Buzzwords that make boardrooms spin and PowerPoints sing.
The art of being absolutely furious while maintaining a customer-service smile and corporate-appropriate vocabulary. It's the workplace emotion equivalent of a pressure cooker where you're simultaneously boiling inside and perfectly composed outside, waiting for happy hour to finally vent.
The catastrophic act of spilling hot coffee on your professional attire, instantly transforming you from put-together employee to walking stain advertisement. Named after someone who apparently made this their signature move. It's the adult version of wearing your lunch, except now you smell like burnt espresso and regret.
An old-school acronym meaning "pretty damn quick" that your grandfather probably used unironically. This vintage expression for speedy action has survived decades by being just ambiguous enough for polite company while everyone knows what the D really stands for. The linguistic equivalent of a wink and a nod.
To persistently annoy someone with constant small requests and tasks, like being pelted with tiny pebbles until you lose your mind. It's the verbal equivalent of death by a thousand cuts, except each cut is someone asking 'hey, can you do just one more thing?'
A requirement or condition that must be established or satisfied before proceeding with an action, negotiation, or decision; the non-negotiables that come before the negotiation.
The corporate buzzword meaning you're supposed to anticipate problems before they happen, rather than frantically fixing them afterward like a normal person. It's the opposite of 'reactive,' and using it in meetings makes you sound strategic even when you're just guessing about the future. Every manager wants proactive employees, preferably ones with actual psychic abilities.
The person who legally owns the business and gets blamed for everything when things go wrong, but celebrates alone when they go right.
The approach favored by people who want to get things done without getting lost in theory or idealism, though in corporate speak it's often code for 'boring but functional.' A pragmatic solution is practical and realistic, which makes it the antithesis of most startup pitch decks. Being pragmatic means choosing Excel over the sexy new tool because, well, Excel actually works.
The act of strategizing, designing, or creating a roadmap for future action—the thing organizations claim to do but rarely do well. Good planning prevents chaos; bad planning guarantees it; no planning guarantees chaos with overtime.
A 'Personal Ass Licker'—someone who shamelessly sucks up to authority figures or higher-ups in hopes of gaining promotions, benefits, or favorable treatment. The office brownnoser in personified form.
The complex process of making something exist—whether it's widgets, content, or excuses for missed deadlines. The industrial machinery of turning raw materials and chaos into deliverables.
A group of experts, judges, or talking heads assembled to debate, decide, or pontificate on something; also a rectangular section of something, like a wall or comic book frame. It's where important decisions and awkward silences happen.
A strategic term borrowed from military doctrine, now used in boardrooms to describe a company's carefully curated public stance on important issues. Basically, the attitude you're paying consultants to help you maintain.
The act of actively taking part in something—whether a project, decision-making process, or community initiative. The buzzword that makes people feel included even if their input goes nowhere.
Co-conspirators in business; people you'll share wins, losses, and surprisingly heated arguments about equity splits with. Legally bound together tighter than a TPS report bureaucracy.
A vendor or service supplier—anyone who provides something you need but probably overcharge for because you don't have better options. The plural: enough to create a 'vendor ecosystem.'
A documented strategy or architectural drawing; what every project manager pretends to follow before reality sets in. The written record of intentions that gets abandoned by week two.