I vaguely remember my first day at IITB in July 1999. All agog and feeling on top of the world. Never mind the watery dal or the papad type rotis. Or the coconut in fresh boiled and mildly salted vegetables. Nothing could dampen the enthusiasm that we felt. Not even the dreaded “ragging”. Which anyway in the girls hostel used to be just one step ahead of “Intro(duction)”. However, what did put little breaks here and there were the sounds which we didn’t have a single clue about. “Nbd”??? (Pronounced Nub-bird). Now what the hell is that? “Kya fart hai????” Most of us didn’t even know what “fart” was :-D. No seriously. 80% of the girls hailed from simple, middle class families and had spent a larger portion of their waking hours of the last 2-3 years poring over tomes of formulaes and equations, and thus missed out on all the “slang” and other “cool” stuff one was supposed to be doing in Class XI-XII or junior college. So no wonder, the “orientations” for the first few days were more disorienting for almost all of us. Never had we been noticed so much either. Not even the most good looking of the lot. Afterall, being 23 girls out of 446 students comes with a lot of “collegial” hazards, attention being the least of them.
So anyway, coming back to lingoes and jargons. Thankfully, it didn’t take much long for us to learn and start using the IITB Lingo. First, everyone else apart from the freshies was speaking it. Second, it had “logic” behind it – shorten everything and put an “i” or “oo/u” or “er” after it wherever possible. NewsP, Hospi, Senti, Footer, Breaker, Nubdu, Muggu. etc. Although I admit, some words were…just…there. If we were traveling by train and heard someone exclaim “Dayaaa!”, we knew it wasn’t someone asking for mercy, or real mercy I mean.
But, what also helped our plight initially was the Freshers’ Guide to the IIT. Which contained not just Dept and Hostel information but also the most visited section. IITB Lingo 101. Ofcourse, there were some words which weren’t listed even there. Hence 101 ;-). And my belief is that we don’t know some of them even now. We= H-10/H-11 inmates residents.
1st year came and went by, we learnt the words, the guys also learnt the gaalis (Thanks to their “Intros”). And next July, we were asking the freshies for their “intros”. The learning was complete.
This probably describes the situation at most campuses. The learning is passed.Every year. Through a system- formal or informal.
However, is the same learning passed in organizations?
When I joined MBA I refrained from using my IIT Lingo. Experience taught me that do what Romans do in Rome. So there and later even at my first job, I paid attention to some words and phrases being uttered with a periodic frequency. “At the end of the day”, “Having said that”, “Synergies”, “Leverage”, “Working under constraints”, “Win-win”, “circle back” ,”works best” etc.. Much as I tried, I couldn’t get over my still_sounds_fresh_to_me college lingo and start using this _if_ you_ want_ to_ sound_ professional_ and_ intelligent_ but_ in_ reality_are_ dumber_ than_ any_ blonde_ you_ have_ actually_ met jargon.
Corporate Jargon (Source: http://www.savagechickens.com)
Sometimes, these phrases would sound so mechanical. One learnt to filter these while “listening” to people. However, at times, these phrases would begin to pall. Especially coming from people you knew were using these to evade direct answers- which either they didn’t know, or didn’t want to give :-D. Or hide their real intentions. And this is true the world over. One learns to be “professional” using this Corporate Jargon. At various times in the last 2-3 years, I thought about making a collection of these phrases, and using them as a template. How one can just insert these phrases in random sentences and make others look up to you in awe. Not only of your “intelligence” but also the highly superior communication skills. Sample this:
“The market has seen a financial bubble burst in the last two years. Many companies went bust, and millions were laid off. The companies that went bust had high levels of leverage and suddenly the liquidity dried up in the market. There were financial instruments which just repackaged the same products without any value add and in absence of real assets, proved to be a collateral over collateral. To save the system from collapsing, governments gave billions in bail-outs. Although many debated over this doling out of tax payers’ money, pundits said it was a win-win for both the government and the industry. However, even they conceded in it being a low hanging fruit and that it will work best only when there are synergies for both. At the same time, under this framework, now the capitalist industry will be working under constraints from the government. But the payment of executive bonuses seems to echo the disconnect between reality and intent. At the end of the day, however, investors finally turned to more viable markets. For example, luxury focused real estate gave way to affordable housing with the tag of sustainable solutions that reach out to the masses. Nothing out of the box, but the “affordable” tag can prove to be a game changer for many industries. But having said that, what cannot be denied is that thought leadership still remains a challenge for our policymakers who instead of preventing such casualties, react only when something has already happened. Our leaders need to sit over these problems and proactively find solutions that can avert problems beforehand.”
If you still haven’t figured what I am talking about, we are on the same page. 😉
For more examples and reasons not to use Corporate Jargon so often, click here, here , here, here, here, here, here, here, here
An iphone app to generate such corporate jargon (“bullshit” as the app suggests) can be found here.
For corporate speak cartoons, go here.
View from the Pinhole 