Whether you consider these to be jargon or clichés, there are some phrases that are used in every workplace which we guarantee that almost everyone will find annoying! Saying that, we imagine that you – like us – are guilty having used, or do use, many of these yourselves! Here are our favourite – or should that be least favourite – overused terms.
Thinking outside the box
How many times have you used or heard this when referring to creative or innovative thinking? Using it probably demonstrates a lack of creativity, or innovation – or maybe both!
Close of play
Often abbreviated to COP to mean the end of the day however the non-specific timeframe can lead to confusion and potentially missed deadlines – just say the time you are working towards!
Low hanging fruit
A term that refers to an easy target that does not require much effort. Do you really want to indicate to your colleagues that you are choosing to take the easy option?
It’s on my radar
This is an oldie – but not a goodie! Meaning that you are aware of something – but also that you haven’t quite got round to doing anything about it!
Let’s take this offline
How many times have you heard someone come out with this? Most likely to be used when someone feels a conversation is getting a little too heated or too close for comfort and attempts to change the subject!
Singing from the same hymn sheet
This is a very widely used phrase to try and cajole agreement and collective thinking. You will often hear this when someone is making an attempt to diffuse a disagreement or bring someone round to their way of thinking.
Blue sky thinking
Hands up, almost everyone is guilty of using this one! Whilst its intention is to be applauded – the creation of ideas that are free from the normal constraints – the reality is that such ideas are likely to be impractical to implement. Recognising the obstacles and developing feasible solutions is a far better use of one’s time.
Thought shower
The pressure of having to come up with many, many ideas (probably whilst using ‘blue sky thinking’) will more than likely bring you out in a cold sweat!
Going on a journey
This one ranks quite highly on our list of corporate bugbears. Again, its intention is correct – people do need to be brought along and be heading in the same direction – but the word ‘journey’ has us conjuring images of people making a trek to reach the South Pole!
Win-win situation
This particular nugget is most likely to be used by those attempting to save face when they’ve had to relent more than they would have ideally liked to in order to resolve a situation.
There’s no ‘I’ in team
This is a tricky one – and is generally used to address those who are perceived to not be pulling their weight or focussing upon their own interests. Being a good team player is an essential characteristic of almost every employee – we agree with the sentiment, but dislike the phrase!
Touch base
The reason why this one makes the list is because it is actually just as easy to say what the phrase itself means! Used when you want to catch up with someone about a particular matter, you can score extra annoyance points by inviting someone to ‘touch base offline’.
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