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  #1  
Old 10-04-2011, 12:28 PM
Fold on dotted line
 
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Holy Guacamole, I no longer speak English!

I was asked to attend a meeting at a company (I won't name it) with a certain number of middle-level and senior people, to address issues with which I am familiar.

I adopted the fly-on-the-wall mentality to assess the terrain.
Two hours later (an hour longer than planned and scheduled) my head hurt.

In this meeing I heard people say things like:

1. " What we need here is a synergistic propedeutic to massage the hurtful instance away (from the marketing guy, late 30s)"

2. " Once we formulate the ideology of our stance, we need to socialize it among the potentially concurring members (the planning lady, mid 30s)"

3. " Once we kiss the snake, it all goes away (business development guy, mid 30s)"

What are these people smokin' ?
No wonder American business is falling apart. Corporations have fallen in love with themselves. Or their staffs have.

In the meeting, no one had posted an agenda or figured out what parts of the non-existent agenda they had / had not accomplished.

Two hours of my life I'll never get back....

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  #2  
Old 10-04-2011, 12:35 PM
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That gobbly gook is used to hide the fact that they have nothing to offer.
If you can't state your proposition is a simple sentence, you don't have it sufficiently clear in your own mind.
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  #3  
Old 10-04-2011, 12:48 PM
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You sat through two hours of that and you didn't start to take the piss?
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  #4  
Old 10-04-2011, 12:54 PM
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What business sector are we talking about here? Manufacturing? Technology? Service ?

I can't imaging maunfacturing guys or people with science, math or business backgrounds talking like this? Yes. I'm old school. But at least I can speak clearly. After all, I have spent my career trying to explain income taxes to people. Not an easy task.
(Thank you Dale Carnegie)

"...to massage the hurtful instance away"? Huh???

Good grief. That's just incomprehensible. (At least to me)
I'll bet you Edwin Newman is turning over in his grave.
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  #5  
Old 10-04-2011, 01:07 PM
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Guess you're not that familiar with it then...

It all starts in grade school. You should see what kind of aids they dream up to teach the kids that 1+3=4.
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  #6  
Old 10-04-2011, 01:15 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dynalow View Post
I can't imaging manufacturing guys or people with science, math or business backgrounds talking like this?
Those guys, no, managers, yes...
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  #7  
Old 10-04-2011, 01:59 PM
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propedeutic <-- use that in a sentence.
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  #8  
Old 10-04-2011, 02:35 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuan View Post
propedeutic <-- use that in a sentence.
That dick was behaving like a propedeutic today?
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  #9  
Old 10-04-2011, 02:41 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuan View Post
propedeutic <-- use that in a sentence.

May I use you (Kuan) for a propedeutic?
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  #10  
Old 10-04-2011, 02:45 PM
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Jeez, just when I get used to "silos" they go and throw new ones into the mix?

I can't say that I understand (either the words or the need to use them) new business lingo. I'm moving up to V.P. of a trade organization next month and the past two guys were quite fluent in business-ese and masterful b.s. artists. I'm a straight-talker and just get to the point so it'll be interesting to see the reaction. Either like a fart in church or a welcome change.
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  #11  
Old 10-04-2011, 02:47 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuan View Post
propedeutic <-- use that in a sentence.
What we need here is a synergistic propedeutic to massage the hurtful instance away.
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  #12  
Old 10-04-2011, 03:40 PM
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I noticed this starting to creep into meetings about 20 years ago. It always came from MBA's that were trying to tell us that just because we had been making profits for the past 120 years it was time to start doing things differently.

One of the older guys in the room pointed out that if they continued to speak in terms no one could understand then no one would care about what they said.

We were told that the group addressing us (there were five of them) all had MBA's from Ivy League schools so it was not unusual that we could not understand them. One fellow from Romania pointed out that perhaps it was just his poor understanding of the English language, but that out of the 40 or so people in the room only three did not have Phd.'s in their field and some had two such degrees. One guy, a Nobel Laureate, pointed out he was also having trouble keeping up.

I told them my problem was not that I was dumb but that I was lazy, and many others then confessed that was their major problem as well.

I finally went down the hall and pulled in the CEO and asked him if he could translate for us. One guy asked if they could give their talk in Russian or French since he spoke both fluently.

The CEO could not understand what they were talking about, either, so they just decided to dumb it down for us.

In every meeting after that we started out by reminding them that we were really just a bunch of hicks that only came downtown to look at the tall buildings, and to remember that when they spoke to us.
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  #13  
Old 10-04-2011, 04:22 PM
sjh sjh is offline
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People use 'buzzwords' and vogue phrases to demonstrate that they are an insider, that they are separate from the non-literate other.

My observation is that the more their job is due to chance, connection and BS the more bogus terminology is used. When one deals with individuals of substance the more the 'non-necessary verbal separateness' decreases.
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  #14  
Old 10-04-2011, 05:17 PM
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You should have stood up an and said in a southern drawl "what we have here is a failure to communicate".
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  #15  
Old 10-04-2011, 07:06 PM
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If you cant fool them with facts, just baffle them with B#ll S##T !!!

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