What's the worst "corporate speak/buzzwords" that you absolutely hate?

Any mention of "family" and I'm out. You aren't my fucking family. I barely tolerate any of you, and I only go that far because I am forced to participate in this bullshit just so I can feed and shelter myself. Just give me my project, shut your dick sheath, and let me grind my life away in silence.
On a totally unrelated note, "team player".

“Learnings”
Yes its an old word and was repopularized by Borat of all things.
Ugh. Just say lessons or something. Leanings just sounds … wrong.

I can’t read this shit on the weekend you guys are killing me :p

Any talk of "we" from the boss really means "you". It's exceptionally maddening when the boss is already a POS who has an A+ for delegation but F- for teamwork and care factor.

"going forward."
Yeah, "from now on" worked fine there Phill.

Lessons learned

"pAiN pOiNtS"
these are not knots in muscles they are severe institutional shortcomings and failings that are draining us all, making us want to jump ship, hazardous, and in some cases even making the company lose profit but you fuckheads just want to write down pAiN pOiNtS and jerk yourselves and the shareholders off instead of actually doing ANYTHING MEANINGFUL

We're going to hyperconverge our core past the edge node and clear out to the cloud!

Place I worked at some time ago made a big speech and unveiled the following company motto to a lot of confused faces: "Engagement makes awareness sustainable."
- Nice. I'll drive alignment on this value with my directs. I'll status you tomorrow.

Wow, lots of “double clicks”, which is fairly new to the usual list.
- Because it's new and awful. Also implies that these massive new work is just a simple tasks. 0/10

Collaborator instead of employee. That's a usage that has spread through every company in French. It's infuriating how it.she just plain lying.

quiet quitting
How dare you not overachieve for your corporate overlords!
- Dance, monkey, dance!

I still hate "leverage" used as a synonym for "use." "We leverage technologies" yeah sure, when was the last time you had your asshole leveraged?
- Next biz bro bestseller: "Leverage the power of your bowels to produce fertiliser that promotes growth"

Yesterday I aligned with Harold from the CD team on how to pull the data off their SI table, and so today I'm going to work on validating that data. I'll probably be done by tomorrow

Here at Lemmy, we are steadfastly committed to leveraging our core competencies in order to drive strategic alignment across all functional units. Our focus remains unwavering on fostering a culture of continuous innovation and optimizing synergies that propel us towards achieving scalable growth and value creation for our stakeholders. By embracing agile methodologies and harnessing cutting-edge technologies, we endeavor to stay ahead of the curve, ensuring robust ROI while maintaining unparalleled customer-centricity in every facet of our operations.
Should you have any further inquiries or require additional insights into our visionary pursuits, please do not hesitate to connect with us. Together, let’s pioneer new paradigms and redefine excellence!
- Congratulations, you win both this thread and my disgust. This is literally every company in software development these days.

"double click" to mean "focus on" or "explore in more depth"
- Typical double click request is as follows:
  Manager: Leadership wants a "double click" on the numbers on slide 8.
  Doer: What do they want to see.
  M: Well they wanted to see more about the numbers on slide 8 they thought it was interesting.
  D: What number? Interesting how?
  M: They want a double click? Does that work? How long will that take?
  D: ummm a week?
- Sorry, I run KDE.
- It always sounds so deliberate.
  
  It just sounds forced to me.
  It's never said by people who created this slang as kids growing up with computers, it's like managers who just invented it in their 40somethings.
  Like they're trying to be cool, but it's just not cool

War room
You're a Karen and you're going to talk to Pete from accounting about what gift to buy for Sally's birthday
- You can’t fight here, this is the war room

Effectuate
I'm going to effectuate this pole right up the ass of the next person to use that word.
- 👉👈
- I can't think of a sentence in which it doesn't sound heavy handed.
  Please effectuate the reports. Accounting will effectuate the invoice. HR has effectuated the hire.

"We're family"
- I fell for this once. Thought it sounded great. Everyone at that place hated each other, constantly spread rumors and sabotaged each other's work.
- #1 toxic workplace red flag
- Unrelated but I only recently realised that when someone says they believe in family values it means they want to impose their definition of "family" on everyone else.
  From an employer I guess when they refer to family they're really referring to a bond beyond work, which basically means they're expecting more from you than you're paid for?
  
