Courtesy of Mukumbura via Flickr
Last week I heard a new “office slang word.” I get a kick out of the “office vocabulary.” it comes and goes. I don’t know where it comes from and I don’t know where it goes, but it is used with vigor while it’s in vogue.
The information technology world has a lot of slang. Geeks can be creative. I am not going to discuss those today. Some of them are too scary.
A decade ago everything was “out of the box.” That referred to thinking. You had to think “out of the box.” The goofy part is that most people don’t know what that really means. Thinking outside of the box means a different venue/concept/idea that hasn’t been tried before. It doesn’t mean changing one tiny little piece and leaving everything else the same. Fortunately, you don’t hear that one too much anymore.
Then there was the “big picture.” Egad! In my forty years of working, I am lucky if I have known twenty people who could truly see the big picture. The big picture is not your world. It is beyond what you can imagine. Think of it as the “black hole.” No matter how much I read about black holes, I just can’t imagine them. Steve Jobs was a big picture guy. I don’t know how he did it.
A couple of years ago, I heard a new consultant use the word “granular” to mean the detail level. How granular should I make my report? My answer is somewhere between lava boulders and powdered sugar!
This has been superseded by “getting in the weeds.” That means getting down to the real nitty-gritty. A place most managers really shouldn’t be. Really.
One of my workplace all-time favorites was “they don’t get it.” Actually, I use that one myself. What it really means is that I am right and “they” just don’t understand that I am right. My ex and I used to toss that back and forth. It never resolved anything. The beloved husband and I don’t worry about that one. He knows I am right or he fakes it and that works for me.
Another one that has been around for a while is “best practices.” When you aren’t sure how to do something, you canvas other businesses to see what they are doing and then you do it their way. This is not a bad thing as you tend to emulate successful companies. That has to work, doesn’t it?
I wonder…if I am out of the workplace for a couple of years, will I understand the vernacular? There is always Wikipedia!
Views and Mews by Coffee Kat 
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Wonderful information, refreshing page theme, maintain the good work
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My nature rebels against jargon, but years ago I realized that there’s a fringe benefit: when I hear someone using the latest trendy (and meaningless!) term, I know that’s a person who doesn’t know what he’s talking about and that I shouldn’t trust. I was thinking especially about education (I used to be a teacher), a field in which bureaucrats are notorious for littering the language with junk.
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We use “best practices” in education, too; however, the practices frequently change and stop being “best.” I love your commentary on the jargon.
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I find that post retirement vocabulary is more colorful, enduring and time-tested. Who doesn’t understand: “What the *&%^$# are you talking about?” or “Get a hearing aid, I’m *&!@$# tired of repeating myself.” Of course all post-career vernacular should be accompanied with eyerolls and hand gesticulations. It’s like speaking another language. There’s so much to look forward to.
PS. Thanks for the update on vocabulary. I hadn’t become so granular.
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I thought all post-retirement sentences started with, “What? what did you say?” At least my mother’s did unless, of course, I didn’t want her to hear it. In that case her response is, “I can’t believe you would actually do that!” I can hardly wait to be annoying.
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At my last conference they kept talking about everything “growing organically” which would be fine if I were in the gardening industry, but I’m not and therefore “didn’t get it”. Luckily, I think I’m still on the bus but it looks a lot like a prison transport.
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Growing organically is not a term we used in the insurance business. I guess I don’t get it either.
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I remember when everyone was talking about Synergy. I “just didn’t get it” and soon afterward I got off the bus.
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I remember synergy too! That was the early 1980s! Never was sure what that meant in relation to the workplace. Working together better maybe?
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“Silo” was big at my last job…One of the reasons I am thankful I left.
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Yes, I remember silos!
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After a few years you may not understand the workplace vernacular, but you could develop new retirement/relaxation lingo. Just think of the fun that would be.
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More fun yes, it just doesn’t pay as well!
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One that went around a few years ago was “get on the bus”. Either you were on the bus and in total agreement with management or you were left on the corner–as in unemployed.
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Yes, I remember that one too. It was big with my former CEO. He got off the bus.
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My favourite corporate expression is “going forward”. If an organisation says they are going forward, everything will be okay. Apparently.
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