Office Lingo

Common Business Phrases - What They Really Mean

A Clarification - To fill in the background with so many details that the foreground goes underground.

A Conference - A place where conversation is substituted for the dreariness of labor and the loneliness of thought.

A Meeting - A mass mulling by master minds.

A Program - Any assignment that can't be completed by one telephone call.

Action is being taken - Your correspondence is lost and we are still trying to locate it.

Action please - Get yourself involved for me. Don't worry, I'll claim the credit.

Basic agreement has been reached: The @##$%%'s won't even talk to us.

Channels - be trail left by the interoffice memo. Consultant (or Expert) - Any ordinary guy more than 50 miles from home.

Coordinator - me guy who has a desk between two expeditors.

Copy to - Here's a share of the headache.

Essentially complete: It's half done.

Expedite - To confound confusion with commotion

For your approval, please - Put your neck on the chopping board for me please.

For your immediate action - Do it NOW! Or we'll all get into trouble.

For your information, please (FYI) - We don't know what to do with this, so please keep it.

For your necessary action - It's your headache now.

Give Us the Benefit of Your Present Thinking - We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we've already decided to do.

Give us your interpretation -- Your warped opinion will be pitted against your adversary's good sense.

Informed Source - The guy who told the guy you just met.

It is in process - So wrapped up in red tape that the situation is almost hopeless.

Let's Get Together on This - I'm assuming you're as confused as I am.

Not well defined at this time: Nobody's even thought about it.

Not well understood: Now that we've thought about it, we don't want to think about it anymore.

Note and Initial - Let's spread the responsibility for this.

Noted and returned - We don't know what to do with this, so please keep it little while.

Please discuss - I don't know what the hell this is, so please brief me.

Please note and initial -- Let's spread the responsibility for this.

Please reply soon - Please be efficient. It makes me look inefficient.

Potential show stopper - The team has updated their resumes.

Regards - Thanks for reading all the bullshit.

Reliable Source - The guy you just met.

Re-orientation - Getting used to working again.

Requires further analysis and management attention: Totally out of control!

Results are being quantified: We're massaging the numbers so they will agree with our conclusions.

Results are promising: Turned power on and no smoke detected -- this time...

Review and comment - Do the dirty work so that I can forward it.

Risk is high, but within acceptable ranges of risk: 100:1 odds, or with 10 times over budget using 10 times the people we said we'd employ.

See Me, or Let's Discuss - Come down to my office, I'm lonesome.

Serious but not insurmountable problems: It'll take a miracle.

Task force to review: Seven people who are incompetent at their regular jobs have been loaned to the project

To Activate - To make carbons and add more names to the memo.

To Give Someone the Picture - A long, confused and inaccurate statement to a newcomer.

To Inplement a Program - Hire more people and expand the office.

To Negotiate - To seek a meeting of minds without knocking together of heads.Under Active Consideration - We're looking in the files for it.

Under Consideration - Never heard of it.

Unimpeachable Source - The guy who started the rumor originally.

We are aware of it -- We had hoped that the fool who started it would have forgotten about it by this time.

We are investigating/processing your request with the relevant authorities - They are causing the delay, not us.

We are making a survey -- We need more time to think of an answer.

We predict: We hope to God!

We will look into it - By the time the wheel makes a full turn, we assume you will have forgotten about it too.

Will advise you in due course -- If we figure it out, we'll let you know.

Your letter is receiving our attention - We are still trying to figure out what you want.

Christmas by Garfield