  I've found from employers it tends to mean "we should be valued and given time at least on par, but we'll push for more, than your actual family. Work will call you at any time of day or night and you should be ready to drop everything and get in on no notice."

"It is what it is".
- Used by spineless weasels when it something that they could have avoided, or can still be solved but they are too scared or stupid to say anything.

“Learnings” - you’re not fucking Borat!
- I haaaaate this one! It's lessons ffs lessons.

That they treat you like "family"
- They do, the family just happens to be dysfunctional and abusive.

“Cross-pollinate”

What’s our North Star?
- This phrase is currently running riot at my work. Leadership have just created a new "North Star" so that they can Kingdom Build and leave their mark; years of progress on other projects are being thrown on a mini-bonfire of the vanities.
  
  It’s just a bullshit saying for something they’ll never achieve.
  I’ve even heard people say it’s never achievable but we should use that as our direction. I can’t stand corporate fucking bullshit.

Touch base

"It doesn't scale", meaning the company might have to (shudder) hire people if our business doubles.

Holistic
Double Click
Table Stakes
Jump Ball
Blocking & Tackling

Think out of the box

Anything they use to replace the word "layoffs".
- Rightsizing
  
  Fun sizing

"Department / Corporate Retreat"
As in, "we're holding our annual corporate retreat next Wednesday! It'll be offsite, you're all required to be there, and we'll be spending the day having a 6 hour meeting about absolutely nothing, just like we do every year. But dont worry, when we're done we'll play a game no one wants to play, or do a craft no one wants to do, but everyone will pretend they enjoy it because if they don't, they're not 'team players.'"
This year, our day-long-nothing-meeting was about how management is working to secure everyone's jobs despite budget cuts, and we have nothing to worry about. Then we took a personality quiz that said I was a character from Stranger Things. Then the next day, they told me I'm getting laid off and have 3 months left at the company.
Fucking RETREATS are so relaxing.

For me its more of a lack of understanding of a specific word's definition. The word? "Systematically"
"There's a problem systematically, so IT is gonna have to look at that."
They literally mean there is a problem with a computer or software and not anything related to a systematic process.
This drives me right up the wall. Everyone in management says it like a buzzword.

Streamline
- I mean, yeah, but actually streamlining things is something I like. I work on helicoptersn so example:
  Aircraft is broken because of a faulty component. So the maintainer has to go and sign on to our grossly over-bloated computer (which can take anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes to start up), look up the relevant illustrated parts breakdown and download it (because they've moved everything to the cloud from our previous local servers) which runs through our exceptionally bottle-necked security system (seriously, usually ~50-100kbps download on a 100Mbps connection), find the part, log into a different system to get the national standard number and see what type it is to find what system to look in to see if we have it, look up the part location. Look up the maintenance procedure card (which is not classified) from the same place as the manual, download it at 100kbps, figure out the operational check for the replaced component is not in the card but in a separate maintenance manual, go back into that system and download that manual, find the ops check. Try to print out both the card and the ops check from whatever printer wants to work today. Fill out a requisition form, grab the part, and now you can start the job. Basically, add approximately an hour of work to any task for this nonsense.
  Streamlined: Have a standalone computer that is not connected to the internet, is regularly updated via approved external hard drive with the latest Maintenance Procedure Cards and manuals, pre-filled requisition forms (with locations) for parts, lists of consumable components (like gaskets) for each repair, connected to a standalone printer hardwired to the standalone computer. Pull up card, manual, form, and ops check and print in 5 minutes.
  Finding time wasters that only serve to frustrate workers and finding ways to cut those time wasters out makes the workers and the managers happy, assuming the people doing the job want to do the job well and quickly (we all want to be here, so that describes our hangar deck).
  I'm a fan of streamlining.
  
  Like many buzzwords it's both a legitimate good idea and a concept a lot of people with no idea what's going on get a bug up their asses about and use to mean "shake stuff up that had been working fine on a hunch"

The whole "we're a family" motto. I never understood why this is a thing and why it should be a thing. There is no job that I've ever been comfortable getting that attached to.
- "Oh yeah? What's my name then?"

