November 21, 2014 - Written by: Becky Solomon

Office Lingo, Buzzword Bingo

There comes a time when we depart the normal world and enter… the world of work!

Welcome to the business world: the world of corporate buzzwords, LinkedIn and ego massaging.

If you have ever done a bit of copy writing or gone to a writing workshop, you may have been told to cut out the jargon.

This is so important and yet, somewhere in our business lives, it’s hard to shake the feeling that certain words will carry a bit more weight.

We feel like if we says these words, we feel more important, or people will take us more seriously, when really they mean exactly the same thing. Who wants to read a paragraph that says,

‘Going forward, we will be able to facilitate this process of Item A, although it wasn’t originally articulated that there was a capacity issue.’

Huh?

I mean why? This is something I hear on a daily basis, and all I really hear is people trying to make themselves feel important.

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So, important people of the world, here are a few business buzzwords that I could do without hearing on a daily basis:

Capacity

As in ‘we just don’t have the capacity to do this’.

I have never heard the word capacity used on such a regular basis before working in an office. Official meaning ‘the maximum amount that something can contain/ or the amount that something can produce’.

Used in this context: ‘We have too much to do already – go find another team to do your dirty work’.

Take things forward/ going forward.

Ah going forward. The positive connotations of a promising future, of movement and of getting ahead. This phrase carries all sorts of optimistic promise.

In this context, it is often used to clarify “what we can do next”.

This phrase is frequently used in long meetings or long conversations where no actions have currently been achieved. ‘So how can we help you going forward?’

Touch base.

My absolute worst. What does this even mean???

And before you start telling me, I am referring to a jargon free world where people say what they actually mean. When someone first said this to me, I was generally like ‘eh?’

I had heard it before, but never really understood what it meant and people it my previous world never used it.

In this context, it can mean a wide range of things including something as simply as ‘let’s catch up’ or ‘tell me how things are going’ and more sinister ones of ‘we’ve lost the meaning of why we’re doing this’ or even, ‘you’ve lost control’.

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It wasn’t articulated.

One of those cunning ways of being difficult but polite in the work place. There are many of these and buzz words and phrases such as this one, which serve to soften the blow.

In this context: it wasn’t articulated means in simple terms, “you didn’t ask me to do that” which then in turn means, what you are asking for hasn’t been do

Facilitate.

Another one that makes me cringe.

People tend to use the literal meaning of this one, but it’s an ego-massager, where one person says to the other, ‘we can facilitate this for you’.

I would never speak like this to someone outside the office, I would say, ‘I can help you with that’ and I think who ever I would be talking to would say, thank you and not what??

Resource issue

Used in the same way as capacity, although again, if someone said this to me outside of the office, I could think of precious natural resources, not people refusing to do work because they believe they have too much to do already.

Another classic blow softener, meaning again: ‘we don’t have the time, energy or simply the will to make this happen’.

So, if you’re new to the office and you start to hear these terms thrown around, take a deep breath and answer them in the most difficult and confusing sense you can and check their response.

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I try my absolute upmost to avoid saying these words – because in my heart, it is not me. I don’t feel comfortable saying them and it just doesn’t fit. I genuinely feel your words can carry more weight, if you say them confidently, and you speak like yourself and not like you are trying to impress someone.

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out ‘Career and Love: Can we really have it all?’