Comments on: Weekly Opinion Poll: Tower of Babel

By: anonymous

anonymous — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 18:23:53 +0000

KISS (Keep it simple stupid)

By: allison

allison — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 17:11:22 +0000

“Think outside the box” definitely aggrevates me. And you know what else drives me crazy? When people talk about “synergy”. What the hell is “synergy”? Does anyone really know? Synergistic connections? ARGH!

By: will

will — Sun, 07 Aug 2005 08:58:08 +0000

the one i hear most commonly is “can we take this offline?” as if these inept execs who can barely operate their email accounts and powerpoint think sitting around a table on their fat asses in their aeron chairs is “online” i always like to imagine them having to squeeze themselves through a DSL cable to take it offline. it makes me smile.

By: Robert

Robert — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 03:34:11 +0000

And what the hell is PROACTIVE? It’s just ACTIVE, dammit. I defy you to act before you act.

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 17:24:11 +0000

B. “Low-hanging fruit” sounds vaguely obscene. I once had a boss who frequently encouraged us to “take it to the hoop” and “pull the sled.” I liked that he went beyond baseball and football metaphors and into Winter Olympics territory.

By: Nat

Nat — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 16:58:03 +0000

In the final analysis and at the end of the day–we need to be active, not reactive. I just wanted to give you all a heads up, FYI.

By: sudiegirl

sudiegirl — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 16:18:48 +0000

I think I’m going to do a write in and give you the phrase “Be That As It May”. It basically means, “I know I’m wrong but you know what? It doesn’t matter.” I have had more bosses say that to me when they know I’m correct about something but they’re going to call me on the carpet anyway. Grrrrrrr
Sudiegirl

By: Ozzie

Ozzie — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 07:36:15 +0000

I was going to say “low-hanging fruit”, but then I remembered “take this conversation off-line”. What ever happened to “I’ll call you later?” Grrr.
No, wait- this is what really gets me- “professional”. I run into so many people who use this in the context of “it needs to look more professional”, which ultimately is saying “I don’t like it, but I can’t begin to articulate why. Make it look more expensive, that will shut me up.”
Alright, so “professional” isn’t really a catch-phrase, I just got caught up in the corporate jibber-jabber. Perhaps we should have a “come to Jesus” meeting to get me back in the loop.
(Oh, and I do like the phrase “soft confirmation” used above. I think I’ll appropriate it to explain why I no longer call myself a Catholic- “I was confirmed, but it must have been a soft confirmation- it didn’t take.”)

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 22:12:27 +0000

The phrases at my office that really put a stick in my craw are:
“Do you own an alarm clock?”
“You only get ONE hour for lunch.”
“Internet euchre is not a research tool.”

By: jill

jill — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 15:33:49 +0000

Hey Jenny, after you do all that, would you CIRCLE BACK AROUND with me to confirm the details of that which we’ve already discussed ad nauseum, and given SOFT CONFIRMATION (actually, I just made that one up, but it does sound corporate, doesn’t it?) a thousand times, but if we actually make a decision and PUT IT TO BED, we’ll have to find more work to do and who wants to do that?