"we're not going to fire anyone at this time"
"we're not going to fire anyone at this time"
"He's an engineer."
"Touch base with..."
"Leverage our resources..."
"Take an action item..."
"Utilize our expertise..."
CGLockRacer wrote: Sales: This is unusable from a user's point of view. Developer: Well, this is the way I'm doing it. They'll have to learn. Sales: *Simultaneous foreheads banging desks repeatedly* Maybe this should go under the rants thread...
It sounds like the correct reply here is, "Our competition is not requiring them to learn."
More trade related:
E36 M3 flows down hill.
Don't chew your fingernails.
Pay day is Thursday.
"Make it yours."
I've been using this a lot with one of our designers. He's got pretty much the same experience I do, but if I hand him a task, he takes for-freakin'-ever to do it because he is constantly second-guessing how I wanted it to be done, or (worse) coming to ask me how I want every little bit handled.
I gave it to you because you're competent to do it on your own initiative. So do it.
The guy who is in charge of ordering parts in our maintenance department is a total slacker who lacks people skills; I wouldn't say he's a great fit for his job title.
You'll give him a specific part number, the manufacturer/distributors name and contact info, and he'll come back with "They don't make it anymore. You've got to buy the whole kit/assembly/whatsit", probably 50% of the time.
So, now when anybody asks if Part A is on it's way in all of the Maintenance guys just say "You can't get it anymore, you've gotta buy the whole company."
When a piece of equipment is making a bad package formation, but it's obviously the product, not the equipment, I'll pretend to fix it and tell the operator "I've adjusted your Manischewitz, you should be good to go now". But I learned that trick from Ditchdigger.
My favorite was "B squad Friday" because for whatever reason, all of the people on the other end of the phone were the dumbest boxes of hammers alive on Fridays, and my theory was that's when employers let the b-squad run the show.
I have an opportunity for you, meaning I have a clusterberk I need you to fix. PC response is "my pleasure." (Meaning berk yourself and the horse you rode in on).
The word busy is verboten
"close enough for govt. work"
"Must have been designed by an engineer"
"It slipped through the cracks", usually when the bosses forget something important that we need in the field.
" A ball lost in tall weeds", usually someone who just doesn't get it
"A blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while", referring to the someone who didn't get it, but gets it now
"Dilution is the solution." And"you can kill your workers, but you can't kill the neighbors." The last one is mine. It makes sense in context.
"Roger's great at taking the ball and running with it, but he's gotta catch it first."
Customer "well where the berkeley is the component?? I shipped 9 or 10 days ago" Me "who did you ship it with??" Customer "well I don't berkeleying now, you were supposed to have finished it by now" Me "Dont know what to tell you, nothing is here" Customer "well what the berkeley are you doing there, you were supposed to have it berkeleying done 5 days ago, Ive got an airplane sitting on the tarmac!!" Me "sorry boss, didnt get into the shop, I don't know what to tell ya, I dont own UPS/FEDEX/Purolator"
Every....berkeleying....day
"Not my circus, not my monkeys"
"This is why we don't have nice things!"
When I worked for Sears, every new CEO would bring in a huge mandatory rollout of "corporate culture," and every employee had to come in for an after-hours storewide culture meeting where the new buzzwords were rolled out, followed by a few hours worth of computer video training. This happened 4 times in the 3 years I worked there. Some examples...
"Walk the talk."
"Process excellence."
"Project clean sweep."
"It is what it is." I have no clue what purpose that sentence serves.
"Let's agree to disagree. "
"It's not the heat it's the stupidity"
Also:
Dumb guy I used to work with…"This ain't my first rodeo"
Smart guy I used to work with….."First one without the clown shoes though, huh?"
Ready Fire Aim
really old one from when I worked on power equipment and the Honda ads had a lady saying "ship it"... right before we'd shove one out the door "the bitch said SHIP IT" - the software dev guys never got that joke at the last job.
ah, and when did Efficiency get replaced with Efficacies?
Back in the 1980's I was going to write a "business cliche" book and make fun of it all but I wasn't able to get my ducks in a row but I thought of running it up the flag pole except I didn't get a warm fuzzy.
The rodeo clown shoes reminds me...
In '00, I was recruited away from Sprint by AT&T to do the same thing for much more money.
I used to tell people, "Same circus, different clowns, more peanuts."
If asked why I made the change, my answer was that I had about 25 thousand good reasons.
We have a ton of these . . .
"Push the ball across the plate . . ."
"Colocation of our assets. . ."
"Next-generation delivery model . . ."
"Handling of this issue was not crisp . . ."
"I'm not sure why this is a process . . ."
"Our CLEAR values must be clear . . ."
"Cost take out . . ."
"Rein in costs . . ."
"Performance oriented workforce . . ."
I die inside everytime I have to explain why I use the saying "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" at work a lot.
I'm not much one for motivational posters, but I printed this one out and pinned it to my cube wall. 
I work for a very large company in a highly regulated industry. There are hordes of people running circuses great and small.
slowride wrote: "we're not going to fire anyone at this time"
we used to get that one quite often … it usually meant that a layoff was coming within the next 6 - 8 mo.
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