jdgm Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Over the last few years I have become more aware of absurd jargon - business jargon, management-speak, elephant talk, call it whatever. Real, proper management/business jargon isn't just 'add suffix-to-stem' slang stuff (as in 'jargon-ized, jargon-ified, jargon-ificated'), it has to be a complete b.s. new language and as impenetrable as possible. I'm sure everyone has examples of his or her own. I've distilled some of the more lunatic bits I've heard or read into the following 3 sentences of 100% overproof, concentrated kak: 'After deep-cleaning, blue-sky restructuring, consultation and re-assessment of the definition process in differentation and implementation we are going to pro-actively formulate a product management co-ordination policy in order to efficiently facilitate the transformation and delivery of expanded processes and operations. Divisional focus will emphasise operational expertise and technological awareness of primary and secondary external drivers with an ongoing review of high-level principles and initiatives. We are innovating a new multi-supply target operating model to encourage a move from silo to system thinking, furthering co-creation of interventions and the introduction of a consultant concept.' However I'd fail the higher management test miserably...as there are no TLAs (three-letter-acronyms). Not like a true jargonista! Hmmm....But I still call a spade a...oh wait a minute.... I call a spade a manual regolith transference implementation enabling accessory. Regards! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darling67 Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 jdgm, At my old job, my colleagues and I would have great fun ridiculing the inter-office memo's that would be sent to everyone from company HQ... Our favorites were, when after it was announced that our business unit would be dissolved and we'd be losing our jobs in a few months time, the e-mails that stated how the company was, "leveraging its abilities to implement cross-corporate synergies, for maximum shareholder value...". We were casualties of this nonsensical corporate B.S., and had to find humor in it—lest we became angered by it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdgm Posted July 31, 2013 Author Share Posted July 31, 2013 jdgm, At my old job, my colleagues and I would have great fun ridiculing the inter-office memo's that would be sent to everyone from company HQ... Our favorites were, when after it was announced that our business unit would be dissolved and we'd be losing our jobs in a few months time, the e-mails that stated how the company was, "leveraging its abilities to implement cross-corporate synergies, for maximum shareholder value...". We were casualties of this nonsensical corporate B.S., and had to find humor in it—lest we became angered by it all. Ouch - that's exactly the stuff - "cross-corporate synergies" - brilliant and meaningless...you couldn't make it up - well I couldn't! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 In the past I suffered from reading such idioms and finally gave it up. IMHO the leaders of international groups and so-called global players completely lost the overview what's happening in the operational and productive parts of their enterprises. It seems they try to hide their ignorance behind this kind of senseless phrases. To top it all over, these idle-talking persons get huge lots of REAL money for spreading purely MEANINGLESS speech. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfpup Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Reminds be a bit of an essay I once read in an English class at school titled "How to Say Nothing in 500 words". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobF_ Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 The point of all of it is to say something, but to say it such a way that there is either plausible deniability or inability to measure results, or both. This all came out of MBA schools at the same time 'matrix management' became all the rage. Sadly, the beginning of this trend marked the decline of accountability along with the proliferation of Golden Parachutes, Golden Handcuffs and other financial instruments meant to create the "Celebrity CEO" ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.R.M.30! Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 I don't see any problem here with respect to jargin being used. Everybody uses some type of jargin in everyday life, those who don't can be narrowed down to non-communicable matter, such as trees and rocks or programmable matter such as a "talking computer". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Reminds be a bit of an essay I once read in an English class at school titled "How to Say Nothing in 500 words". Nowadays it's expanded to saying nothing in some ten thousand words I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 I don't see any problem here with respect to jargin being used. Everybody uses some type of jargin in everyday life, those who don't can be narrowed down to non-communicable matter, such as trees and rocks or programmable matter such as a "talking computer". OK, maybe I am a rare exception, but the most common reply from my bosses to WHATEVER I told them in the past few years was "there's too much information in too less words." They did this even when I was talking in main clauses exclusively and every sentence just referred to the very last one. However, my bosses were no fools. I think they just had got accustomed to idle talk and small talk to such a great extent that sensible informations from workers and artisans overstressed their perceptivity. Interestingly the very same persons never had such problems before, and I haven't changed my behaviour and way of talking at all. I just seem unable to tell only bla bla bla, no matter how impressive it may be to whomever... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darling67 Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 The point of all of it is to say something, but to say it such a way that there is either plausible deniability or inability to measure results, or both. This all came out of MBA schools at the same time 'matrix management' became all the rage. Sadly, the beginning of this trend marked the decline of accountability along with the proliferation of Golden Parachutes, Golden Handcuffs and other financial instruments meant to create the "Celebrity CEO" ... I miss the "+" button at times like this.... People worked over-time to come up with this B.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyK Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 One phrase which makes me puke - "webinar". