Corporate carnivores
Just back from a sales meeting and thought I’d share with you a few key phrases I overheard during one of the presentations. I was a little confused about what they meant, so I took a stab* at translating them:
“The turkey’s on the table” – If you watch less of the Today show and work harder, fatty poultry products will magically appear in your kitchen/bonus check.
“There’s still meat on the bone” – Take your clients to lunch to discuss business opportunities and eat the steak off of their plates.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel” – Um, go attack harmless life forms with no chance of escape…because you can?
Thank God I heard at least one “go after the low-hanging fruit” because, frankly, I was concerned about everyone’s sodium intake and cholesterol.
*no forks were used to stab this blog post, only my caffeine-deprived wit
(I think I need to stop at the store tonight and pick up the fourth season of The Office on dvd.)
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Well I am glad to see they are referring to food for this sales meeting. Sad part is I can see the faces of who has said these things.
Typically they want you to reach out and embrace, that sounds more loving than it really is.
Just a few more more key phrases to be aware of: reverse engineer, add color and dig in.
Oh my… such typical corporate speak. I remember the first time I heard the ex say, “grippin’ and grinnin’” … I was like “Huh?”
It is its own language, isn’t it?
I love the Office too! I just sent season 1 to my soldier.
Co-Worker: I’ll circle back with you to get the 411 on those new phrases!
(Seriously, I had never heard so many food references in one half hour before. I was hungry by the time I left the meeting.)
T: I just recently started watching the Office and it’s so funny — and scary at the same time because I see the truth!It’s like Dilbert all over again.
Regarding the DVDs, I hope your soldier likes the show. I was trying to be nice to Fly Boy, who’s a huge fan, so I picked up a copy of the Season 4 dvd set for him last night. It just came out. Wouldn’t you know that when I called him later he was watching — you guessed it — season 4, which he bought for himself. Grr…
But at the end of the day we were on the same page. It’s all about the bottom line, isn’t it?!
Appreciate you sharing your corporate knowledge… and reminding me of the fact that the fourth season is out! I totally forgot.
ha! some of my “office sayings” (non-food-related variety) favorites (with my translations) are:
“let’s tee it up” — gotta love using golfing metaphors for bringing up a new topic/idea/sales opportunity. makes me want to throw a titleist at the person saying it.
“I don’t want to take us down the rabbit hole, but…” — we need to talk about something potentially unpleasant or, even worse, possibly off-topic.
“we need to take this off-line” — since you took us down the rabbit hole and this subject is unpleasant/off-topic, this is not the time nor place to have this convo — so, let’s talk later.
“convo” — short for conversation, of course. stupid. now, they have ME using it.
“let’s think outside the box” — an oldie and still not a goodie.
I’m sure that there are a million more fun terms/phrases that I am forgetting — but, I am getting older and it’s now expected for me to start forgetting things.
as for “the office” — what took you so long? now, we just gotta get you into “entourage” — ari gold is my hero.
Oh, my gosh, corporate speak!
I’ve been out of it for a while, but some of my favorites were, “Let’s do it quick and dirty,” “She needs to be more of a team player,” and “Let’s talk turkey!”
Oh, man. I love your translations!
Fortunately I’ve never had to deal with all of that, and hopefully never will!
And yes, The Office is absolutely hilarious! It’s one of my favorite shows
I don’t miss all the blue sky thinking nonsense. The last meeting I can recall was with a consultant banging on about rock-pool living or something. My old place was just like The Office, the british version though.
I’ll never forget my first meeting at my new job…went something like:
“Let’s connect on that and gain some intel on the GR angle, see what we can gleen from the DMs”
“Gotcha. I’ll ping you when I have a line on that.”
WTF?
Ha! Funny… I used to be a Realtor in one of the bigger corporations. This meeting sounds a lot like it. When I joined a smaller company (tiny, tiny – just five of us) my first question at the interview was, “Are there sales meetings?” Deal-breaker issue. Thankfully, we’ve had about two in two years! And not a single sales phrase was used.