The World of ‘Jargon’ia – Redux

My earlier post on Jargons

It is about time I update my list of jargons. I mean, its been 2 long years in the corporate world since the last jargon-ic blogpost, and you can be dead sure I have been inundated with jargons in this time. In this blogpost, I present my humble view on what I think of the jargons I came across which left me ‘humbled’ (I digress, but is there a word in the English language called ‘humbled’? Every uncle and his son have been using this recklessly)

a) At the End of the Day

Yep, at the end of the day, we all die. That’s the ultimate truth. The corporate world, however, seems to think it has a different meaning for it – it means close of business on that particular day – it doesn’t matter if your day ends at 11PM in the night. ‘I want the report at the end of the day’ also can be construed as ‘I want the report on my desk tomorrow morning and I don’t care if you die or if you have a life apart from work’.

b) Take ownership

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have heard this phrase. ‘Take ownership’ means different things to different people, which essentially boils down to no one really understands what the phrase means. Yet, it is used as frequently as Ajit Agarkar got out on a duck.

c) If you have some extra bandwidth

Dude, first thing, I am not a fiber optic cable. Criss-crossing electrical terms with my capacity to do work is insane, if not downright stupid. And no, I don’t have extra bandwidth. I never will have.

d) Take a stab

This one took me by surprise initially. I didn’t understand what it meant. ‘Stab’ as my basic English goes is a knife down someone’s body. Why would anyone want to take a stab? Eventually, I understood it to mean ‘I can try to understand/do etc’ How in the world is a crime matched up with doing something?

e) Apples to Apples

What? What again? Apples to Apples, Oranges to Mangoes? The English language has provided for multiple terms like ‘similar’, ‘same’, ‘congruent’ etc. Why would you want to force-fit visualization to something very simple? Beats me.

f) Let’s not reinvent the wheel

Oh, we can reinvent radio? TV? No? Ohh..you mean, let’s not reinvent the basic stuff? Why can’t you say it in so many words? The first time I heard this phrase, it took me a while to understand the phrase and secondly to understand why this phrase was used at all?

g) It is what it is

What the eff do you mean by that? It is…what it is. True. It can’t be something else. How can it be? What are you even trying to say? Random phrase with an iota of English and lots of garbage.

h) Déjà vu all over again

Ever heard of Pleonasm? Tautology? Ok, atleast ‘Redundant’? Just say ‘Déjà vu’ and shut up. What’s with ‘Déjà vu’ and ‘all over again’? That tells me that your understanding of the term ‘Déjà vu’ is either defunct or non-existent.

i) Net Net

 What’s with this Net Net? You mean, the net result, right? Only one ‘net’ is enough, no? Either you are from the 29^th century or I am from the 20^th century. Only one of those can be true.

j) Let’s take a 25000 foot view

Why not 50000? 5000? Is the distance directly proportional to the height of the corporate chain you are at? Is it inversely proportional to your IQ? Maybe. Or maybe you like aeroplanes, I don’t know.

k) Low hanging fruit

What’s with these fruits in the corporate language? Apples, Oranges, low hanging fruits? Some mystery here. Dan Brown might be interested.

And now for the grand sentence,

At the end of the day, if you have some extra bandwidth, can you take ownership of X and take a stab at solving Y. Let’s not go for the low hanging fruit here, but instead take a 25000 foot view and not reinvent the wheel. Net net, we should be able to compare apples to apples, else it would be déjà vu all over again. It is what it is, you know!

Makes perfect sense, no?

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