The Jargon Has Become A Bit Of A Game. November Storms. Let’s Keep It Real.
I am guilty as charged. Like many, I have been exposed to the corporate board room, many ‘C-level’ meetings, and now the all-encompassing virtual meeting via Team, Zoom, Slack, Skype and most of the rest of the platforms. Though I have found most of the meetings productive, but probably a bit long in the tooth, my takeaway from many of these types of meetings and variable webinars, is the vocabulary contest challenging the ‘Queen’s English’. Again, some of this business speak sometimes comes from my mouth but I wanted to give my take on some of the puzzling jargon.
- 30,000 foot view. The subject matter is so beneath you that you could give a rat’s ass.
- Dot your t’s and cross your i’s. Not if you went to my high school. Not happening.
- Bandwidth. Capacity is too much of word for me so how could I ever use bandwidth to describe the word capacity?
- Go all in. Really? I thought we were only going to go 50% on this project?
- Deck. The first time someone asked me if I had completed the ‘deck’ I told them I have no interest in playing cards. A deck? You mean a PRESENTATION?
- Back-end. Not going there. Nope.
- Low hanging fruit. See above; not going there.
- Onboarding. This must have come from the Navy or Coast Guard. Onboard this.
- Heavy lifting. Hey HR, my job description did not include physical labor.
- I’ll run that up the flagpole. You mean you have no authority so you will ask someone else for approval?
- Boil an ocean. You mean something that is just plain stupid to take on?
- Take it offline. What you really mean is to just forget about what you are trying to explain.
It has been a very interesting week. No, I am not referring to the election, but ETA. Not the ‘estimated time of arrival’ but the storm named the same that somehow hit Central America last week and then decided to turn towards Florida. Is it not already November 7th?
After the last six days, I am very happy that I divorced myself from politics long ago. No editorializing, no opinion, no take. With that said, I have heard from some of my friends around the world who are asking me and to a degree challenging me with the American political system and the electoral process. Words from them included: embarrassing, shameful, mockery, and sad. So to all my friends who live abroad, let me be very clear with my response to you. The United States is a democracy and like the majority of countries around the world, the electoral process is not perfect and at times obviously not precise. I would ask you to look at your own country’s electoral process before you comment on the United States of America. By the way, let me be very clear with this statement: no matter who leads the United States, we are the first country to respond with financial and military aid when our allies and antagonists are in trouble. So go look in the mirror and before you make negative comments about the United States, figure out the crap that goes on with your own politics and electoral process. I would also offer up that if you feel the United States is so ‘bad’, do all of us a favor and don’t come here. There, I said it.
Adios, hope for an Atlanta United win on Sunday, and have a great weekend.