Management speak bullshit

[SweetLeftFoot]

In my line of work, I encounter a lot PR and managemnet speak crap.

But today I have hit upon surely the worst ever. Am doing a piece about Scottish Government's marine bill that is coming up at the end of the month - the glamour of journalism hey - and was interviewing this bloke from a quasi govt agency.

He kept going on about the 'marine resource' and I actually had no idea what he was on about for ten minutes until it dawned on me he was referring to the sea.

He then managed to one up himself by reminding me that in this debate, its vital to recall that its a UK-wide marine resource, which I think was his way of saying Britain is an island and thus surrounded by water.

 

[blackshadow]

In my line of work, I encounter a lot PR and managemnet speak crap.

But today I have hit upon surely the worst ever. Am doing a piece about Scottish Government's marine bill that is coming up at the end of the month - the glamour of journalism hey - and was interviewing this bloke from a quasi govt agency.

He kept going on about the 'marine resource' and I actually had no idea what he was on about for ten minutes until it dawned on me he was referring to the sea.

He then managed to one up himself by reminding me that in this debate, its vital to recall that its a UK-wide marine resource, which I think was his way of saying Britain is an island and thus surrounded by water.

I hope the final piece is written up to have a dig at his management drivel.

 

[SweetLeftFoot]

I might try but they have loads of cash and are quite important so best not piss them off as I'll probably need em again.

 

[wombles]

Absolute pet hate as well SLF.

'Action items', 'looking forward to the future', 'its on the table', 'turn-key solution'.

Gah! It sends me round the twist. It also infuriates me that footballers and coaches speak in those terms as well.

If you have a chance read some of Don Watson's work. You'll find plenty of fuel for your fire.

 

[Gabbie]

I've worked with and dealt with some PR types and the sad thing is, they actually believe the dribble they spout. IMO most of them are about as genuine as a Milli Vanilli DVD.

 

[SweetLeftFoot]

Absolute pet hate as well SLF.

'Action items', 'looking forward to the future', 'its on the table', 'turn-key solution'.

Gah! It sends me round the twist. It also infuriates me that footballers and coaches speak in those terms as well.

If you have a chance read some of Don Watson's work. You'll find plenty of fuel for your fire.

Yeah, have read Watson on this.

'Going forward' I particularly hate.

 

[blackshadow]

I'm going forward to reach some milestones.

 

[SweetLeftFoot]

Good input.

Re: the off-ticket vision outside the loop with DP and AS yest.

Action discipline, or do we want to go for the low hanging fruit and just hose this one down?

Looks like we're going to have to eat a shit sandwich here.

 

[Mr Reliable]

Sadly, it's not limited to PR types. As you correctly identify, it's 'management speak'.

At the end of the day () managers love to bring this sort of stuff to the table () and upstage their colleagues.

"We've jumped the shark." "I've got skin in this."

People can be speaking to me and I'll have no idea what they're talking about at first.

There was a game you could play at meetings/presentations - Bullshit Bingo - does it still exist?

 

[blackshadow]

I'm just touching base with you to give you a heads up that as a result of a paradigm shift we need to take an ideas shower involving 360-degree thinking to map the best way to move forward so as to maximise the leverage of our assets.
This must be actioned post haste.

 

[Mr Reliable]

I'm just touching base with you to give you a heads up that as a result of a paradigm shift we need to take an ideas shower involving 360-degree thinking to map the best way to move forward so as to maximise the leverage of our assets.
This must be actioned post haste.

You've been to too many meetings. You need to be parked for a while.

 

[wombles]

This nugget I found on weaselwords.com:

'These pilots will trial or expand initiatives that exemplify strategies to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for those students most in need of support...' Media release from Kevin Rudd PM and Julia Gillard, Deputy PM and Minister for Education.

I think it translates as 'we are trying a few new things to educate our children'.

 

[blackshadow]

This nugget I found on weaselwords.com:

'These pilots will trial or expand initiatives that exemplify strategies to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for those students most in need of support...' Media release from Kevin Rudd PM and Julia Gillard, Deputy PM and Minister for Education.

I think it translates as 'we are trying a few new things to educate our children'.

Now now - don't belittle this - some departmental advisor probably worked on those words for days!

 

[SweetLeftFoot]

This nugget I found on weaselwords.com:

'These pilots will trial or expand initiatives that exemplify strategies to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for those students most in need of support...' Media release from Kevin Rudd PM and Julia Gillard, Deputy PM and Minister for Education.

I think it translates as 'we are trying a few new things to educate our children'.

I think it is even more basic. The translation for mine is: "We will use the best possible ways of teaching kids to read and count"

 

[Boozeroo]

It's merely corporate support staff proliferating the discourse with additional qualified team members in the immediate area of tactical and fiscal concentration....

i.e money attracts slick talking f**kwits.

 

[JD-Roo]

My pet hate lately is when people are asked to talk "to the document" in our meetings. What the hell happened to "about" ??

I've never been asked this, but I think my boss knows that if they ever do I'll quietly shuffle the papers, walk to the front of the room, look everyone square in the eye............


........and turn to the document in my hand and say:

"So how was the weekend....really?..... me?... Not much...." and so on.

 

[Mr Reliable]

Kevin Rudd's good at this stuff!

Andrew Maher is a BS merchant of a different type. His style is to repeat himself over and over and over by saying again and again the same thing he just said, but in slightly different ways, thereby reiterating what he said originally and then repeating it several times in the same sentence by emphasising his original point (again).

He only stops speaking when he needs to breathe.

 

[blackshadow]

Kevin Rudd's good at this stuff!

Here's a little goodness from our PM

While addressing German press and Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr Rudd said it was unlikely any progress would emerge from the Major Economies Forum (MEF) 'by way of detailed programmatic specificity'.

 

[tazaa]

This nugget I found on weaselwords.com:

'These pilots will trial or expand initiatives that exemplify strategies to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for those students most in need of support...' Media release from Kevin Rudd PM and Julia Gillard, Deputy PM and Minister for Education.

I think it translates as 'we are trying a few new things to educate our children'.

Trying to dissect that actually gives you a headache.