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Message |
    
Miss L Toe
Citizen
Username: Miss_l_toe
Post Number: 191
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 5, 2005 - 2:59 pm: | 
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'Pushing the envelope'
What an absurd notion..... |
sac
Supporter
Username: Sac
Post Number: 1884
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, March 6, 2005 - 8:04 am: |
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Doesn't "pushing the envelope" come from test pilots' lingo and refer to the "envelope" of the earth's atmosphere? In that context it makes more sense in the current usage. I don't think it has anything to do with mail  |
Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 601
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, March 6, 2005 - 11:29 am: |
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SAC:
You're right. Business lingo has always been quick to seize upon the latest metaphores from sports, science ("rocket science," "brain surgery") and the military, and pop culture, sometimes to get a point across and appear current, other times just to obfuscate... |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1867
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, March 6, 2005 - 1:16 pm: |
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What really cracks me up is all these workaholics using the phase, "At the End of the Day." I always want to ask them, "When IS the end of the day when you work 24 hours round the clock?" |
mjc
Citizen
Username: Mjc
Post Number: 325
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, March 6, 2005 - 4:14 pm: |
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(drift)
sportsnut - I was at Lucent yesterday for a kid event, and they showed a really well produced (I thought) and engrossing montage of Bell Labs accomplishments all through the years. Almost made me cry, and I'm not even associated with Bell. What a waste to drive these great institutions into the ground.
best wishes -
MC |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 7820
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, March 6, 2005 - 5:40 pm: |
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"Well you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the matrix and see why everyone, other than you, are onboard with the concept, which really pops. This will make us a world class shop because we will be able to communicate better and faster than the competition. If you don't want to be in the middle of the next right sizing you better clean up your act and salute the flag. We don't need any cowboys around here. The bottom line wouldn't allow it. Got it? Get on the team!! |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1868
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, March 6, 2005 - 5:50 pm: |
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Now I do not walk around wearing a tin foil hat, but sometimes you have to wonder how long it will be before they start seriously making the case for microchip brain implants.
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Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5720
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 6, 2005 - 7:41 pm: |
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Oh, man, Cynicalgirl, you gave me so many laughs! I like the terms you cite, your responses to them, and your stories.
Here, now go generate some new nonsense. There are lots of these generators around, not just tech-oriented ones: http://tinyurl.com/1wvi
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Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1182
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 6, 2005 - 8:11 pm: |
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Good one, Tom! I think that one had an earlier outing with a different name. Totally cool, dude. Far out, too.
An old buddy who worked for US Interactive, a big money web consulting firm for awhile, invented a term: "monkey boxes." His thing was to see if he could spread it, with people not acknowleging that they had no clue what is twas...
Honestly, guys, the trick really is to view it all as acting. Remember that game that made the rounds? Something like --- bingo? Where you were to keep score every time someone in a meeting used one of the terms?
It's just all crap, like so much 'speak.' I've had the rare experience, here and there, to hear the chairman of the co. I work for, and other old dogs in the star chamber set up. Believe me, they are totally Anglo-Saxon and straight up in their language, with the odd salty term.
It's all the wannabes in the middle that use the cant. So, it's fun to dish it back at 'em.
Believe me, I'm in the middle, but I watch the boys in Barney's chat the chat, and worry about the latest this and that. They are the empty set.
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Joe
Citizen
Username: Gonets
Post Number: 722
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, March 6, 2005 - 11:22 pm: |
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Sports,
I got let go by AT&T back in November. Finally found a job. Yay!!!!
Hang in there.
It's a toss up between the stupidest bit of corporate I've been exposed to. Most recently at AT&T when they were trying to articulate what skillsets would be affected by layoffs, instead of using terms that we all would understand, like say, "skillsets," they chose to "repurpose" a word. That word was "universe." So to add to the stress of dealing with impending downsizing they offered the confusion of just what the hell do they mean by "affected universes." In their jargon there are lots of universes and these universes are actually relatively small in comparision to the agregate workforce. Go figure. Anyway they spent about 15 minutes trying to explain this absurd use of the word "universe" and for some reason they wouldn't use skillset or any term we'd understand. Finally in the chatter amongst ourselves we got the jist of it. What bunch of nimrod consultants got paid a bucketful of cash for that bit of malarchy?
Still I have to say the stupidest expressions came from my most despotic employer, UPS. They had loads of garbage language, but my favorite was "Least Best." I remember when they explained it to us. We were told that our area had the "Least Best" record for safety. Which surprised us, because we thought that we had a pretty bad record when it came to getting hurt. Guys were getting hurt all the time. Then it was explained to us that "Least Best" actually meant "worst." Ever the smart-•••, I said to my manager, "So, Adolph Hitler would be the 'Least Best' leader in terms of human rights." To which he responded, "Yeah, that's right." Aparently at Hub School they strip away all ability for managers to discern sarcasm. It eases the digestion of these nonsensical phrases. |
sportsnut
Citizen
Username: Sportsnut
Post Number: 1762
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 7, 2005 - 7:38 am: |
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Joe - what part of the company were you with?
