Today's Expression Is....

 

A few days ago, I needed to amuse myself during a work-related Zoom call that was due to last at least two hours. So, I decided to count the number of times that somebody on the call used the hot new business buzzword.

Transparency.

In the space of a 134 minute conference call, this word (or the derivation "transparent") was dropped a grand total of 13 different times.

"In the spirit of transparency..."

"The goal is to appear transparent to the client."

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, when I was done with my counting, which was displayed above and is certainly not transparent to my readership, I tried to think of all the other words or phrases that got hot for about ten minutes in the business world.

Synergy.

Paradigm shift.

Multi-tasking.

Win-win.

Take it off-line.

Sidebar conversation.

Value-added.

Think out of the box.

Branding.

Market integration.

Top of mind awareness.

Out-sourced.

Low hanging fruit.

Get on the same page.

At the end of the day.

Call to action.

Okay, headache, anyone?

These words and phrases suddenly get traction in our everyday lives and you feel compelled to use them wherever and whenever. As if trying to make people like you in high school wasn't pressure enough, now we are forced to do so in adulthood.

But, more importantly, I have one basic question for the universe.

Who the hell comes up with these things? Who is the ultimate judge that tells us we must be on the same page at the end of the day with as much low hanging fruit as we can muster by thinking out of the box? Is it some lonely guy sitting in a small one-room walk-up on NY's East Side? Is there some think tank someplace in Nebraska that meets every six months to decide upon the upcoming year's hot phrases? Do they take suggestions from the general public? Because, frankly, nobody else has adopted the concept of "stepping in shit" as much as I have over time?

And, how is this new phraseology distributed to the masses? Does it come in some e-mail newsletter that might be going straight to my spam folder? Is it embedded in some secret code in the New York Times Business Section? Somebody needs to download this all to me because, obviously, my core competency and debriefing has been incrementally stalled. I eventually get the buzzword, but usually a calendar quarter or two late.

And isn't the concept of a buzzword ironic in its own nature? Because wasn't there a moment in time when the buzzword was "buzzword?"

Dinner last night:   Long day of travel so nothing really.