Let’s Put These Buzzwords to Sleep for Good in 2016

I once had a colleague who, in the course of everyday conversation, seemed to almost despair if at least one of his sentences within a complete paragraph didn’t contain a common buzzword.

“Bill, at the end of the day we have to get this out the door.”

With pearls of wisdom like that lobbed at you on a daily basis, you sort of get the idea.

So, along those lines and at least once a year, I feel the need to vent about the absurd overuse of workplace buzzwords and jargon, which unless it’s my imagination or perhaps paranoia, has seemed to proliferate exponentially over the past several years.

Perhaps it’s collateral damage from the abbreviated world of Twitter or texting, but I’ll let far brighter minds than mine sort that out.

So with that in mind, here’s my 2016 list that should long ago have been put out to pasture (I didn’t just say that did I?) and some suggested alternative phrases that can be used.

To wit:

“Ping me.” Did “call or email me” suddenly become obsolete?

“Hit the ground running.” “Quickly” is so much more succinct.

“Lots of moving parts.” An automobile or washing machine has lots of moving parts. I’ve never encountered anything remotely resembling the inside of a crankshaft or water pump in business.

“Move the needle.” Here’s a suggestion- shape the (expletive) up or you’re fired.

“Let’s take this offline.” Can I speak to you privately?

“Looks like we got our signals crossed. “Each time I hear this, I’m tempted to throw a right cross. How about using “misunderstood?”

“Bandwidth.” We’re not searching the Sirius dial here. Something either has the capacity or it doesn’t.

“Run it up the flagpole.” Unfortunately this has been a tried and true office cliché since Madison Avenue in the 1950s. How about “Let’s see what everyone thinks.”

“Scalable.” A relative newbie to the pantheon of overused workplace buzzwords. Flexible or adaptive will do just fine thank you.

And finally one that I have heard repeated at an almost nauseating rate – “Opening the Kimono.” Somehow I can’t get the image of seeing The Mikado or M Butterfly out of my mind when I hear this.

There. I’m glad I got that off my chest.

I can’t believe I did it again.