If you manage to restrain yourself from poking the eyes of a person who uses one of these 16 most annoying business phrases and buzzwords, you have reached a new level of Zen tranquility.
We get it. The language is a living thing, and it keeps changing and evolving as new concepts and ideas are introduced into human society. But the only thing more annoying than grammar Nazis who try to keep English as pure as it was during the Queen Victoria’s reign, God bless her soul, are the people who try to inflate their ego by inventing new phrases and buzzwords as if their lives depend on it. Truth be told, business isn’t the only field of human endeavor where this happens, but somehow their jargon is the most annoying. If you ever feel a need to act like a complete moron, just drop few of this in a meeting and see where it takes you.
Some of these annoying phrases and buzzwords are racist, some are sexists, or insulting or just plain stupid. What they all have in common is the fact that people around you will want to kill you in most painful way possible when you use them. Or at least never take you seriously again. For the most part, people who use them are trying to hide the fact that they have absolutely no idea what are they talking about. That is why you will seldom hear these phrases in any of the Most Profitable Businesses with Low Startup Cost.
Some of these are so rage-inducing that caution is advised before proceeding. Ever heard a CEO uttering a phrase:” I’ll send my SWAT team to deal with that.”? The team in question represents experts in given field who have gained a reputation of quickly and efficiently solving problems thrown at them. In reality, it’s just a bunch of fat, middle-aged guys in suits which would be the first ones eaten in a Zombie apocalypse. Calling them SWAT is an insult not just to real SWAT members, but for every intelligent being on the planet.
Even worse than SWAT teams are Tiger Teams. These are a bit more specialized, as they tend to only deal with computer issues. If your online sales are experiencing an unacceptable downtime, you’d call one of these and watch in horror as a group of bearded individuals in jeans and T-shirts starts spreading their body odors all over your server room. Calling these keyboard warriors tigers should be punishable by lashing.
And these two didn’t even make it into top 16 most annoying business phrases and buzzwords, so try to imagine what linguistic horrors did. In order to create the list, we consulted the experts on business, Forbes. They conducted a competition in which their readers voted via Tweeter for the most make-your-blood-boil annoying phrase ever used in the business world. Business Insider also made their list, which we shamelessly plundered and to confirm that our cousins across the pond suffer from the same issue, we took a few business jargon phrases from the Guardian’s list. Here are the combined results.
16. Core Competency
This phrase is coined to describe the strong points of a company or of an individual. The trouble is that isn’t what competency means. Also, core? What about peripheral competency?
15. Ecosystem
Seriously? Are you going to use ecosystem to describe your organization? So, in that analogy, who gets to be mosquito? I’m guessing predators represent the upper management, but you can’t have an ecosystem without plants also.
14. Thinking outside the box
Leave me and my box alone, you annoying creature. Try to come up with your own unique ideas for once, instead of ripping off other people and passing their work as your own. Now, how many of you wanted to say this to your boss?
13. Vertical
This one on our list of most annoying business phrases and buzzwords is especially infuriating because they invented a new and completely redundant phrase to describe something that existed forever. If you make a piece of software that only serves sales, then you’re serving sales vertical. Why not just sales? It is a great way to sound pretentious and ignorant at the same time.
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12. Bleeding Edge
For those times when cutting edge just doesn’t, well, cut it, someone invented even stronger buzzword. It doesn’t just cut, it also makes you bleed, so you know it’s good, and you should give your money to the person who speaks so eloquently.
11. Take Offline
When I hear a person using the phrase “take offline” in the sense of shutting something down, I always imagine the Skynet ordering a factory to stop producing Terminator T-800 model so that it can be retooled for T-1000 production. So unless you are planning to take over the world in a robot uprising, stop using it. You are not taking anything offline, you just want to sound smart, and there are far better ways of doing that, like using the words that actually mean something.
10. Corporate Values
If corporations are people, it only makes sense that they too have values, just like regular persons. They also have beliefs and feelings. What do you mean no? So what are their values based upon? Let’s make this clear, corporations are people only in the eyes of the courts of law. They don’t have values, as much as a rock doesn’t have them. A person who throws the rock, that’s who has values.
9. Best Practices
Have you heard someone say something like: “We need to take a look at best practices in order to improve.” Seriously? That doesn’t go without saying anymore? What’s next, we need to stay away from the worst practices? Since when did the stating the obvious became a virtue? Why do you need to say that and, more importantly, why do I need to hear it?
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8. Peel the Onion
Now, strictly linguistically speaking, this isn’t a terrible metaphor. What landed it on the 8th spot among 16 most annoying business phrases and buzzwords is the fact that the phrase is used to death and beyond and has become the buzzword for people too lazy or stupid to come up with something fresh.
7. Giving 110%
You can’t. Stop saying that, nobody can’t give 110%. It is literary impossible to do it. Even as a metaphor it is impossible for a person to go even 1%, much less so 10% of their capabilities. If somebody manages to do it, it simply means they weren’t trying hard enough before. Simply said, if one of your employees starts giving 110%, it means they have been cheating on you in the past. And now, let’s see what else we have in our list of most annoying business phrases and buzzwords.
6. Do more with less
If your boss ever says this to you, you can take it as an official confirmation that you are working for a very stingy person.
5. Open the Kimono
This one on our list of most annoying business phrases and buzzwords, is used as a euphemism for a person (usually the opponent in a business deal) revealing information. It manages to be both sexist and racist at the same time, sort of killing two birds with one stone, just like a good insult should be. So, if your aim is to insult someone, feel free to use it. If not, stay away from it.
4. It is what it is
Are you sure? Could it be that it is what it isn’t? Stranger things have known to happen, so why not that as well? No? 100% convinced it is what it is? Ok then. Just wanted to make sure we understand each other. Thank you so much for pointing out that to me. Now please never speak to me again.
3. Empower
This is perhaps the most condescending phrase in the world and on our list of most annoying business phrases and buzzwords. When someone, usually your boss, empowers you, he or she is saying that you lack the ability to get the job done and you need to borrow their authority to do it. Maybe if a job needs that kind of authority, it isn’t a job for you, but for your boss? It’s just another way of delegating jobs management can’t be bothered with, but since they are in their job description, they need to get them done.
2. Leverage
We are continuing our list of most annoying business phrases and buzzwords with the number – first of all, it is a noun, not a verb. You can’t leverage something; you can only use leverage. Second, it is a very ruthless thing to do, especially in a true business sense of the way. You are basically saying that you will use whatever means necessary to pressure someone into agreeing to a deal with you under your terms, regardless of how illegal or immoral those means are. Needless to say, people who “leverage” other people don’t have many friends.
1. Drinking the Kool-Aid
There are better ways of illustrating your loyalty to a corporation and willingness to accept every decision blindly without even the slightest hesitation than to refer to a tragic event that left almost 1,000 people dead. Drinking the Kool-Aid refers to the Jonestown massacre, in which 916 members of Peoples Temple committed suicide, and using it casually for something as trivial as abiding by a corporate policy is incredibly disrespectful. That is why “Drinking the Kool-Aid” holds the top spot among 16 most annoying business phrases and buzzwords. We need you to toe the line on this one and never use it again.
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