have backed up from the server that's been decommissioned for three months before I wipe the hard drive?
User: I don't know.
Me: So you don't know of anything you still need that you haven't needed in three month's time? So you need it backed up in case you don't need it?
User: I don't know what I don't know.

Ahh, if it didn't make me want to scream I might actually giggle...


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[+1] [2009-07-23 17:49:11] user13846

"Fast Paced Work Environment"

I find all of the feel good jargon of the office place irritating. Seems everything these days is sculpted from a cheezy motivational poster. This is a nice way the spray eu de toilette all over "We are going to work you into the ground, ruin your marriage, erode your quality of life"

All I can say is "In God we trust.... All others pay cash!"


"Fast Paced Work Environment": All our staff are overworked. - John Gardeniers
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[+1] [2009-06-15 12:10:44] Scott Kantner

"The reality is..."

Really? In a postmodern culture this is meaningless and annoying, if not a sign of pomposity.

//spk


"Postmodern" is one that really irritates me. - John Gardeniers
66
[+1] [2009-06-11 00:25:37] chaos

While we're on the topic, the most lovely compilation/parody of these sorts of phrases that I know of is the Jonathan Coulton song re: Your Brains [1].

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjMiDZIY1bM

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[+1] [2009-06-11 03:13:15] The Pixel Developer

When push comes to shove

Grrr!


Didn't that originate from that Billy Ocean song ? - ldigas
68
[+1] [2009-05-21 14:49:28] Thomas Vochten

About everything that is generated by the " Web Economy Bullshit Generator [1]", a "fantastic tool to study modern rhetorical emptiness".

[1] http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html

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[+1] [2009-05-20 13:54:25] Sam Schutte

"If I could write the script..."

"We need to define our patterns, practices and procedures..."

Makes my blood boil.


70
[+1] [2009-05-20 15:29:49] Alex. S.

Empowerment of stakeholders...


71
[+1] [2009-11-07 19:56:49] Andrew H

Use of the word "we" when someone clears means "you" -

Colleague: "We really need to get these servers up and running in production before the weekend."

Me: "Mmm..." (Anticipating a 12 hour shift in the datacentre...)

(I know I will have to give in but I will make them work for it!)


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[+1] [2010-04-25 16:26:43] Jason Tan

If you could just go ahead and list your favourite Enterprise speak annoyances, that'd be great....

:-)


73
[0] [2010-09-07 16:50:32] Brett G

Not exactly business terminology... but I hear these two way too much: "Monday morning quarterback" and "Throw him under the bus".


74
[0] [2009-06-11 04:42:59] cop1152

ok, this has nothing to do with tech terms, but when people refer to the Sept 11 tragedy as 'nine-one-one'...its 'NINE-ELEVEN'...the date...NOT the emergency number.

Again, 'nine-one-one' is the number you call for emergency services

and

'Nine-eleven' is the term used to describe the Sept 11 tragedy.


(1) Unless you're in any other part of the world, in which case it's really 11-9, except we all say '9 eleven' beacuse we're all sheeples. - Mark Henderson
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[0] [2009-06-30 06:30:39] Kief

"Going from strength to strength". I'm not sure why, it just rubs me the wrong way.


76
[0] [2009-09-25 00:45:03] Good Time Tribe

Having done technical support, one of my most dreaded terms is "time capsule" when referring to the hourglass. Along the same line, someone in my enterprise discovered that when an application was not responding, that it was actually "clocking"... we dont know what it's clocking, but that's what they're calling it... clocking.


77