Baffled by Office Buzzwords

Radio Talking Book

Career Corner is a program produced by the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, part of State Services for the Blind and it is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. You can find complete programming of the Radio Talking Book at www.mnssb.org/rtb and the password is rtb. Your host for Career Corner is Anne Obst. (music) We turn now to an article from the New York Times, July 4, by Marilyn Katzman, Baffled by Office Buzzwords When my new supervisor passed by my desk and said, “I’ll have to schedule your ‘bilateral,’ ” I nodded and assumed a look that suggested I knew what he was talking about. It took some time before I was able to deduce that this would be a one-on-one meeting with my boss. Why didn’t he just say that? Wait, do we still say “boss?” In my new position, I was soon to realize that a knowing look, when cryptic corporate speak was heard, would be needed more often. It wouldn’t be the last time I would feel the need for translation assistance in a series of temporary assignments after I was “let go,” or should I say “reorganized,” from my position at a nonprofit organization in 2011. As a senior communications professional, I had not expected to encounter a language barrier working at major national corporations. So just why is there a need for using a word like “bilateral” in a new way? Why not say what you mean? I felt it was going to take extra effort on my part to keep a straight face so that I would look like I was part of this corporate language in-crowd. Within a short time, one of my colleagues asked me if I had “bandwidth.” Thank goodness I didn’t respond with stats from my PC, or offer other technical frequency metrics. Soon enough, I was able to figure out that he was asking if I had time to help with a project. How about, “Do you have time to help?” Bandwidth is a big word around these companies. Have these words been added to the dictionary while I was out? New words are, in fact, added to dictionaries every year. Last year, for example, selfie and hashtag became part of Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary in recognition of their popular usage. And new words and slang reflecting the increasing use of technology are also added annually to the Oxford Dictionary. So I checked, and no, bandwidth is still listed as “the range of frequencies with a given band, in particular that used for transmitting a signal.” It can’t be just me who’s confused. Perhaps, to help me keep things in perspective, I should have looked up “jargon.” While generally defined as the language of a particular profession or group, secondary definitions refer to it as being obscure and pretentious. Perhaps that is too harsh. Though often frustrated, I do believe my colleagues thought their messages were clear and effective. My efforts to look intelligent — O.K., my bluffs — were only to continue. I learned fairly quickly that if I used the word “strategy” often enough, I’d be viewed favorably. Would I appear to be more intelligent and in the know if I threw “transparency” into the conversation? I am certainly willing to make every effort to foster transparency, while hoping all the time that no one sees through me in any way. It took only one week in another assignment to ascertain, without looking too dumb, that “decks” are not floors in a parking garage, but PowerPoint presentations. At least I knew immediately that “channels” were not options on my television, but various vehicles for communicating. It was quite a mental strain to jot down reminders of words and phrases in the margins of my notes to look up after meetings — lingo like “deliverables” and “air cover.” Some I could guess at. Some weren’t so easy. The last I heard, “deep dives” required snorkeling equipment and a boat, and weren’t part of coming sessions. I won’t even mention the acronyms flying around the room, and the assumption that we all knew what they referred to. When I repeated some of these terms to friends, I was amused to learn that an actual bingo game had been created for secret use in business meetings. Some clever or bored souls came up with the idea of creating a series of cards with grids containing frequently mentioned corporate terms. Every time someone says one of these corporate-speak words in a meeting, you are supposed to mark your box. If you actually complete a line, you are to stand up and call out “Bingo!” I dare you. Here are some of the terms found on the cards: quality vector, knowledge management, drill down, strategic fit, smartsize and right shoring. I always thought sharing a common language, even if it included industry-specific jargon, would foster collaboration and teamwork. But let’s discuss this off-line — I mean, later.