Corporate Jargon Demystified

One of the prerequisites of joining the corporate world is to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

If you missed it, I just used a jargon in the sentence above, which is one of the unstated hobbies of people in the corporate world.

I have been a victim and a guilty party to it on numerous occasions. Funnily, when you are the one committing the crime, it all sounds fine, but in case you are the victim, the jargon can be like a painful pill you have to swallow, which the doctor has prescribed.

I have always found jargons to be nothing but diplomatic statements that corporate use, when they do not want to say something directly. These jargons have a hidden meaning behind them, which I have tried to decipher.

Here is the list of jargons that I have often heard being bandied around along with their true meanings and my special comments for each of them:

Corporate Jargon	What they mean to say	My special comments
Having said that	I am not sure of what is right and what is wrong. So at the cost of contradicting myself, let me put my point of view from both the sides. Who knows which of them maybe right?’	Once you use ‘having said that’, I ignore one of the two points and it is my prerogative whether I choose the point before your jargon or after!
At the end of the day	It does not matter what I say. What has to happen will happen ultimately.	When I hear this, I start thinking of the time that I can go out of office and party.
Back of the envelope calculations	I have not been able to do enough work on this project so I do not want to be held responsible for the numbers that I quote. Let me get away by saying that these are just back of the envelope calculations.	I just wonder who ever does calculations at the back of an envelope! Are there no calculators and excel sheets?
Let’s get everyone on the same page	I already know that lot of people do not agree to my proposal. Let us try to convince them.	Are we all reading a similar book that we can expect people to come to the same page?
Let’s take this offline	I do not have the gumption or courage to argue in an open forum.	We are not on Facebook or Twitter. We are already offline. Offline further than this would mean out of office and I am fine with anything that takes me out of office!
We need more granularity	I do not understand this very clearly. Please give me more details so that I can critique and thrash the idea.	I think a food godown can get you more granularity
Let us open one more bucket	The idea is interesting but I have no idea where to slot it. We will have to figure it out.	At this rate, plastic manufacturers will rejoice as we keep opening so many buckets on a daily basis!
These cells need to be populated	I just want to sound cool so I am using these words for a simple exercise.	So you mean you want me to fill the excel sheet and asking me to do such a mundane thing will make you feel cool?
Out of the box thinking	I want to impress the Board. Let us take something new and interesting.	Jack also pops out of the box and his head is out when he thinks!
Believe you me	Since everyone else uses this, let me also use it.	So who do I believe? You or me? Or maybe both eh?

In fact, when you look through these, most would not even qualify as jargon but unfortunately, since these are used sporadically by corporate, I have taken the liberty of classifying them as corporate jargon.

These are just some of the ones that I can recollect while putting this blog. There are many more floating around and I might just update this blog sometime in future, once I have got a handful to share once again.

Disclaimer: The above article is a work of fiction and any resemblance to anyone living is purely unintentional and coincidental. If you still feel offended, go back to my third paragraph, where I talk about being the victim and being guilty and you will understand.


Phew! That should be good to save the job!