To Tell You The Truth

I was sitting at the kitchen table at my parents place this morning, dad talking about the forthcoming A-League final (Sydney v Central Coast Mariners). We chatted about the German coach of the team and as dad went to add some additional commentary, out came that idiosyncratic gem, 'To tell you the truth'. I looked at him with some amusement and kept talking, a while later there it was again. I had to chuckle. Marni has been busting me for using the same line and I had never consciously thought of where it came from until this morning. I mean, I must have heard him saying it hundreds of times and today, 30 odd years down the track I've only just recognised how this was passed on to me. Anyway, that's not really what I wanted to chat about. I wanted to have a passing shot at common day to day business vernacular and how incredibly dumb, annoying and irritating it can be.

The first one is that common meeting throw away line, lets talk offline. M made mention of this last week and I've heard this quite frequently in meetings myself. Generally it'll be said in a meeting between two 'stakeholders' whose issue affects them directly. In the midst of discussion, if the topic is encroaching either sensitive information or an area that does not directly affect the issue at hand then one of the individuals involved will rip it out - 'lets take this offline' .....as in, lets have a private conversation about this. Now this comment assumes many things, firstly,that the current meeting in progress is 'online'. Secondly that we are using a messenger or chat metaphor to describe the meeting take place. I simply say, what the !!??? Am I to assume that we need to login to meetings or sign in with our unique passwords and id's ? Wouldn't it be just as easy to say, 'Hey, lets discuss this after the meeting' ???? It's such a dumb and irritating thing to say and I can only assume that in the 'business world' people say these retarded things to make them feel like they're part of the game and knowledgeable of the internal machinations of the company.

Another one used commonly in the context of e-mail is 'Thanks in advance'.........Arrggghhhh. Now, I personally don't receive this line anymore but in my last job, the egotistical, superficial excuse for a goat used it all the time. The problem I have with this of course is that the person signing off with this line assumes that 1) You will do what they've asked you to do and 2) There aren't any other tasks that you have that may prevent you from finishing what they've asked. There is also an element of authority , ownership and self importance thrown into the mix. Personally I think the line is crap, it assumes just a little too much and just shows how ignorant the sender is. So to all those people using the line, stop it !!! ...and to the person that sent it to me, well, you know what I think of you !!

Of course there's a lot of other words and one liners used in the business world that just make you cringe, such as synergies, thinking outside the box, intergration, being within scope, delegated authority ..... damn, you could go on for days. Aside from this there are also annoying business practises and one inparticular that gets under my skin is the setting of appointments. Now, I can understand setting an appointment with a person or a group of people a day in advance for even hours in advance. People are busy, they forget discussions etc. What I can't stand is when you're speaking to one person and suggest a meeting for say an hour or even 30 mins time and they say sure 'Just set up an appointment' ........?????? Common man, you can't commit to a meeting 30 mins from now without me having to send you a meeting request and a pop up reminding you of the request in 25 mins time ??? You seriously are retarded !!!

Ahhh anyway, that's my rant for this Saturday. Now its back to studying !