Corporate Speak

Sentynel: Somebody was complaining about a different stake-related saying at work today - "stakeholders", as an irritating bit of corporate speak.
Sentynel: He proposed we replace all uses of "stakeholders" with "van helsings".
Sam: Are stakeholders not just stockholders?
Sentynel: Sam: As in "stakeholders in this decision" or whatever.
Sam: That's awful.
Goosey: LOL
Sentynel: As a general term for people who are interested in and/or affected by something.
Sentynel: We have a page on the internal wiki which functions as a dictionary for awful corporate speak. It has a good couple of hundred entries at the moment, of varying levels of stupidity.
Sam: I hope you leverage synergies to maintain it.
Sam: ...on a going forward basis.
Sentynel: Sam: "synergies" isn't on the list, which means nobody's caught it being used, which is nice.
Goosey: Sam: Don't forget you have a paradigm in there somewhere.
Sentynel: "Leverage" and "going forward" both are, though.
Sentynel: "Paradigm" is too.
Sam: "Going forward" is mid-level stupidity, but it escalates to high-level stupidity if it modifies "basis."
Sam: I don't mind "paradigm" so much, though, because at least in my experience that's what the word actually means.
Sentynel: Other items that particularly annoy me: "upskilling", meaning "training"; "in slower time" and "in quicker time" meaning "later" and "sooner"; and "touch base" meaning "talk to" (though this one has the advantage that if somebody uses it four times in a meeting, you get to shout "home run!" at them).
Sentynel: And probably a bunch more that are currently escaping me.
Maryam: 'Going forward' is only mid-level? It sounds utterly meaningless to me.
Maryam: LOL at home run.
Goosey: LOL
Sam: "Going forward, we're going to route customer service calls through this new tool." That's not terrible, just kind of clumsy. But "We're going route customer service calls through this tool on a going forward basis." is retarded.
Sentynel: Maryam: You clearly haven't encountered the refined upper echelons of idiotic corporate speak...
Maryam: Sent: This is true.
TalkingDog: Does the meaning change if you leave "going forward" out entirely?
Maryam: So it means 'from this point in time on'? I guess there's some meaning there then.
Sam: TD: Not particularly.
Sam: But similar phrases are used in every day English. "From now on" means the same thing, is probably superfluous about as often, but doesn't make me want to punch anybody.
Sam: I have thankfully never encountered "upskilling" or "in slower time". Those are horrible.
Sam: Those terms clearly call for extended variations. Tomorrow, right before the lunch break, you should announce that you're gonna go upnourish.
Goosey: LOL
Sentynel: The best comment on the whole page, though, is when somebody commented that a particular item ("space", I think) had probably been pilfered from mathematical vocabulary, where it has various particular, defined meanings. Somebody commented that words with multiple precise meanings seemed to be common in maths. And the reply was the following gem:
Sentynel: "Mathematicians have a lot of meaning and a shortage of words, so they have to share multiple meanings across some words. Management have a lot of words and a shortage of meaning, so they have to share the same meaning out across multiple words."
Goosey: Sent: nice!
Maryam: Snrk.
Sam: LOL LOL
Sam: Thanks for upfunning the chat room, Sentynel.
Sam: ...That sounds unpleasant and probably obscene. I should think about up puns in slower time on a going forward basis.
Sentynel: You mean, "you value my contribution to the delivery of the overarching goal of upfunning the stand-up discussion space".
Sentynel: I'm going to go and shoot myself now.
Sam: LOL
Sam: Upskill.
Sam: Ugh, I wanna punch something.
Sentynel: Oh, you know what else I just remembered?
Sentynel: "disbenefit".
Sam: Some of the corporate terms are awful and yet don't have especially obvious or fluid natural alternatives. But, look, the word is TRAIN. You TRAIN people. SIMPLE.
Goosey: LOL
TalkingDog: I wonder if people don't want to be thought of as trained animals.
TalkingDog: Not that that excuses such a goofy word.
Sam: "Core competencies" is one I don't mind so much just because what it means doesn't have a particularly easy alternative. You can say "What we're good at," but that's harder to drop into whatever arbitrary sentence you might be saying, and "primary strengths" is somewhat more vague and not much less corporatey.
TalkingDog: "Main stats"
Sentynel: My manager's manager pointed out that if you're being trained, it implies the responsibility is on other people to train you right. But if you're upskilling, then it's your problem.
Nyperold: I should contribute to the delivery of the goal of upcleaning the moisture removal cloths.
Goosey: TD: lol
Sam: And "paradigm," as I said earlier. It's corporatey, but it also actually means something.
Sentynel: Sam: I hate "core competencies" primarily because it's meaningless bullstuff that I'm assessed on, rather than how well I'm doing my ACTUAL JOB.
TalkingDog: It'd be fun if corporate speak was replaced by gamer speak.
Sentynel: The word itself isn't particularly bad.
Goosey: TD: YES
Sentynel: Words.
Sam: Sent: I'm gonna email you my credit card number. Please book me a flight to London and arrange for a rental car and lodging near your place of work. I'll come over on a weekend, kick your manager's manager square in the privates, and fly back.
Sentynel: Sam: To be fair to the guy, he was pointing this out as a criticism of the word.
Sam: Oh.
Goosey: lol
Sam: I guess he may continue to father children then.
Sentynel: He's a decent guy, actually. But feel free to come over and kick all the people who use this sort of thing seriously.
Sam: Okay!
TalkingDog: "Upraise futurelings"
* TalkingDog is just making up words now.
Sentynel: TD: SO ARE THEY
TalkingDog: True enough.
