What Is the Worst Corporate Jargon You've Heard?

The cringe factor just went through the roof.

Preview

1. "Circle the Wagons"

You could have said, "This is important. We need to make this a priority."

Instead, you alluded to some vague rah-rah vision of defending your sovereign territory with the hides of your teammates.

2. "Take it Offline"

You weren't "online". You were just in the middle of a useless meeting.

What you should say: "Let's talk about this later."

3. "Download"

As in, "Give me that download when you get a chance."

Again, you're not a computer. You're an annoying middle manager.

What you should say: "Send me that information as soon as you can." or "I'd like to catch up on that soon, please."

4. "Ping Me"

What is it with this humans-acting-like-a-computer stuff? /ping is a networking command to see if a remote host (aka "computer") is responsive.

What you should say is: "Send me a message" or "Get in touch when you're ready."

5. An "Ask"

As in: "That budget increase is a big ask."

Making new words to describe perfectly useful words is the hallmark of corporate jargon.

It's a "request". Don't be a moron.

6. "My Skip-Level", or just "My Skip"

Out of context this makes zero sense, but it means "my boss' boss."

I get that "my boss' boss" gets redundant rounding.

That doesn't mean I'm giving this one a pass. It's nonsense.

7. "Bandwidth"

"I don't have the bandwidth for that right now."

I'm beginning to think middle managers are just robots now.

It means, "availability" or "time".

Say that instead, you robot jerk.

8. "Touch Base"

Oh, cool. The robots think they're playing sports now.

The context here is to share information to establish a clearer mutual understanding.

More dumb ways to say, "Let's talk about that later."

9. "Learnings"

I don't call my meals "eatings" or my naps "sleepings".

I also don't call my lessons "learnings".

10. "Out of Pocket"

If you catch yourself saying this then you need the vacation that the term implies you're taking.

Be a good robot and tell people "I'll be on vacation".

Don't worry, your skip knows you won't have bandwidth to answer a ping to touch base while you're offline taking golf learnings and issuing asks to various bartenders and servers for alcoholic drinks.

Mventre