Business Speak Decoders Prints

"I have some character-building news for you."

"The data looks good, sir, but the vibes are mucho heavioso."

What Guys Say and What They Mean,

'This graph may need some explaining...'

"Using worst case scenario as a baseline, I consider this data quite encouraging."

'You might show a little excitement at the figures, Johnson!'

What Business People often say (and what they really mean)

'Stocks shot up. . . no one on the committee could understand a word that Bernanke was saying.'

NHS/Private Eye Care.

"According to his will, he wants his outstanding debts to be shared equally between the three of you."

"The quicksand was corporate's idea. I wanted to fire you for going over my head. They wanted to send a message."

Information vs. confusion

"We're going to play the boss's favorite game - 'pin the blame on the scapegoat.'"

"Well, now it's been explained to you, 'Market Share' does not mean we want to share the market."

Market Research - "I'm trying to remember to pick up a loaf of bread, but there's a 38% probability that I'll forget."

'The new role will involve some EXTRA responsibilities...of course you'll appreciate that there won't be any extra funding...It's a role for which you are uniquely qualified!'

"The are 10 types of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't."

"Well, yes, I suppose I could explain the test results in 'plain English' — but then you'd know how sick you are."

"The doctors call it Polymyositis, but I call it 'Military Arthritis' because it comes with a lot of fatigue."

Office of Lyrics You Can't Understand

Toughing it out in the real estate game.

'I've gone from spanning the globe at lightening speed to struggling with some techie's accent over a bad connection.'

"Bob, let's meet everyone. Amy is Director of Thought Innovation Solutions, Marcus is head of Transformative Mindset Empowerment, Terry's in charge of Scalable Competency Integration, and Gail is VP of Agile Enterprise Strategy. None of us knows what we do, Bob."

'Baby and Child Care Guidelines'

'This new position in our company will move me further from ampersand.'

'I'm now ready to make my own way in the world. But first, can you guys loan me 200 grand to pay off my student loan?'

"You'll fit in just fine."

"Hey, where's the gig, man?"

"I would be bilingual if you were bilingual!"

"If we could decipher their language we'd have a clue to their intelligence levels."

"Then the hard drive says to the floppy, 110010001110011..."

"So considering the data related to Blah! Blah! Receivables taking into account offshore tax deductibles before blah...."

You didn't tell me how dangerous this job is! It's right in your contract, "guaranteed hospitalization."

The secret of the business language

'This is our conference room modeled after the United Nations so we can understand what our tech support people are saying.'