Goosey: LOL
Sam: TD: To increase our company's rep, it is important to kite noobs rather than tank-and-spanking them.
TalkingDog: hehehe
Ticia has left.
Sam: Aww, Ticia proceded on a leaving basis.
Counterpoint: RinkChat plugin.
Sam: LOL
Sam: It could just be one of the language translations for RC.
Goosey: Sam: You misarranged the alphabetical symbolism of that word on an accidental basis, didn't you?
Sam: "Sam has conceived the chat room's mission statement to be...."
Sam: Goosey: possibly?
TalkingDog: That would rule.
Goosey: *proceeded?
Sentynel: You know what bothers me? When we're deliberately trying to produce the most ridiculous corporate speak possible... IT STILL SOUNDS LESS STUPID THAN EXAMPLES OF THE REAL THING.
Goosey: LOL LOL LOL
ThePhan: LOL
Sam: Huh. Why yes. Yes I did misarrange the alphabetical symbolism of that word on an accidental basis.
Ticia has entered.
Ticia: Managers need to update their verbiage periodically so that they are still relevant in a burgeoning workforce.
Sentynel: It's not a workforce any more, it's a resource.
Ticia: Dang
Sam: Sentynel, I believe it's asynchronous with our relational competencies to use the word "stupid" like that. Going forward, perhaps a paradigmatic shift to the word "downsmarting" would be less of a disbenefit.
Counterpoint: I just watch The Apartment recently. "On an accidental basis"/accidentally reminds me of how all the corporatespeak there made pseudoadverbs with -wise. Accidentwise.
Ticia: Why are they still called "Managers" that term is so archaic.
Ticia: *?
Sam: I do feel significantly downsmarted from when this conversation began.
Ticia: You need to uplearn some skillosities.
Sam: Sentynel.
Sam: Seriously, UPSKILLING?
Goosey: Sam: I am feeling upwardly sympathetic for you, downsmarted predicamentwise.
Sam: I just triple-took on that.
Sentynel: Clearly, the goal of upsmarting the team is a deferred success.
Sam: UPSKILLING?!?
Sentynel: Sam: Seriously. I know.
Maryam: Does 'deferred success' mean 'failure'?
Sam: I've been to some terrible corporate meetings before, but I don't think I've ever heard anything THAT terrible. Maybe we just use different terrible words.
Maryam: What happens to success deferred? Does it dry up, like a raisin in the sun?
Goosey: LOL
Goosey: You mean, "does it unmoisture, like an exgrape in the --" never mind. I can't do it.
Sentynel: Maryam: The approximate translation is "we screwed up big time, but if you give us twice as much money and some more people we think we can rescue it."
Ticia: Don says "So, you're not drinking, you're downsloshing."
Sam: Or is it upsloshing?
Sam: With that one it's hard to tell.
* Nyperold is returning on a coming back basis.
Sam: I'm kind of surprised "hiring" hasn't become "upsizing" yet. (Or has it?) That's kind of a giveaway that political correctness is as much a factor here as the egos of managers trying to sound smart.
Sam: We hire people and...downsize.
TalkingDog: Isn't it "rightsizing" now or something?
Ticia: We're upsizing our resources.
Maryam: TD: I was about to ask the same thing.
Sam: Rightsizing could go either way.
Sentynel: Sam: Argh, there was a really stupid word for hiring on the list. It wasn't upsizing, but I can't remember what it was.
TalkingDog: Hmm. Upstaffing?
Sam: Something about growing?
Ticia: We need to proactively envisioneer parallel interfaces.
Sam: I don't get how some people can use these terms with a straight face.
Ticia: http://www.atrixnet.com/bs-generator.html?bullstuff=you%27re+fired
Sam: I couldn't possibly, even if so directed.
Ticia: that got filtered. lol
TalkingDog: I think I've also heard "brightsizing".
Sam: hahaha
Ticia: replace the word "Stuff" with the relevant curse word.
Goosey: We need to conveniently whiteboard high-quality strategic theme areas
TalkingDog: I don't remember what it was meant to mean exactly. And it may have been a Dilbert comic.
Goosey: Ticia: The url still worked for me
Ticia: oh, good. lol
Goosey: WhizManager: quickly mesh interactive expertise!
Sentynel: Goosey: YES
Ticia: LOL
Sam: Goosey: You are upsized!
Goosey: WM: quickly mesh interactive expertise~
Ticia: I sense a new bot.
Goosey: *monotonectally brand an expanded array of paradigms
Goosey: Sam: Yay!
iwpg: LOL
Goosey: Somebody PLEASE actually make that bot
Goosey: We have InsultBot, why not ManagerBot? They could have meetings together!
Sentynel: Ticia's link reminds me of another one - 24x7x365. Meaning "constantly". This is stupid on so many levels.
Goosey: Sent: Uh.
Sam: Surely corporate speak is too complex and nuanced to be accurately simulated by a computer program.
Maryam: Sent: Wait what?
Maryam: That's terrible.
iwpg: Obviously it means 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 weeks a heptayear.
Goosey: Sam: Ticia's link does it
Maryam: iwpg: hahaha
Sam: I've heard 24-7, but not anything beyond that.
Goosey: It intrinsicly simplifies tactical infomediaries
Sentynel: I'm pretty sure you could just stick the word lists on Ticia's link into the existing Whiz code and you'd be pretty much sorted.
Sam: Yes.
Sentynel: HINT HINT
Goosey: DO IT SMA
Ticia: lol
Sam: I admit it falls within the parameters of my core competencies, but I have to leverage my time in faster time.