National "Circle Back" Day, Rise of Bullsh*t Jobs, & My List of Corporate Lingo

Sunday scaries, the pseudo-language that is corporate jargon, and why the 40-hour work week still exists

Maybe you’re like me, sitting at home right now, avoiding emails and the work week that is to come. Don’t you worry! I’ve got something to keep you occupied.

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Can we make a rule that all outstanding tasks from 2023 expire on Dec 31st?

Very Sunday, at 4:59PM, I take my final deep breath before plunging into an evening of avoidant behaviors, the key of which is setting my phone to “do not disturb”, turning off my laptop, and taking off my Apple Watch. Basically, every possible step to ensure I don’t come across the dreaded 📧 that I know awaits me:

“Hi Katarina,

I hope you had a nice New Years. I wanted to circle back on Project Mammoth [or whatever outlandish name the team has come up with this time] and check the status of the items in your court. Attached is the latest Gantt chart.”

Ugh!

I especially love those Sunday night emails that say: “hope you had a nice weekend”. Yes Nancy, it was nice before you emailed. And no, Sunday night, by definition, is not yet the end of the weekend. Leave me alone.

One reason why I love the December holidays (aside of course from spending time with family and eating great food) is that 90% of the work gets postponed for after the holidays. Let’s face it. No one wants to start something December 23rd if it can wait until January 2nd. And most things in the corporate world can wait (despite what some managers might have you believe).

January 2nd is thus the unofficial National Circle Back day.

Rise of Bullsh*t Jobs

In 2018, Anthropologist David Graeber published a book titled Bullsh*t Jobs: A Theory. In it he postulates the existence of socially useless / meaningless jobs and analyzes their societal harm. He argues that more than half of the works is not only pointless but psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth. I mean the first thing we ask in America when we meet someone is “what do you do” and “where did you study”. A recent study also found that nearly 19% of surveyed U.S. employees feel their jobs are socially useless.

A bullsh*t job is a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case (The New Yorker)

That being said, I enjoy my job (as much as one can enjoy a job that is). I get to work alongside smart and like-minded people and learn new things virtually every day. I don’t think my job is a complete waste of time or nuisance to society. But I also recognize that I’m not saving the world.

The way I see it, there’s rarely ever any “emergency” in the social sciences. Most white-collar desk workers are sitting in some combination of Microsoft Office or coding platforms. A data breach or inability to make payroll - those are emergencies. But a made-up deadline about a project on “operating best practices” doesn’t make the cut in my book. Sorry.

Corporate Lingo Galore

When I started my first corporate job, I didn’t realize that I’d basically end up learning a new language. Well, not exactly…but almost. More like a pseudo-language.

Cue corporate speak.

Buzzwords, jargon, whatever you call it. It’s one and the same. At first, I had to remind myself to actively use all the jargon. No one made me incorporate these terms into my daily language, but I felt like it would make me fit in and look like I know what I’m doing. Nothing says real working professional like “closing the loop” on an outstanding task.

Origins of Office Speak

I began to wonder, what gave rise to this new pseudo-language?

Ax any and all inefficiencies? Make us feel more important? Soften the blow on negative news? As a CYA strategy? Standardize our language and standardize us?

The Atlantic published an “Origins of Office Speak” which I highly recommend for those who want a more thorough read on its history. There’s no one single starting point but industrial innovations and economic busts and booms played a considerable part in the rise of corporate speak over the last century.

My Guide to Office Speak

Over the years, I’ve compiled an Excel (in true corporate fashion) a list of all the corporate terms I heard, read, and, admittedly, used myself. Half of it makes no sense and the other half is passive-aggressive at best. But alas. It’s one of those necessary evils.

With that, I'm unveiling my full list, for your learning or amusement.

…drumroll please!

B

Back and forth

Back of the envelope

Backburner

Bandwidth

Bird’s eye view / 10,000 feet view

Bleeding edge

Boil the ocean

Source: The Atlantic

Boots on the ground

Bottom line

C

Cart before the horse

Cc'ing for visibility

Circle back

Source: The Atlantic

Close the loop

Connect the dots

D

Deep Dive

Defer to

Disruptive

Double Click

Down the fairway

Drill down

Source: The Atlantic

Ducks in a row

E

Ensure proper coverage

Entertain the idea

Exercise editorial authority

F

Finger on pulse

Flag it and we can run up the pole

For belts & suspenders

For the avoidance of doubt

From my standpoint

G

Get a better handle on

Get creative on

Get in bed with (gross!)

Get in motion

Get the greenlight

Grease the wheels

H

Hammer that down

Help me put meat on the bones

Hit the nail on its head

I

In a nutshell

J

Just following up —> the most passive aggressive one if you ask me!

K

Kick the can down the road

L

Let’s stay in the hunt

Lots of wood to chop

Low hanging fruit

M

Marinate on that

Marry these ideas

Meat and potatoes of the presentation

Mission critical

N

Need to go through sausage making

No pride of authorship / ownership

Not burn the midnight oil

O

On my radar

Open kimono

P

Per my last email

Pick your brain

Pick your favorite out of the crop here and walk us through trends

Play it back

Press pause

Pull the thread through the needle

Push ahead

Put a pin in

Puts a wrinkle

R

Reinvent the wheel

Resurface materials

S

Scrub through the deck

Sharpen our pencils

Shepherd the company

Something to chew on

Spend cycles

Synergize

T

To plant the seeds

Touch base

Trim the fat

U

Unplug

Source: The Atlantic

W

Walk and talk

We don’t have keys to the car

We have our marching orders

Will revert back

Desk Worker or Hunter Gatherer? Modern Tribal Vocab

Source: The New Yorker

Corporate speak is the modern tribal vocabulary.

To an outsider listening in on a corporate work call it might sound like they’re a hunter gatherer. Just chopping wood, hammering things down, making sausages, shepherding teams, burning oil, planting seeds, and trimming fat.

Maybe we want to feel like “real” men and women who foraged for their food, built huts, and vied for land. Maybe that’s how we breathe purpose into our jobs? Feel like we’re making a difference, like our work has an impact. By “going back to our roots” in a figurative sense. Giving a client presentation the same purpose and meaning as feeding fodder to horses.

Do We Need a 40-hour Work Week?

The 40-hour work week originated in 1926. Henry Ford, creator of Ford cars and the factory assembly line, introduced the 8 hour 5-day work week. Apparently, he conducted research that showed 40 hours was the optimal amount in that it yielded the most manufacturing productivity.

Assembly lines are widely adopted today but most are led by robots and not people. Not only that but agriculture and manufacturing, which together accounted for over 90% of jobs in 1815, made up less than 20% by 2015.

In a 1928 essay, the Economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that a century later, by 2028, technological advancements will be so great that we will only have to work 15-hours a week. We will work not because we have to but to not go crazy out of boredom or lack of purpose.

The 40-hour work week is truly an archaic remnant.

I only speak for corporate jobs because I of course don’t have any work experience in other fields like medicine, engineering, or education.

Source: Research Gate

Yours Truly,

Katarina

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I’d love to hear your thoughts, comments, and reactions:

1. What’s your favorite and least favorite corporate term?

2. Why do you think corporate jargon is so prevalent in corporate America?

3. What’s one thing people in your field of work often say (a term or phrase)?