On Tuesday, The Globe posted a story on “corporate-speak,” and why younger workers aren’t a fan of the somewhat confusing jargon. We asked our readers to share their thoughts on the pushback and they had a lot to say.
Here’s a round-up of some of our favorite comments:
“Many years ago (that’s how old this issue is), my supervisor started using ‘deliverables’ to refer to pretty much any deadline. I took to swapping-in the word, ‘cupcakes.’ She eventually demanded that I stop, but I’m pretty sure I made my point.”
“I don’t like ‘best practices’ either. Coming from a type a personality, aren’t we paid to work hard and perform, always integrating best practices? Isn’t that always what we’re always striving for? Why do we have to say it? It’s a given.”
“Folks. Stop calling me folks.”
“If I hear ‘lean in’ I immediately tune out. And when management refers to employees as ‘team members,’ you know they can’t be trusted.”
“‘Stakeholders’ & ‘Vertical Integration’ should be banned forever.”
“‘Think outside the box’ makes me want to scream.”
“Recently retired but If I heard one more person say holistic my head was going to explode.”
“Meets Expectations. I retired 11 years ago, and still cringe when I hear the term.”
“This is right up there with cop speak. Where do these nonsensical terms come from?”
“About 15 years ago I was no longer allowed to have a problem, it was now called a challenge. No one is allowed to have problems any more at work!”
“Still not sure what a KPI is and at this point I’m afraid to ask…”
“Corporate speak makes great Mad Libs.”
“Please, please, please someone kill off ‘Happy Friday!’ (and all its midweek permutations).”
“Yeah, we had a guy who was constantly spewing these ridiculous phrases.We would play ‘Bill’s business jargon Bingo’ in meetings to the point we were all marking our cards whenever he said ‘circling back’ or ‘bandwidth’ etc etc. We’d lose track of what the meeting was actually about!”
“‘No problem.’ UGH.”
@bostonglobe We’re just circling back. Gen Z and millennial workers don’t seem to be fans of “corporate-speak.”
♬ original sound - The Boston Globe
We also posted a poll on Twitter to find out what corporate jargon is the most hated.
Here’s a look at the results:
IRL: @danagerber6 breaks down corporate speak and why young workers want to get rid of it. https://t.co/YgYQjEpMiu
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) January 24, 2023
What corporate jargon do you hate the most?
We’ll circle back...
Jenna Reyes can be reached at jenna.reyes@globe.com. Follow her @jennaelaney and Instagram @jennaelaney.