Do you regularly need a heads up (update) to figure out what people around you in the office are talking about? If you are in a particularly fertile environment, there could be a lot of blue sky thinking going on. The occasional inter-departmental liaison facilitation (lunch with a colleague) is unlikely to be enough.

On the other hand you could be a plug-and-play type, capable of hitting the ground running. You know the latest buzzwords the day you start working. It gives you the cutting edge in the organisation.

It is a fact of life that every community or corporation creates its own jargon. This is partly a defence mechanism; it allows you to identify somebody as one of your own.

The passwords that give you entry to a select group can be intrinsic to that community only. For instance, at a Calcutta-based fast moving consumer goods company, the boss is referred to as Mr Peanuts. This is the sort of office lingo that cannot be exported outside the community. Of course, if the boss himself were to join some other company, you can be sure his nickname would follow him.

The other sort of jargon jumps boundaries much more easily. People use it because it makes them feel they have arrived. Talk to the Gomba (grossly overpaid MBA) class in India and you will be inundated in a stream of net nets and value adds. “People feel that using the latest language improves your standing at work,” says a survey by British recruitment firm Office Angels.

The stress should be on “latest”. If you are caught using expressions such as thinking out of the box, you will be regarded as having gone past your office sell-by date. You are probably just grey matter (older, experienced business people hired by young entrepreneurial firms trying to appear more professional and established). You may be uninstalled (sacked) soon. It doesn’t mean you must turn dittohead. Just open up your kimono, will you.

The Office Angels’ survey of 1,600 workers had 55 per cent agreeing that using the latest language was advantageous in the workplace. However, 76 per cent felt that bosses could look foolish using a phrase that belonged to a younger profile.

The survey also listed the best and the worst buzz phrases of 2007. Leading the pack are thought grenade (explosive good idea); let’s sunset that (what happens to bad ideas); and information touchpoint (meetings are so passé). The bad include blue sky thinking; singing from the same hymn sheet; thinking outside the box; and let’s take it offline (discuss it somewhere else). And open up your kimono (put your cards on the table) is surely the ugliest.

If you really want to know how ugly it can get, check out this mock interview at wordpress.com:

Q: Is being a cliché expert a full-time job?

A: Bottomline is I have a full plate 24/7.

Q: Is it hard to keep up with the nearly endless supply of clichés that spew from business?

A: Some days, I don’t have the bandwidth. It’s like drinking from a fire hydrant.

Q: Where do most clichés come from?

A: Stakeholders push the envelope until it’s outside the box.

Q: Can you predict whether a phrase is going to become a cliché?

A: Yes. I skate to where the puck’s going to be. Because, if you aren’t the lead dog, you’re not providing a customer-centric, proactive solution.

Q: Did incomprehensibility come naturally to you?

A: I wasn’t wired that way, but it became mission critical as I strategically focused on my go-forward plan.

Q: What did you do to develop this talent?

A: It’s not rocket science. It’s not brain surgery. When you drill down to the granular level, it’s just basic blocking and tackling.

Q: How do you stay ahead of others in the buzzword industry?

A: Net-net, my value proposition is based on maximising synergies and being first to market with a leveraged, value-added deliverable. That’s the opportunity space on a level playing field.

Don’t ask what it all means. You might end up being gang FAQed.

A HEADS UP

CLM (career limiting move): Used by micro-serfs to describe an ill-advised activity.
Crapplet: A badly written or profoundly useless Java applet.
Dilberted: To be exploited and oppressed by your boss.
Dittoheads: People who are in perfect alignment on an issue, an idea, or a belief system.
Gang FAQ (frequently asked question): When a group simultaneously emails an individual who has asked a particularly stupid question.
Glazing: Corporatespeak for sleeping with your eyes open.
GOOD job: A get-out-of-debt job. A well-paying job that people will quit as soon as they are solvent again.
High Dome: Egghead, scientist, PhD.
Open-Collar Workers: People who work at home or telecommute.
SITCOMs: What yuppies turn into when they have children. “Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage”.
Tourists: Those who take training classes just to take a vacation from their jobs.
(Source: OfficeSlang.com and Wired)