If you have a mini…

Evidently, now that I am Working For The Man (nonprofit Man though he may be), there is a great deal of corporatespeak that I am having to catch up on, you know, because academese wasn't boring or silly enough.

For example, we "circle back" with people EVERY SECOND of EVERY DAY, which, as far as I can tell, is checking back in with people to make sure that the meeting we scheduled to talk about setting up some meetings is still a good time for them.

We are also, often, "wall-to-wall" with meetings, which just makes me giggle, because I picture one of those slightly tacky local-carpet-store ads which look so sad, sandwiched in between hilarious talking babies and silly, silly ads for 20-somethingish men's body spray products. I can just see Dave, my friendly neighborhood Carpet Store Guy, talking about how "wall-to-wall schedules need wall-to-wall service—in a FLASH!" These two phrases alone have evoked hours of ridicule from my Cool Coworkers, and we have even decided, when things look bleak, to "circle back to the wall." Mostly to bang our heads against it, ever so gently.

I was also asked for if I had a "mini" or two the other day and was completely baffled. A car? A skirt? A candy bar? No, evidently, saying "minute" is WAY too time-intensive for our wall-to-wall "schedge-es," so we ask for "minis." As in, "have you got just a mini?" As a linguist, I must restrain myself from pointing out that "mini" has precisely the same number of syllables as "minute" and thus takes the same amount of time to say, even though, yes, it's true, minute has more letters.

We also "chase" documents and projects. I literally just heard someone explain that "oh, you don't have time to chase that spreadsheet. I'm happy to chase it; I just wanted you to know what I was chasing." Of course, if I were that particular spreadsheet, I WOULD require a chase, as I would be attempting to get as far away from that particular chaser as possible. Only I don't know how spreadsheets would do that. Hide in folders? Slither in between desks, just beyond reach of the highlighter pen attempting to fish it out?

And we do not have domains or bailiwicks here. We have "worlds." As in "well, I know this project is going to touch your world, so I'll keep circling back with you." Or the well-loved "since that's not really my world, I assume you'll be taking that over." I'm not sure this is actually used in other corporate environments, but it works here seeing as we do have a Certain She who is, quite obviously, Queen of the Universe (Which Includes All Worlds).

I really need to do some searching on other annoying phrases people use in bidness contexts that make no sense. My old boss used to tell me he would be "out of pocket" on certain days. I am assuming this is because he confused the terms "out of the office" and "out of pocket expenses" because, duh, they BOTH HAVE THE WORD "OUT" IN THEM! Well, either that or the greens fees he was paying were being charged to the company. Of course, this is the same man who said "my bag" instead of "my bad" until I asked him what he meant. He told me it was "something the kids say when it's their fault—my bag." I started to explain that, being much more of the generation to use such a phrase, the lingo was actually "my bad," but it was then that I began to see the bright line between Being Helpful and Explaining Things and Trying to Correct a Douchebag, especially one who is convinced he is right.

Anyway, I am sure that doesn't count as corporatespeak, but I am always looking for more so that I can beef up my vocational vocab. I'll have to chase them down and drag them into my world and circle them back to the wall.