Business Friday: Terminology of the Workplace I

When we’re not slaving away at posts here on FajitaMonday, Ronin and myself are actually young professionals in our respective fields. As with our post a little while back about Successful Conference Tips, we thought it would be best to continue sharing some of our wisdom to help other twenty-somethings make it in the work place. As such, we’re creating a new feature here at FM called Business Friday, because really, for us, the other 6 days of the week are pretty casual.

Today we’ll be talking business terminology…what does it really mean when your boss throws around a buzzword? Use this guide to survive!

• Retreat n. - It used to be when we heard the word “retreat” (and assuming you’re not in the French Military), it referred to several people going to a classy-yet-rustic mountainside cabin to discus important yet vague topics for the coming year. Later, it came to mean something less formal, perhaps a ropes course, or in general…anything that wasn’t where you already worked. In today’s vernacular, retreat is almost solely used to describe 4+hour long meetings, and if you’re lucky, they’re held in a different building than the one you currently work in.
• Direct Marketing n. - It’s a buzz word like “Change” or “Hobo Fights.”  Direct marketing means that instead of having other people get hung up on, or have other peoples flyers thrown away, you do it yourself… At least I think that’s what it means.  I don’t believe I am of high enough rank to know the actual meaning.
• Webinar n. Oh, the webinar. Webinar, as you can guess, is a portmanteau of web (referring of course to the World Wide Web, or “internets”) and seminar. In a Webinar, it’s much like listening to someone give a boring PowerPoint presentation except…they are able to give it to thousands of people at the same time, anywhere around the globe. The only bonus to a webinar is if they are interactive, and you get to hear others asking questions you already knew the answer to—making you wonder why you wasted three hours and $125 to sit through a webinar.
• Customer Service Representative n. Also see: CSR YOU ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE. THATS IT. DEAL WITH IT.
• Piggy-Back v. Used to indicate your intent to carry on another person’s thoughts. “I’d really like to piggy-back on what John said and…” Piggy-backing can be useful for completely misconstruing a topic, making the original speaker sound bad, or hijacking the conversation.
• Watercooler Talk n. There is nothing more important in business than getting (a)head.   The only way to really gain that competitive edge is to get inside the minds of your competition i.e. your co-workers.  The watercooler/coffee machine/bathroom stall is the perfect place to casually discuss minute details of how fellow employees approach everything they do in a high speed comission based artisian rug dealership.  Or whatever your job might be.
• Low-hanging fruit n. This phase is generally used to describe goals which could be easily obtained. You know, if you’re a lazy, overweight primate.
• Special Project n. These are jobs given to generally underpaid newer employees.  They consist of tasks that have clearly been pushed aside for months on end because of either the monotony of the task itself or the pure insignificance of its actual completion.  These tasks include but are not limited to; organizing archived files, filing product literature, updating outdated vendor contact information, counting paper clips, updating office procedure manuals, testing staplers.  Of course, all of this is to be accomplished while you fufill your primary job: answering the fucking phone.
• Grab the bull by the horns v. To tackle a difficult project head on. You know, there’s a reason people watch the Running of the Bulls. Because people get GORED. By BULLS. With HORNS.
• Competitive Research n. Every good employee knows the goals of the company they work for but an extraordinary employee will also have an eye on the competition.  Well, at least they will pretend to.  Competitive Research is when your watching the Gamecast of your favorite sports time while also having one of the competitors websites up and ready incase the middle management comes and peaks their head in.  True mastery of Competitive Research requires a deep understanding of ALT + TAB and an uncanny ability to look like you’re working really hard.

by mashthekeys
2 years ago