WHAT WE'VE SLAUGHTERED!
THE KILL LIST
If we've killed it, you'll find it here.
Check back periodically for new eliminations.
EXECUTIONS
CORPORATE CRAP
01
→ Teamwork
Sounds like a bad sci-fi drug. Just say what people do together.
02
→ Don't change that - it works
Translation: we broke something that wasn't broken.
03
→ Expertise
You either have ideas or you don't. "Thought leader" is neither.
04
→ Flexible approach
Started as a manifesto. Now it's an excuse to never finish anything.
05
→ Use
You have a lever? Great. Use it. Or just say "use."
06
→ Can grow
Scales are for fish and bathroom floors. Say "can grow."
07
→ Brainstorming
Clouds block blue sky. Jargon blocks thought. Coincidence?
08
→ Major change
A fancy way of saying something changed. Just say that.
09
→ Goal we're measuring
Key Performance Indicator. Or as we like to call it: the number your boss uses to justify your annual review.
10
→ Was it worth it?
Return on Investment. The two most important letters in any meeting, yet nobody ever defines what "return" actually means.
11
→ Selling to other businesses
Business to Business. A way to sound global while describing something your grandfather did without an acronym.
12
→ Strengths and weaknesses list
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. A framework so old it should be collecting Social Security.
13
→ Company software system
Enterprise Resource Planning. Three words that together mean absolutely nothing to anyone who hasn't suffered through an implementation.
14
→ Customer database
Customer Relationship Management. A fancy term for a spreadsheet that costs $50,000 a year.
15
→ What makes us different
Unique Selling Point. If you need an acronym to explain what makes you special, you may not be that special.
16
→ Out of office
Out Of Facility. Used by people who consider themselves too important to just say they're not at their desk.
17
→ The person who actually knows
Subject Matter Expert. The one person in the room who understands what's being discussed and is ignored accordingly.
18
→ Right now
Pretty Darn Quick. Corporate code for "I needed this yesterday and didn't tell you."
19
→ Chief of something commercial
Chief Commercial Officer. A title so vague even the person holding it sometimes has to check.
20
→ I'm covering myself
For Your Information. Translation: "When this goes wrong, I can prove I told you."
21
→ What we actually do
A paragraph that takes three months to write, means nothing to employees, and is ignored by customers.
22
→ Things we claim to believe
Posted on the wall. Rarely consulted. Occasionally violated by the person who had them printed.
23
→ Where we hope to be someday
The aspirational cousin of the mission statement. Even vaguer. Even less actionable.
24
→ Let people do their jobs
The favorite word of organizations that don't actually let people do their jobs.
25
→ Motivate
Used in every mission statement written since 1995. Has lost all meaning. Cannot be recovered.
26
→ Our products
What every company calls their products when they can't think of anything specific to say about them.
27
→ Pretty good
A claim made by companies who have never actually compared themselves to the rest of the world.
28
→ Better than some
Similar to world class but with even less evidence required to use it.
29
→ Making money
A mission statement's polite way of admitting the whole point is profit without sounding crass about it.
30
→ Different from before
Used to describe changes that are frequently neither transformative nor particularly different from before.
31
→ We considered several things
Sounds like a spa. Means someone looked at more than one spreadsheet before making a decision.
32
→ We recycle sometimes
A noble concept that has been stretched so thin by corporate usage that it now means almost nothing at all.
POLITICAL BULLSHIT
01
→ Lying carefully
Saying something technically true that means the opposite of what you're implying. Politicians have a PhD in this.
02
→ Occasionally agreeing
Sounds noble. In practice it means "we compromised on the free coffee in the break room."
03
→ Soldiers in a war zone
A way to talk about sending people into danger without using any of the words that make it sound like what it is.
04
→ Torture
The gold standard of political euphemism. Two pleasant words doing very unpleasant work.
05
→ Civilian casualties
Real people. Real families. Sanitized into a logistics term.
06
→ Tax increase
Nobody votes for a tax increase. Everyone considers a revenue enhancement.
07
→ Government spending
Same money. Much more palatable framing.
08
→ Voters we want
Every politician loves hardworking families. Nobody has ever met a lazy family they wanted to mention.
09
→ Big problem
Once reserved for nuclear war. Now applied to anything the speaker wants you to panic about.
10
→ A few people from both sides agreed
If it were actually bipartisan, they wouldn't need to say so.
11
→ Whatever the other party did
The universal political descriptor for anything that happened before the speaker took office.
12
→ I'm about to say something murky
A verbal tic that precedes something that is rarely clear and almost never hasn't been said before.
SOCIAL MEDIA
01
→ Paid promoter
Someone with a following who gets free products in exchange for pretending they discovered them organically.
02
→ Scripted to look unscripted
The most produced, rehearsed, and filtered content on the internet. Described as authentic by the people who made it
03
→ Likes and comments
A metric that measures how many people clicked something, dressed up to sound like a meaningful human connection.
04
→ A lot of people saw it
Usually applied retroactively. Nobody plans to go viral. They plan to post and then claim they planned it.
05
→ Your online reputation
The idea that every human being is now also a marketing department. Exhausting for everyone involved.
06
→ Fishing for attention
Posting "some people really disappoint you 😔" without explanation and waiting for the concerned comments to roll in.
07
→ Person who posts things
A title that makes posting videos of yourself eating lunch sound like a legitimate career. Sometimes it is. That's fine. But the title is still ridiculous.
08
→ The thing deciding what you see
A mysterious force blamed for everything — low views, high views, radicalization, and why your cousin keeps seeing ads for things she only spoke about out loud.
09
→ Releasing
"My new merch is dropping Friday." It's not a meteor. It's a t-shirt. You're selling a t-shirt.
10
→ Working together
Two influencers appearing in each other's content so they can share audiences. Called a collaboration. Actually a transaction.
11
→ Online status
Social media's version of popularity, except measurable, purchasable, and completely meaningless outside of the platform it exists on.
12
→ Pound sign
It was always a pound sign. It will always be a pound sign. We've lost this battle but we reserve the right to be annoyed about it forever.