Corporate BS

One of my Christmas gifts was the calendar for corporate BS (not abbreviated on front of calendar) by Lois Beckwith and published by Workman Publishing Company.  I encourage you to buy one.   It’s still early enough in the year.

You may think you know all the corporate BS words, but I can assure you that you don’t.   I assume Ms. Beckwith or Workman will let me know if they don’t want me giving you the word for each day, but until they do, I thought I would share this important must-have-to-make-it-in-corporate-America information.

January 1–holiday halo effect:  The phenomenon occurring in the days (and often weeks) before and after the company’s observance of a holiday that renders employees virtually incapable of completing any work; the holiday halo effect is always followed by the postholiday clinical depression halo.

January 2–ASAP: a last-minute qualifier invariably preceded by “I/we need this”; while “as soon as possible” normally implies some flexibility of expectation, ASAP really means “Stop everything you’re doing and take care of this now. I don’t care if your child has a 105 fever.”

January 3–ass kisser: A person who engages in kissing ass; also known as a brown-noser; being an ass kisser is still probably the best way to advance your career, get off the hook for making really big mistakes, and score the best office; if you can stomach it, highly recommended, but be advised you’ll probably hate yourself in the morning.

January 4–boss: A person who, through a cruel twist of fate, has authority and power over you and the license to make you feel like shit, simply because he or she hired you–often, in fact, to do his or her job.

January 5–bottom line: A reference to the actual bottom line on a profit-and-loss statement; also used metaphorically to denote the end result, the basic and important gist; the number on the P & L statement to which your contribution may very well result in the termination of your job.

January 6–brain dump: When someone places a foot-high stack of files filled with illegible and incomprehensible notes on your desk, clogs your e-mail in-box with a dozen or so messages, talks to you for 15 minutes about useless information regarding a project they’ve been working on for six months, and concludes with “So, is that clear? Do you have any questions?”

January 7–brain fart: A mistake for which there is no acceptable excuse, making the best way to handle it an admission of complete incompetence and stupidity for which coworkers forgive you in the hope that, the next time they themselves brain fart, you will return the favor.

January 8–brainstorm: An allegedly creative and nonjudgmental forum where “no idea is a bad idea”–that is, of course, until you generate a bad idea and are met with uncomfortable silence and looks indicating that you are retarded or really uncool; normally followed by the feeling that you are about to be fired.

January 9–once: The number of times you can commit a particular error or make a mistake before it will be construed as habitual; also, the number of times you may make a mistake before your boss construes it as a solid evidence that you’re not ready to be promoted to the next level.

January 10–110 percent: An annoying, to say nothing of mathematically impossible, measure of performance or effort, which, if you think about it, doesn’t mean jack, because even if you could give 110 percent, you still might produce only 82 percent, which is, like, a low B.

January 11–onetime expense: A way of getting away with spending an enormous amount of company funds on a huge mistake, such as the exorbitant remodeling of the office of the new SVP–who resigns a month later.

January 12–salary requirements: The amount of money a prospective employer will not be able to pay you; also, a handy cover for the real reason a job candidate is rejected.

January 13–open-door policy: Completely meaningless and almost nonexistent practice that managers feel compelled to claim they maintain because they heard about it in a company-sponsored Management Training workshop; attempts to take a boss upon the offer to speak to him or her will be met with an icy stare and often result in an immediate downgrading of your future prospects at the company.