I get annoyed by thoughtless and uncreative use of certain overused terms/statements in corporate settings. Below are some that are so annoying, they distract me from the conversation. What are some that annoy you?
- Peel back the layers of an onion
- Incentivize
- Let’s table that so we can circle back to it later
- We’ll out that on the backburner
- Let’s not reinvent the wheel
- They just started a new project, so their plate’s full and might not have the bandwidth for an additional something else.
- Grab the low-hanging fruit
- That’s a game changer
- The ball’s in their court. If you don’t hear from them soon, send them an email to touch base.
- I sent it up the food chain, so it’s out of my hands.
- Let’s give it 110%
- There are lots of moving parts
- We need to have an aha moment
- At the end of the day, what matters are the key takeaways
- Let’s engage in the best practices
- They’re working on it as we speak
- It’s a controversial approach, so we might get some flak for that.
- So-and-so is not a people person
“Circle back to” and “sense of urgency” set me on edge. I’m constantly shelving stuff to get back to it later and pretty much always concerned that I’m not “doing good enough” or quickly enough so I don’t need faceless suits throwing my symptoms like buzz words around so casually.