Lingo bingo

Bullshit bingo is nothing new. The basic idea is that you go into a meeting with a chart with key business cliches on it, and when you've heard them all in the meeting, you shout out "bullshit!". These phrases would typically include:

Heads up
Key drivers
Optimisation
Goal oriented
Top down
Bottom up
Fast-track
Deliverables
Learnings
Quick win
Low-hanging fruit

... and let's be honest, the place I work uses at least as many of these phrases as the next company. In fact I was in a meeting today that used the phrase "value add" (this basically means "useful") seven times. As in, "We need to create a value-add process." I mean, really, fuck off.

But the thing that annoyed me the most is how several people have started using the phrase, "So I'm hearing something about..." (i.e. cross-selling optimisiation, goal-oriented value-add). Why not just say, "We need to cross-sell." Why "I'm hearing something about..."? It makes me imagine that these people have got small pixies on their shoulders telling them what to do in a very faint voice. "I'm hearing something about cross-selling from my little pixie, but he's talking in a very quiet voice today because I remembered to take my blue pill this morning."

Fuck fairies.