Unsuck It - translate business jargon

by jbr • 16 years ago

41 23 16 years ago

cptnred• 16 years ago

There's even an email button so you can send your boss a message saying "Hey douchebag! Stop torturing the English language!"

jdc• 16 years ago

"Diversify Unsucked:

Change."

... no.

sriramk• 16 years ago

Maybe I'm betraying my corporate institutionalization here but I was reading through the list and going "Hey, that isn't so bad, is it?".

Are terms like boilerplate, 'at the end of the day' so bad? :)

zbyszek• 16 years ago

Think of a sentence containing "at the end of the day". Now remove that phrase. Does your sentence convey any less information? Unless the time of day is actually germane to what you are saying something (e.g. "At the end of the day I draw the curtains and have a cup of cocoa.") then it is just superfluous verbiage. And that's bad because it obscures the message.

"Boilerplate" is jargon, but conveys some information, so I think that's OK.

raganwald2• 16 years ago

The Etymology of Boilerplate is fascinating. Imagine receiving a press release on a piece of steel plate so that you could put it right onto the presses. Neat-o!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boilerplate_(text)#Etymology

groaner• 16 years ago

If this sort of thing catches your fancy, the Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit (http://corporatebs.com/) is a fine collection of humorous definitions.

ABrandt• 16 years ago

Hmmm I tried feasibility analysis, time to market, and monetization. I got zilch on all three, maybe I'm not a big enough business jerk.

DLWormwood• 16 years ago

It also failed on “paradigm shift” for me…

EDIT: Looks like someone defined that one since I tried it last…

mccreath• 16 years ago

http://unsuck-it.com/define/

lucraft• 16 years ago

"Dogs breakfast" is terrible business jargon? I've been an MBA since I was 5 then...

endual• 16 years ago

Hmmm, tried to redefine "angel investor" as "sugar daddy" and it hasn't work... Maybe they approve it? Whatever, back to the shiraz!

jgrahamc• 16 years ago

http://unsuck-it.com/rock-star/

nash2• 16 years ago

Yeah: Business jargon. Whenever a PHB tells you they are a rock star or a wizard you know they _may_ know how to use a mouse.

JustinSeriously• 16 years ago

It's the same for all the other Resume 2.0 adjectives.

http://unsuck-it.com/ninja/ http://unsuck-it.com/superhero/ http://unsuck-it.com/wizard/

nash2• 16 years ago

http://unsuck-it.com/as-soon-as-possible-asap/ Strange; Whenever someone tells me they need something ASAP, I generally consider it to mean "they don't know when they need it, so it's not important".

billybob• 16 years ago

Not necessarily. Imagine that you get a performance bonus based on how quickly you finish a task, and you're waiting on someone else for something. You don't have a specific deadline, but the sooner you get what you need, the better.

You COULD make an artificial deadline and say "I need this today." But that means "drop everything for me." Maybe you're emailing your boss and don't have the clout to demand that, or maybe you want to save that demand for when you REALLY need it today.

So ASAP would be my way of saying "it's important, but I recognize that something else on your list might be even more important." The "P" gives the receiver some wiggle room. In that way, I think it's more polite than "today," while still more urgent than "sometime this week."

rvanrooy• 16 years ago

Eat your Own Dog Food is the one I never get. I know it's supposed to mean that your dog food should be good enough to eat yourself, but it's akin to expecting the CEO of a pet food company to open a can and start eating!

raganwald2• 16 years ago

I think that it's more memorable this way precisely because it's unlikely to happen. Think of the riddle: "Why does Dog Food taste like shit?" "Because nobody ever eats it."

If the saying was "Eat your own croissants," it wouldn't have the same punch because most croissants are reasonably edible and indeed people who make croissants do taste test them.

gacba• 16 years ago

Is it just me or is there as much urban slang (chillax) as there is PHB-speak? (paradigm shift)

helveticaman• 16 years ago

I added innovator:

1. Douchebag without technical knowledge. 2. (Rare) In IP, a non-douchebag with techical knowledge.

samratjp• 16 years ago

Hmm, they got synergy in there as well: Unsucked: Working together.

An addendum would be: Leech-y, take advantage of a said synergy situation, etc.

grg• 16 years ago

http://unsuck-it.com/?s=asdf

I like the response page when you search for something that's not defined.

DennisP• 16 years ago

I was once in an industry meeting with representatives from five major corporations. The corporate-speak got so bad sometimes I could barely follow it. It was like a different dialect.

After a while I noticed that the more unpleasant the thing the speaker was trying to convey, the thicker the dialect got. One guy treated us to five minutes of near-impenentrable jargon that ultimately boiled down to "what's in it for us?"

Unsuck It - translate business jargon

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