Is Corporate Speak Invading Your IT Department?

Worse than Political Correctness asks: "With several years of system administration under my belt, I am moving toward a slightly different role at my company. I am going from a straight system administration role to more of a high-level systems architect for a mid-sized company. There have been several promotions in our department recently, and use of this slang is growing faster than a Dave Chappell bit. Right now, I feel like unless one studies and masters the use of these pretentious buzzwords and phrases, he/she will be run over by people with worse ideas but a nicer-sounding delivery. Is corporate speak a necessary evil? " "I have noticed that as I deal more and more with upper management, selling them on products and direction, as well as with hardware/software vendors, the dreaded corporate speak slang is becoming part of my daily life. No longer is there more work to fill an already full plate, now there are 'opportunities for growth'. There are no company layoffs, there are 'realignments'. Difficult people are merely referred to as 'more challenging' than others. I dislike this non-speak as much as any person bred from a technical background. However, in order to match my new colleagues in the give and take of business life, phrases like 'functions', 'deliverables', and 'value-add' are finding their way into my vocabulary."

Is this just something one has to cope with in order to climb the corporate ladder? If you've found yourself in this position, what things did you do to cope?

Comments

Crux of the problem

[Billosaur]

I have noticed that as I deal more and more with upper management, selling them on products and direction, as well as with hardware/software vendors, the dreaded corporate speak slang is becoming part of my daily life.

There you have it. Upper management. The bane of IT's existence. Mostly vacuous, possibly harmless, but given the reins of power and turned loose with their copies of "The 7 Habits of Highly Defective People" and sent out to manage projects and departments which they know nothing about. And because they are for the most part ignorant, they develop these buzzwords and this slang to make them appear learned, while all it does is make them look stupider.

Tell them to piss off.

Re:You have to fight..

[Anonymous Coward]

Rubbish

Now, I wouldn't actually direct an MBA to an RFC, because his eyes would glaze over about the time he got to "this memo has unlimited distribution." But what matters is that I can direct him to such a document, because such a document exists. Tech-speak is done with well-defined terms that have standardized meaning, and it is used to clarify how we talk to each other.

because we had to learn something objective, verifiable, and repeatable to get where we are, while they didn't.

I hate the people in my industry. There is a reason that we're not always looked at with well regard by intelligent managers and executives. Our waters are polluted with elitests with views like that.