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdgm Posted July 31, 2013 Author Share Posted July 31, 2013 Everybody uses some type of jargin in everyday life, those who don't can be narrowed down to non-communicable matter, such as trees and rocks or programmable matter such as a "talking computer". That's language. I mean jargon within language or bad use of language. But in one way you're right;"it doesn't mean s**t to a tree" (Edit - thankyou Grace Slick). One phrase which makes me puke - "webinar". Ouch again....I got an email the other day with the word 'marketised' in it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 All kidding aside, I think what it amounts to is that at a certain level, "managers" no longer perceive that they are in the business of the corporation, but in the business of business. That disconnect with whatever goods and services that provide their income is where we're seeing a lot of interesting "stuff" happening to the world economic system at large. A guy successfully selling hats knows his customers and his products, pricing and margins. The corporation that owns the hat company, OTOH, may not have a clue - and is busy messing with money more than the mechanics of making and wholesaling hats. That's the real game in today's world, not producing goods and services at a profit. That puts everybody in jeopardy, IMHO - and it's where we see cuts for the sake of cutting regardless of other factors, offshoring both of goods and services, and folks except at the high end getting hurt. Sad - except for those playing the real game rather than the game most of us see. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Just got an idea how to blow up such talking through substitution of artificial word creations by explaining their meaning. E. g. try to suppose the word "proactive" was replaced with "doing anything before knowing what to do or knowing what doing"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dem00n Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Tis my specialty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Tis my specialty. Some want to make it everybody's specialty. This creates countless unexpected ways to accomplish it. So we will develop same countless ways to do anything no matter if right or wrong, but at least it may show that we are all different individuals. Finally, it will dramatically increase the number of things that can go wrong. One Czernobyl and one Fukushima don't seem to be enough... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaysEpiphone Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Over the last few years I have become more aware of absurd jargon - business jargon, management-speak, elephant talk, call it whatever. Real, proper management/business jargon isn't just 'add suffix-to-stem' slang stuff (as in 'jargon-ized, jargon-ified, jargon-ificated'), it has to be a complete b.s. new language and as impenetrable as possible. I'm sure everyone has examples of his or her own. I've distilled some of the more lunatic bits I've heard or read into the following 3 sentences of 100% overproof, concentrated kak: 'After deep-cleaning, blue-sky restructuring, consultation and re-assessment of the definition process in differentation and implementation we are going to pro-actively formulate a product management co-ordination policy in order to efficiently facilitate the transformation and delivery of expanded processes and operations. Divisional focus will emphasise operational expertise and technological awareness of primary and secondary external drivers with an ongoing review of high-level principles and initiatives. We are innovating a new multi-supply target operating model to encourage a move from silo to system thinking, furthering co-creation of interventions and the introduction of a consultant concept.' However I'd fail the higher management test miserably...as there are no TLAs (three-letter-acronyms). Not like a true jargonista! Hmmm....But I still call a spade a...oh wait a minute.... I call a spade a manual regolith transference implementation enabling accessory. Regards! I think you read to much into things, keep it real and simplistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 I think you read to much into things, keep it real and simplistic. Perhaps this is why we can't read anything real and simplistic out of some fashionable artificial "things". Probably we should take modern economy as no more than science fiction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matonanjin Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 It is what it is. But moving forward we should all be on the same page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deeman Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Expedite is a good buzz word you could throw in that paragraph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturn Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 jdgm, At my old job, my colleagues and I would have great fun ridiculing the inter-office memo's that would be sent to everyone from company HQ... Our favorites were, when after it was announced that our business unit would be dissolved and we'd be losing our jobs in a few months time, the e-mails that stated how the company was, "leveraging its abilities to implement cross-corporate synergies, for maximum shareholder value...". We were casualties of this nonsensical corporate B.S., and had to find humor in it—lest we became angered by it all. I was going to say to the original post that it needs to have the word "synergies" in there somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonzoboy Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 It really irks me how big corporations use big words to make mundane and even distasteful things look appealing. One thing that really gets my goat is when the T.V. networks advertise an "Encore Presentation" of a movie or series when in fact everyone knows that all that means is that it's a rerun of a show that they have already broadcast at least a dozen times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quapman Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Expedite is a good buzz word you could throw in that paragraph The key phrase in your sentence is "buzz word". I have worked for a corporation for 32 years. My take on corporate "jargon" is that it is nothing more than an evolution and collection of corporate "buzz words" that have compiled over the years and evolved in their own little feel good language. Like when kids would use pig latin. It is a way of sounding more intelligent or more important than they really are. It seems that every week or so where I work there is a new corporate buzz word thrown around ad nauseam. They don't ever go away they just get added to the corporate vocabulary and regurgitated when they have nothing to say. Kinda pathetic really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaysEpiphone Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Perhaps this is why we can't read anything real and simplistic out of some fashionable artificial "things". Probably we should take modern economy as no more than science fiction. Guess it went over my head, but I'm just a basic every day guy. Creative but not complicated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturn Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 When I used to work for an airline and it came time for cutbacks and lay offs, it was called "right sizing" by the corporate types. Then I wound up working at Corp. myself and was surrounded by all that ridiculous jargon every day. Someone was always "moving forward" "drilling down" or "speaking to the issue",,,blah blah blah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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