I had a manager who at the end of every meeting (and I mean EVERY meeting) said "go team!" It was especially annoying since he wasn't actually present in 99.9% of those meetings.
- I used to say Go Bills at the end of every meeting to my mostly local Western New York co-workers.
- I'd respond with "venture" every time.
- Sometimes I say this in a glib or sarcastic or ironic kind of way. It's not an "every meeting" kind of thing.
  I'm not a manager but maybe a supervisor I guess.

"Opportunities" when talking about shitty metrics.

Ping: emailing someone
Revert: emailing someone
[Topic] came up on diary: I'm emailing someone
Signs you work in a bullshit email job.

MVP - as in “minimum viable product”
More commonly known as the slop of a product or solution that’s being slinged to all the markets early on without adequate documentation, support, usability, scalability, standards or security.
“Corner the market” also deserves a disgusting mention.
- Especially if the MVP ends up with a lot of scope creep for features that are not MVP

“We work hard and play hard” makes my skin crawl. Also, had a manager who would describe every situation with a war analogy. Sorry Bob, this is Finance, we’re not literally killing each other. Take it down a notch.
- Everybody dance now!
- I work hard and I play hard. Not here to play.

One company I worked for decided it was a good idea to name a bunch of firings due to performance "Project Panda" 🤦
- I mean that one is kinda funny. "Project Sloth" might have worked a bit better but been too on the nose.

Can we "just double click on that" for a second?
shudders
- I have to say, I have used the phrase "Drill Down" to refer to the same thing? Does it cause the same reaction?
- What would a linux user say for this?
  "Can we just dot slash that then chmod plus x that semicolon dot slash that for a second"
  
  A linux user would just throw a craft beer bottle.
- I had a visceral reaction to this. If you've heard this in real life, my deepest sympathies.
  
  What is it even supposed to mean?!
- Ew.

not really corporate, but (as far as i know) it was brought into existence due to corporations: "unalive"

More from the sales types but saying 'value added' is the same as saying greedy mark up.

Leadership at the company I work for started saying "let's double click that" to mean let's go into more detail on that topic. Hate it.
Also "let's take this offline" which just means let's have a different meeting about it, it'll still be online because we're all remote.
- Also "let's take this offline" which just means let's have a different meeting about it, it'll still be online because we're all remote.
  See, I would think that would mean for more individual discussion, as in "this isn't relevant to this meeting, why don't you and I talk about this after the meeting or at a later point."
  I think everyone has those coworkers who see meetings as an opportunity to ask about things with no relevance to anyone else in the room and makes everybody sit through 10 minutes (per discussion) about an issue that only pertains to them, instead of just going to the manager/whatever's office in their own time to ask about their personal situation.
  If it's just to table it until another meeting, though, that doesn't make any sense.
  
  I think in many cases it results in separate discussion over slack, probably between managers but it still often ends up in a follow up meeting.
- In my experience, “take this offline” means they don’t want to have the discussion in front of present company.
  For example, mentioning anything less-than-ideal in a meeting in front of large groups. It’s basically a thinly veiled way to control morale through selective information.
  
  I guess it depends on the company, so far mine it's just making more meetings but keeping the current one focused. I'm fine with that, just hate the expression because it only makes sense if the follow up meeting was in person but we're all remote
- Oh snap I should have read more comments before posting about "double clicking". I hate it.
  I've been hearing "velocity" a lot recently and that also makes me cringe.
- The first one is an Abomination unto Nuggan. I'm OK with the second one being used in a meeting to divert a topic that needs covered but is getting off tack.
- Take it offline as in turning it off? "We're taking the service offline" or "Let's talk about this face to face?"
  
  Nope, all in a teams meeting discussing something, topic diverges or becomes too complicated and is slowing the meeting. Manager says "let's take this offline" or "we'll discuss offline". Keeps the meeting focused but I hate the phrase. It's not offline because it'll just be another teams meeting!
- Do you have a better way to phrase it? I usually see this to mean “focus on this topic rather than get distracted. We can discuss that later” … or I guess that’s a better way to phrase it
  
  Let's take that offline perhaps better as let's discuss that separately/later.
  Double clicking should just be something like "to go into more detail" or something. I get why it happens, easy and quick to say, i just find it so irritating.

