Another thing I don’t miss about working in an office is the corporate speak. I should like to make reading this information mandatory curriculum for the people I used to work with but there is as much hope for that as there is for having read it to effect any change.

It seems like all corporate folk must have gone to the same seminar on how to appear busy. I know this because whenever I cordially asked someone how they were, invariably the response was “busy.” Knock it off. I asked you how you are. I didn’t ask you about your workload or work ethic. Do you think you could be a human being for just a second? Besides, you’re not fooling anyone. Sheesh. I stopped asking people how they were. But, when asked, I refused to ever answer the question with “busy.”

Here are some key language pointers you should have learned in grade school but clearly didn’t. “In regards to” is wrong. It’s true, language changes and evolves. Language is organic. But wrong will always be wrong and stupid will nearly always be stupid. “In regard to” is correct but still stupid. It’s long and it sounds fancy but it isn’t. Try “regarding” or “concerning” or, if you’re feeling particularly cavalier, how about “about”? Similarly, “anyways” is wrong. There is no such word. If you need to fill dead space, if you need to announce a transition in thought, you could try “anyway.” That, gratefully, is an actual word. “Basically” isn’t wrong. But it’s still stupid. “Basically” is an apology for what you’re about to say. Either a thing is true or untrue. Something that is basically true is just a little untrue. “Basically” transforms a slap into a tap. But the worst example of butchering the English language remains “irregardless.” I’m not making this up. I heard this at work so often. How did these people even get jobs? If “regardless” means without any regard or without any concern then clearly “irregardless” means without without regard, or rather, with complete regard. And that’s just stupid. I don’t care if you are busy. Stop it, stop it now. It hurts my ears.

Watch this: “I have a dream that basically one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning in regards to its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men, irregardless of their color, are basically created equal.” Nonsense.

“Orientated” is exactly the same word as “oriented” according to the complete OED except that “orientated”, as a word, expired in 1926. While it’s perhaps admirable how ferociously you try to rally to bring back a dead word, what’s the point when there’s a perfectly good shorter word that means the same thing? Stop saying orientated, please. It’s the affliction of corrupting nouns and verbs that causes such words as “orientated”. It’s crazy how much corporate folk corrupt nouns and verbs. I am going to leverage something. Leverage is a noun. My ask. Ask is a verb. Our spend. Spend is a verb. Our learnings. Learning is a verb. And verbs are not plural. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

Some advice. Get some new expressions. Every time I heard “singing from the same song sheet” and “stealing from Peter to pay Paul” I wanted to jump out the window and I would have too except I worked on the second floor and I didn’t want to be merely maimed.

I am opposed to “lunch 創 learn” for entirely different reasons. No I’m not horrified by the 創. I’m horrified by the idea. I dislike very much communal eating. I dislike very much people watching me eat. When I’m chewing down my microwaved pizza or I’m tucking into my chicken carcass, I don’t want people watching, I don’t want people talking, and I don’t want to learn anything. If it’s important enough to know, communicate that information without infringing on my eating time. Eating and learning do not go together. I’m convinced that nobody in the history of the world ever truly learning anything of any significance while they were stuffing their faces.

“A quick question” is no way to interrupt me. “Quick questions” often involve very slow and exceedingly complex answers. Here’s something you should know: the quickest questions almost always take the longest time to answer and the speed of your question has nothing to do with the length of time it might take to answer it. I know you’re smart enough to know this, even if you do use “irregardless” in your everyday speech. Stop saying it. “Do you have time to help me?” “Could you help me?” Even, “Excuse me but I have a question for you?”

I’m also sickened and irritated by politicized speech. Nobody is fired anymore. They are “exited”. It still means, regardless of their years of service, people are out of a job. It still means they are being fired. But nobody but Mr. Trump fires people anymore. They are “exited.” Who you foolin’?

And the process of firing people en masse used to be called down-sizing. No more. It’s now called right-sizing. The implication meaning that the corporation needs the right number of people for the task and that there must have been more people than the task required so departments being right-sized meant, regrettably, that people were exited.

Finally, there remain other words and expressions that, while not the venom of a snake, are more like a swarm of mosquitoes. Please stop saying “out of the box”. It’s driving me crazy. What box is this? Who thinks in the box? Besides, if the expression is meant to mean innovative thinking, you ought to stop using hackneyed and seriously non-innovative ways to describe it. “Out of the box” is a powerfully in-the-box way of saying what you think you are saying. But of course you’re not saying anything. Similarly, “proactive.” Haven’t we all had enough of “proactive” thinking? Who’s not proactive? Who’s pro-passive? Proactive is no longer a selling point for anything. It is also meaningless. If I had a position to fill I would give it to the first person who said he or she was pro-passive or an in the box thinker.

Anyways, I feel better for having said so.

SS