We Live in a World Depicted by Office Space - Part 2

This is Part 2 of 3 in this week's feature series, "We Live in a World Depicted by Office Space", whereby all of the office dwellers get together to rant and rave about the craziness that goes on in between those walls every day from 9am-5pm, or in my case, from sometime after 9am to sometime around 7pm.

Tonight we'll discuss Corporate Jargon. It's a fun topic to discuss because each company has its own collection of words and phrases that it uses constantly, which wouldn't mean a thing to anyone in the outside world. I guess this is what happens when you have a bunch of people who see each other for more time than they see their families and friends outside of work. People try to get creative and so they come up with little "catch phrases" that stick. I'll set this up like a dictionary of sorts... and please feel free to add some more of your favorites...

- "Apples and Oranges" - this is the classic. We all know that apples and oranges are fruit, yet they aren't the same fruit, and thus you can't compare them. As a result, when someone in the office compares one number to another, or one idea to another, and it's incongruent, then someone will jump in and let them know that they are "comparing apples to oranges". Similarly, others like to use the "round peg in a square hole" phrase to communicate two items that don't match, but I think people stay away from this one due to the indirect sexual connotation.

- "Reinvent the wheel" - gotta love this cliche. Relates to anyone who enters a situation without knowing much of the background, and attempts to completely overhaul the project. The problem is that this person often doesn't understand the extent to which this "reinvention" is extremely painful or potentially impossible. But they want to do it anyway. Because they can.

- "Touch base" - No one 'contacts' or 'gets ahold of' anyone else these days. Instead, they "touch base" either later today, tomorrow, or next week. In other words, 'I'm going to politely hound you to see where you are on this project and make sure I don't get my ass fried'. A synonym to this one is "circle back". Someone from my team will circle back with you later. At that time they'll touch base as well. It's like a lunar landing.

- "Think outside the box" - a little too cliche for me. We all try to "think outside the box" but at my company they instead encourage all employees to be "innovative". In other words... If you expect to rise above your peers, you better do something to show us that you're better than them. Be innovative. And don't be a regular Joe like those other schmucks.

- "Value add" - A nice way of saying that something is worthwhile. "So does this exercise provide any value add or should I tell them not to waste their time?" If we're asking this question, there probably isn't any value being added.

- "On Board" - When a person is in agreement or supports a plan of action. Sentence: "Make sure your boss is on board with this idea before you proceed." We wouldn't want anyone to be left at the dock. That'd be bad for business.

Now for some that I believe to be more rooted in the company I work for. Most of these terms are related to finance and the work that I do as a planner.

- "Assessment" - We don't forecast anything, we "assess" it. Reason being... the forecast number is a very political number and is often dictated by the folks in the Corporate Headquarters. Therefore, the best we can do to provide some predictions is to give an "assessment", but even then, it's not an official measure -- just for our own, internal use.

- "Target" - No, we're not talking about Wal-Mart's main competitor, but rather a measure that is similar to the budget, but adds a little more to it. Officially, all the bosses will want you to make your budget, but they really want you to achieve that target number, so that everyone can get a big pat on the back!

- "Stretch" - Ok, so you have your budget number, forecast number, and your assessment number. If all of your deals play through this quarter, what's the most revenue you can bring in? That's your stretch number. In other words, don't count on it.

- "Closest to the Pin" - Someone back in the day must have loved golf, because they toss this term around all the time. Besides your budget, forecast, assessment, and stretch, where do you really think you'll land for gross profit? That's your closest to the pin. Antonym: Furthest from the pin.

- "Roadmap" - We heart roadmaps. All of the folks in the sales teams drive (no pun intended) a roadmap, which is a document that lays out all of the potential deals in the "pipeline" (there's another one) that could play out this quarter. The roadmap shows everyone involved how they will achieve their targets. Basically, how do you get from Point A to Point B? The roadmap will guide you. It's much better than Mapquest or Google Maps.

- "Bridge" - I guess someone out there enjoys driving too with all of these transporation terms. After the numbers come in, the important folks start asking questions about what caused the variance between your actual measure and what you had forecasted/assessed. So we put together these "bridges" which show what went wrong. The crazy part is that even when the numbers come in better than expected, you still have to bridge. We can't win.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Go ahead and brainstorm and circle back with me later in the Comments section if you have any corporate jargon of your own to add. Thanks.