
By Jeanne Sutton
14th Dec 2015
14th Dec 2015
We’ve all experienced it. That moment when you’re in a boardroom, thinking about your next meal, and someone uses the term ‘blue sky thinking.’ Or they utter something about ‘thinking outside the box.’ And then as you all leave the meeting, the verb ‘touching base’ is invoked. At times like that, we wonder what our paleo ancestors would think of us. Going from hunter-gatherers who could skin an elk – maybe – to automatons who speak a nonsensical language and’stare at a glowing screen for hours at end, worried someone will ask them about those excel skills their LinkedIn claims them to possess.
Of all the annoying things about the modern workplace, office jargon is the worst. It ranks above printers, which are universally crap, and kitchenettes with a microwave crusted in two-day old carrot soup. In fact, a recent survey from the UK claims 70% of workers switch off when they hear the kind of talk we term office jargon. Of the 2,000 office workers polled, four in 10 say they are utterly baffled by phrases like ‘moving the goalpost’, the Metro reports.
Animal charity?SPANA, conducted?the research into this modern phenomenon of language?and found the 50 most annoying office jargon phrases. Be prepared for an oncoming eye-twitch.