Corporate BS

Here’s the Corporate BS for September 21-27:

September 21–miscommunication:  A clever way to conceal one’s own failure to communicate something by appearing not to blame the addressee, e.g., “Oh, we must have had a miscommunication”; a classic passive-aggressive move; a word for not getting what you want from somebody, e.g., “I think we’re having a miscommunication” or “You idiot!  Do it the way I want or I’m going to kick your ass.”

September 22–for the record:  A phrase invoked to cover one’s ass, as in “I’m saying this in case this idea totally backfires”; a vain effort to protect yourself if something goes horribly wrong since you’ve stated your reservations, but the fact is you’re going down with the ship anyway.

September 23–process:  The way something is done, which often comes under fire from consultants who will seek to remove any inefficiencies or pain points, which they will inevitably find, even if they have to make them up or pay someone else to suddenly create one.

September 24–early adopter:  Someone who is stupid enought to buy the latest gadget at an outrageous price before a consensus regarding its quality is reached; marketing folks love these people and refer to them behind closed doors as “easily manipulated suckers.”

September 25–expense overrun:  The exceeding of a budget using money you didn’t have; could be the result of a massive screw-up, or done intentionally to spite a manager who didn’t allocate enough funds for a project in the first place; alternatively, someone lied about how much a project was going to cost just to get it approved, banking on the fact that onece the overrun happened, it would be too later to do anything about it.

September 26–share of wallet:  The latest way of saying “squeezing more money that anybody else out of people who can’t afford our product,” as in “If we sell three hamburgers for a dollar, in the end we’ll get more share of the wallet than Burgermeister with their UberBeef” or “This futuristic packaging plus our insane ad-time buy in the end will result in more share of wallet than Coolio Inc.”

September 27–ideation:  Pretentious word used out of necessity, as any sense of fun, creativity, and productivity has been beaten out of “brainstorming,” and because whenever staffers get wind of a brainstorming session they now run like hell.