“You don’t have a sense of urgency to get things done”. I usually get this when I’m going crazy to get things done so my status reports and presentations suffer. I understand paperwork is necessary, but can’t you at least say that rather than claiming I’m not getting things done. Meanwhile they’re satisfied with my sends of urgency to get things done if I just ignore my work and pamper them with status reports and PowerPoints.
- IME, when they talk about sense of urgency, they want you to cut corners and rush through everything, but somehow make no mistakes. Usually said when you've been assigned double the normal workload for your position.

I had one retail manager who constantly kept using "moving forward" for everything. It was so freaking grating!
I hate that I've learned to censor myself around these soulless void-skulls by replacing "problem" with "challenge." No, I don't "solve problems", because to acknowledge something as a problem is negativity we just don't need here at Emperor Clothing Inc! I "tackle challenges"!
It's so freaking goofy and they just eat it up. Everything needs some sort of business-positive spin or they lose their minds and think you're not being a "team player."
- I’ve got a manager that’s replaced problem with “opportunity to succeed”. Well, I’ve got 99 opportunities to succeed I guess.
- Seeing opportunities everywhere. The same underlying mechanism is at work here as with challenge: Let's replace the word for this bad thing with a different word that means something similar but positive. And then it looks like something good! I am very smart

Alright, team, let’s circle back and ensure we’re fully aligned on our north star objectives. We need to leverage synergy, engage in blue-sky thinking, and touch base on our pain points to drive mission-critical outcomes. But let’s not boil the ocean with unnecessary jargon - at the end of the day, we need to optimize our bandwidth for real, value-driven impact. If we keep moving the needle with this kind of thought leadership theater, we risk losing sight of our core competencies and drowning in a sea of meaningless buzzwords. Let’s pivot toward clear, actionable insights and sunset the overuse of strategic messaging before it becomes a blocker to true innovation. Instead of just playing the fast-follow game with every trending framework, let’s focus on original, high-impact execution that actually drives results.
~~Thoughts?~~ Chris, do you have any builds?
No?
Good. Then let's action this and drive it across the finish line!
- How do I delete someone else's comment.
  
  Thank you for reaching out. After a strategic review of available pathways, we regret to inform you that the requested course of action is not viable.
- Jesus fucking Christ. This was excellently written and horribly real.
  
  Other than the lack of a "shift left" it's just about perfect.
- There was a website at some point that would put up themed meeting phrases each week, with points if anyone used them and caught it. I still remember a few of them.
  “I don’t want a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, I expect a pot of uranium.”
  “We either play barbie or go home. I didn’t get come here today to be Skipper.”
  “I don’t say we build a barbie dream house, I want use to build a barbie on ecstasy house.”
  “Is this a queen alien problem? Or more of a face hugger we can ignore for a while?”
  
  I want this to still exist
- I threw up in my mouth a little bit.
- Thanks. It hit close to home. I hate it.
- Perfect except for ‘Thoughts?’ Instead of that it should be an appeal to the speaker’s boss: ‘Chris, do you have any builds?’
  
  Done. 😁
- Lol

Referring to people, staff as resources. Nice and dehumanizing.
- I've heard "human capital" before. The soulless fucks make others a commodity by stripping the mere mention of their existance of its humanity.
- An old line manager referred to me as a resource in front of me once. I should have told her to fuck off.

I heard "rightsizing" for the first time last year.
I have no idea what knucklehead PR dumbass came up with that but it made the following layoffs even more unpalatable.
- The only time I hear rightsizing is for cloud resources. I've never heard of it in human resources. That sucks.

Collaboration. I have never worked at a single company that wanted people talking or collaborating on the work floor, or even when sharing a cubicle, let alone listen to any suggestion us peons had to offer. They keep using it as an excuse for RTO.

'contextual knowledge'
this gem was put forward in all seriousness when the data didn't support the claims in the report: "it's not in the numbers, but we have a pretty good sense that this is true"
- "vibes"

Let's take it offline
- My thoughts exactly...Every time I walk by the door that says "server room."

when they give thier non-apology apologies.

There are many but I find "let's double-click on that" particularly grating
- "I already three-finger-swiped down to minimize, sorry."
- I always reply with, "Or we could right-click on that to see our options".
- I’ve never heard that one. What does that mean?
  
  It means let's take a closer look at a problem or project. Sounds like a Microsoftism

Please socialise the requirement throughout your teams

Let's circle back.