Corporate spin - phrases that make your eyes roll

When I was at J.C. Penney's earlier in the century, there was always a "sale."

Biggest Sale of Them All
Biggest Sale of the Year
On and on and on.....
 
At a previous company we used to play BS bingo. When you thought you heard all the phrases you would whisper out Bulls$?@.

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When I was at J.C. Penney's earlier in the century, there was always a "sale."

Biggest Sale of Them All
Biggest Sale of the Year
On and on and on.....

Remember a few years back, right around this time of the year, they started a new ad campaign called "Fair and Square". In other words we arent going to play the corporate consumerism game and raise and lower prices this time of year. "Same prices regardless of the season."

It didnt last long!
 
Remember a few years back, right around this time of the year, they started a new ad campaign called "Fair and Square". In other words we arent going to play the corporate consumerism game and raise and lower prices this time of year. "Same prices regardless of the season."

It didnt last long!
I was gone when that fiasco took place. They can give their reasons why so many stores failed, but they simply lost touch with their base on the local level.
 
Bold-faced lie--"Under our current restructuring plan, we are aiming to improve stockholder value, product quality, and an improved work environment."--read "shareholders are getting greedy, manufacturing headed to China, so the last of you left here won't be crowded in the break room with a single microwave, since only half of you will still have jobs".
 
I HATED the corporate phrases created by management at the old Martin-Marietta.
When they were trying to write the instructions on how to do some process, that was called...are you ready??

Proceduralize.
 
"There is no "I" in team" - as if forcing you to sublimate your creativity, intrinsic drive, and goal-orientation to protect the egos/feelings of those less driven or invested in accomplishment will advance your career much less pay your bills. I bore witness to that shit while working corporate back office in banks/shareholder transfer units between the early '90s to early '00s. What happened? The "I's" who were consistently productive (raises hand...) and thus bringing business into the unit either left or intentionally slowed down their output to match that of the underperformers. As the unit's collective productivity slowed, the time in which shareholders' buy/sell transactions slowed to the point of placing unbearable pressure on management - the people who had to answer directly to the public as to why their one million dollar stock certificate for x shares of Intel was misplaced, why their shares of Motorola didn't clear the Depository Trust Company in a timely fashion after being sold (the cert(s) hadn't been processed yet..), and why they could virtually never get a live person on the phone (who wants to be screamed/cursed at at top volume for something they're unaware of?).

Result: Morale crumbled, the bank's reputation began to suffer at large because of inefficient use of time/sloppiness. In-house IT staff eventually virtualized the procedures of those 400+ jobs via introducing a PC-based system called "Scripps" and management taught a small fraction of employees how to use it. The fraction was kept on-board when a takeover occurred and eliminated 95% of the aforementioned positions. The gradual roll-out of high-speed internet service which allowed the customer to buy/sell/DRIP/et al. from home/wherever would eventually eliminate physical processing industry - regardless of which "team" employees were on.

Lesson: As "nice" as it may to play the role of "team player" and collaborate with one's co-workers, at the end of the day too much coercive "team work" indirectly causes one to warp/lose their vision as to how they can best navigate the corporate hierarchy in service to themselves, their career, and (economic) survival while simultaneously striving to meet the needs of their employer. Had the productive "I's" not been so busy codependently babysitting co-workers, lying, and covering their and everyone else's asses, they would have "seen" the technological change coming, updated their skills as quickly and affordable as possible or jumped ship - all in their own best interest, not that of the "team." I have never seen so many 40, 50, 60+ year-old men and women literally crying upon being assembled in the (very large) lunch room in multiple groups of 40 or so and told that effective as of right now their services were no longer needed. Most of the employees had tenures of 20 or 30 years and were nearing or at retirement age and (unfortunately) were neither never paid very much or simply were unable to save. Several ended up in homeless shelters after losing their homes. Quite a few suffered the humiliation of having to move in with adult children. Two (that I know of) literally ended up on the streets.
 
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To show the idiocy of J.C. Penney corporate, they sent down a memo to train us how to speak to customers, complete with "do's" and "don't's." On the list was you never ask a customer "can I help you?" The correct question was (get this!): "good morning, how is you?" I asked my boss which idiot in the office typed it up, and he said it came straight from corporate!
 
There's nothing like calling "customer service," being placed on hold and repeatedly told "Your call is important to us." But not important enough to hire adequate staff to actually handle the calls.

I recently got put on one of those "forever" holds.
After the first few "Your call is important to us", I started timing the delay between them.
They were actually played 4 seconds apart. When you're on hold for even as little two minutes, it makes you want to stick a fork in your temple...
 
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"We have not previously had the appetite for this kind of investment". That word used all over the place by some :rolleyes:
 
Ever notice how everything is now a process? You don't board an airplane, you go through a boarding process.

At work in the last few years, we don't hire people, we have them go through the hiring process. And if they accept an offer, they go through the onboarding process, which is completely dehumanizing. But it goes well with:
"human resources" It always bugged me. People became just another resource like coal or iron ore.
Why call people "Personnel" any more? Just feed more human resources into the machine.
 
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