Corporate BS

Here’s the Corporate BS for May 25-31:

May 25–living document:  A master file, such as a schedule or a list of current client information, that is supposed to be continually updated and revised according to new information relevant to its contents, but is usually neither; frequently, several versions of the “master” document will exist, resulting in the exact same circumstance that necessitated the creation of the living document in the first place; updating the living document is a popular form of busywork, which is part of the reason why it never gets done.

May 26–logo:  The graphic representation of a company, which ranges from the name of the company written in a specific font in a specific Pantone color to an indecipherable graphic or illustration that communicates absolutely nothing about the company, including what the hell it does; object of much agitation among marketing people when the use of the logo “isn’t compliant” with the style guide, the bible of how the logo may be used.

May 27–low-hanging fruit:  Something that’s easy to accomplish or get, without which the pipeline would be empty, and which, when business is bad, will be upgraded to “big wins”; also, code for “we could sucker these guys, no problem” or “we could take their market share, no sweat.”

May 28–lunch:  The company-sanctioned midday period during which you are allowed to leave the building in the name of eating food, but often don’t and instead eat in front of your computer out of a cardboard box provided by the cafeteria; if lunch occurs outside the premises, it is often because a colleague wants to pump you for information, talk to you in the hope you can give him or her a job, create an alliance to screw someone else, or just bitch off the record.

May 29–mail room:  Stark space lit with fluorescent lights that usually looks like a category 4 hurricane has just passed through, dedicated to processing and distributing an organization’s mail; notorious for being a black hole, particularly for extremely important FedEx packages scheduled for an early A.M. delivery; may be filled with mood music ranging from very loud hard rock to hip-hop; making friends with mailroom inhabitants may save your job.

May 30–making a decision by not making one:  Extremely common and passive tactic employed by senior managers who are allegedly in their positions in part because of their ability to make smart decisions, let alone any decision at all; when supervisors engage in this practice, stressed-out employees will be forced to “check in” incessantly for an answer, lie to others to hide the fact a choice has not been made, and spend many hours anticipating multiple outcomes and preparing for all of them.

May 31–manage up:  To place the immediate and long-term needs of a superior above all other concerns with the goal of ensuring the boss’s approval and maximizing one’s promotability; a common cause of neglectful and irresponsible management because seeing what your staff is doing is difficult when you have your head up the boss’s ass, and if you’re good at managing up, well, it won’t matter what’s going on with your employees, anyway.

1. 

   John Phillips says:

   June 3, 2008 at 6:16 am

   Thanks for the mention.
2. 

   Totally Consumed says:

   June 3, 2008 at 2:16 pm

   I love the post! If you haven’t seen it, you might enjoy checking out the bullfighter program. It measures documents, emails, etc and gives a grade based on how much bulls*it, corporate jargon and poor grammar a piece of writing contains. http://www.fightthebull.com
3. 

   John Phillips says:

   June 3, 2008 at 3:32 pm

   Thanks for directing me to fightthebull. I didn’t know about it but will make it one of my regulars. What’s amazing is that people come into the corporate world talking like normal people and within a month, a week if they’re quick learners, talk unintelligibly.