Comments on: Corporate carnivores

By: Purva Brown

Purva Brown — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:35:37 +0000

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.

By: Heather

Heather — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:26:25 +0000

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?

By: SingleParentDad

SingleParentDad — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:24:12 +0000

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.

By: Allison

Allison — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:02:25 +0000

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

By: Terry

Terry — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:37:55 +0000

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!”

By: curt

curt — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:00:11 +0000

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.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:07:25 +0000

Appreciate you sharing your corporate knowledge… and reminding me of the fact that the fourth season is out! I totally forgot.

By: Susan

Susan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:31:41 +0000

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?!

By: T

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:23:41 +0000

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.

By: Co-Worker

Co-Worker — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:23:49 +0000

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.