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Management-speak: Or let’s incentivize our workers to get complete buy-in to become a product evangelist and platform atheist

I consider myself very fortunate that I don’t work in business. As a physician and a scientist, I just don’t think I would fit in the culture that well. Oh, I’m sure I’d adapt if ever the killer opportunity in big pharma or surgical device manufacturing ever came around to which I couldn’t say “no,” but this bit on the 50 Office-Speak Phrases You Love To Hate shows that I’d clearly have a lot to learn as far as the language goes.

The list is from England, but I’m sure my American readers will recognize many of the same phrases, albeit maybe spelled or phrased a bit differently. My favorite? It’s either got to be:

“My employers (top half of FTSE 100) recently informed staff that we are no longer allowed to use the phrase brain storm because it might have negative connotations associated with fits. We must now take idea showers. I think that says it all really.”
Anonymous, England

The connotations of the term “idea shower”…disturb me.

Or maybe this one:

“At my old company (a US multinational), anyone involved with a particular product was encouraged to be a product evangelist. And software users these days, so we hear, want to be platform atheists so that their computers will run programs from any manufacturer.”
Philip Lattimore, Thailand

Isn’t this sending mixed messages, being an evangelist on the one hand and an atheist on the other? (I’m so confused.) And what does “platform atheist” mean, anyway? That you don’t believe that any platforms exist?

Anyway, if you have any good examples of office-speak that are either not on the list or are particularly amusing examples of ones from the list, lay ’em on me in the comments.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

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