By "Break It Down" I Mean "Dumb It Up"

One of the things I find endlessly fascinating is office speak. I am not sure at what point we decided that speaking normally in emails, at meetings, and to our superiors was beyond us, but we have certainly taken a vacation from reality. I enlisted the help of several friends (big ups to Rachel and Chris) who are besieged by this non-talk on a daily basis to put together:

The Ultimate Pain Point: A List of Bullshit Things We Say/Hear at Work

Bandwidth = time or work capacity, encapsulated in a term which is virtually limited in a technical sense, leading to the illusion that more time/capacity can be added to a person or people as needed, and by inference equating people to modems, servers and systems

Click n' mortar = the internet counterpart to brick n' mortar, a term for actual physical stores

Headwinds = challenges, except it sounds less like a personal handicap or retardation - rather, something or someone else blows...right into the face of your progress.

Earballs = roughly, the untapped audience that sites with audio and/or video magically acquire by stimulating the sense of sound

Granular/granularity = sugarcoated visibility or micromanagement. Example: Let's get some granularity on this product launch. Rachel, even though you are hired to be our PR person, I'm going to assume you are an idiot and have you compile reports on the minutiae of this project. OR "Don't get take this to such a granular level" = "I have no idea what you're talking about and you're embarrassing me, so dumb it down"

"Let's take this offline" = "I can't be bothered to talk about this right now." Also wrongly implies that we are all "online" when we are really just sitting in a meeting.

Ownership = assignment/responsibility + turning a blind eye to the actual resources or tasks needed to do your job

Pain point = the part of your job/project/work life that makes you want to scream. Example: "What would you say is your pain point in regards to media relations?"

Reach out = the new term for calling someone to ask them a question. Example: "You should reach out to the tech department to explore why your computer has the black screen of death." Wrongly implies that warm hugs will be involved.

Scope creep = the tendency for a project to expand at the same exponential rate as dim-witted insiders can daydream, idealize or make broad mission statements with no real conclusion or purpose.

"The real take-away from the meeting is" = "Everything else is useless shit you'll probably forget anyway."

I want more, so keep it coming!