intermediary

Definition

The professional middleman who gets paid to stand between two parties who can't or won't talk to each other directly—think brokers, agents, or that friend who has to relay messages between feuding exes. They arrange deals, smooth over conflicts, and collect fees for being the human equivalent of a relay station. Essential in business, diplomacy, and anywhere people are too proud or busy to handle their own negotiations.

Example Usage

The real estate intermediary facilitated the transaction between buyer and seller, earning a tidy commission for managing the paperwork and negotiations.

Source: Business and legal terminology

Related Terms

Intermediate

Buy-In

Getting people to agree with your idea, typically achieved through a combination of PowerPoint slides, free lunch, and mild intimidation. Without buy-in, your brilliant proposal is just a Google Doc that nobody starred.

💼 Corporate / Business

Advanced

zero-sum game

A situation where one party's gain is exactly balanced by another party's loss, resulting in no net change. The opposite of win-win, but arguably more honest about how most business negotiations actually work.

💼 Corporate / Business

Intermediate

Helicopter View

Looking at a situation from a very high level, which conveniently means you can't see any of the actual problems on the ground. The preferred altitude of executives who want to give opinions without understanding details.

💼 Corporate / Business

Beginner

rep

Short for representative, because politicians and salespeople alike are too busy to say the whole word. In fitness, it's one complete exercise movement; in politics, it's the person supposedly speaking for your interests in government; in sales, it's whoever's trying to meet their quarterly quota by calling you during dinner. The context determines whether you're counting them, electing them, or avoiding their calls.

💼 Corporate / Business

Beginner

time suck

An activity, task, or obligation that devours hours of your life while providing minimal value in return. The corporate meeting that should've been an email, but stretched into a three-hour philosophical debate about font choices.

💼 Corporate / Business

Beginner

designation

The official act of slapping a label, title, or purpose onto something or someone, because nothing is real until it has proper paperwork. This formal appointment process turns regular employees into "Senior Vice Presidents" and empty land into "Protected Wildlife Habitats." It's essentially bureaucracy's way of making everything official through the sacred ritual of naming things.

💼 Corporate / Business

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cgaf

couldn't give a f**k...