As to the assinine consulting group who came up with those phrases you can probably thank Boston Consulting Group. They seem to be the "consultants" of choice everytime we go through something like this. They were the same group of people who decided to retain all six of the "E" levels in the tax department, a department of 70 or so people. And when we were asked last November to cut people the only thing that we could come up with as a cost savings measure was to fire a woman, who quite possibly was the lowest paid person in the entire department and needed the job most. An "E" levels bonus is approximately twice what this woman made in yearly salary.
AT&T has changed their "metrics" so many times during the past ten years its enough to make your head spin. Every thing they do has to be complicated by jargon. Just when you think you understand the latest they go and change it. Two years ago they took away all job titles and changed them to job "families" - there was nothing wrong with the old system but someone had to justify the fee they earned to come up with that one.
Cynicalgirl - it always seems that the people who use that terminology are basically all fluff and no substance - they can talk the talk but when it comes down to it more often than not you can prove that they really don't know what they are talking about.
Thanks for the good wishes, but I am confident I will land on my feet - its the people who have been at the company 20+ years, who don't have the education or who are in situations where this job loss will be catastrophic that I feel for. |
Joe
Citizen
Username: Gonets
Post Number: 723
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 7, 2005 - 10:07 am: |
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I was a writer (web copy, tech documentation, etc.) with TIDD (Technical Information Design and Development) in Middletown. We were actually part of AT&T Labs.
Ah yes, how could I forget the job "families" lingo? What a homey expression. A lot of the decisions I've seen made over the last 5 years or so can be described as enigmatic at best. It seems like this company which had almost all the resources they need under one roof loves to outsource anyway. Our group lost work to outside Ad agencies when there was a specific directive to stay in house. Furthermore, the agency came up with a "concept" after 6 months of dawdling which was nothing more than a color scheme. When asked if the colors they chose were ones which could be used on the Web, they said that they hadn't gotten that far in the concept. Our group had. We had professional graphic designers, usability engineers and web programmers who had a mock site all ready to go (by the way did I mention this was time sensitive?). Well, the decision makers went with the ad agency--despite the fact that they were vastly more expensive and not up to web work. Of course the one thing they had over us was that their sales people were able to take the decision makers out to expensive dinners and who knows what afterwards. Even if we had the budget for schmoozing, we weren't permitted to do so. |
shoshannah
Citizen
Username: Shoshannah
Post Number: 770
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Monday, March 7, 2005 - 10:42 am: |
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Space. As in, "We've been in this space since 1996. Our competitors have only been in this space for a year." |
sac
Supporter
Username: Sac
Post Number: 1888
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 7, 2005 - 10:57 am: |
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When the major corporation I used to work for merged with another major corporation, they used the term "heritage old-company-name" to refer to people, ideas, departments, products, whatever and identify them with whichever of the prior companies they came from. Is that a common lingo in merged companies? I had never heard it before, but I never went through another merger, either. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5723
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 7, 2005 - 10:59 am: |
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sac, you just reminded me of the use of the word legacy to mean old, obsolete or crummy. |
Sgt. Pepper
Citizen
Username: Jjkatz
Post Number: 732
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 7, 2005 - 4:13 pm: |
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position ourselves
calling headquarters "the mothership"
"hump day" (I wondered whether we were all supposed to have an orgy until someone explained that it meant "Wednesday")
and the one I hate the most:
"WELCOME ABOARD!!"
It's not a freakin' boat.
Ever been to a high-tech company's website, read everything on the page and still had no bloody idea what they do? |
themp
Supporter
Username: Themp
Post Number: 1573
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 1:27 pm: |
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"drill down"
"better faster cheaper"
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gemini
Citizen
Username: Gemini
Post Number: 396
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 1:45 pm: |
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Asked my husband what's going on at work today... "oh, apples and oranges"..guess that's a new one too |
Sgt. Pepper
Citizen
Username: Jjkatz
Post Number: 760
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 2:39 pm: |
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Words like "paradigm" and "proactive."
There was a great website where you could put together meaningless but impressive-sounding phrases for your resume. I can't remember the URL though. |
extuscan
Citizen
Username: Extuscan
Post Number: 452
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 12:15 am: |
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I can't think of this damn word but its been staring at me all day. Its like "tableaubeaux" lol something like that. The previous occupant of my chair used it on every spreadsheet he made. "The taubeleaux represents..." Its a FLIPPIN' SPREADSHEET.
John |
Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 769
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 1:11 pm: |
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I had to use tinyurl to get past the filters...
http://tinyurl.com/1wvi |
Sgt. Pepper
Citizen
Username: Jjkatz
Post Number: 766
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 1:23 pm: |
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That's the one! LOL |
Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 772
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 3:50 pm: |
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Another fave...
http://www.klomstock.com/humor/buzzbingo.html
(courtesy of Woodstock's web-lagiarism) |
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