Buzzword bonkers

It astounds me how many people use buzzwords these days. I can understand (to a point) the necessity of industry-specific jargon, but what on earth does it mean when someone says “I’ll cold towel those documents and get them to you later,” or “he’s just had a brain dump,” A ‘brain dump’? You have to be kidding. Just what sort of person thinks the usage of this term is anything less than crass? I have an image of a smelly item squeezing out of a cranium, no? Perhaps I’m simply not hip enough to get it.

My boss talks about ‘blue sky thinking’, then laughs. Neither of us knows exactly what it means, but presume it’s something to do with positivity. Thankfully, Boss shares my frustration with the cool language that floats around in meetings and was amazed when I told him about Boardroom Bingo, the game where a different buzzword fills each square of a bingo board and you mark them off as you hear them spoken in meetings.

We now collect buzzwords in the office and a group of us use them as often as possible because it makes us giggle. A typical exchange might be:

A: “I’m off to a meeting now,”

B: “Well then, let’s get your rocks of that runway and clear it for take-off. I sure hope those 404s don’t car park your new strategy.”

A: “Yeah, we’re ready for any potential blamestorming from those idea hamsters. Perhaps we can get a chainsaw consultant to uninstall them before they cause us any more salmon days.”

How about this?

“I’m having a non-proximity distance issue with a vital file for that meeting.” (In spite of its total pomposity, I can’t wait to use that one.)

This is pretty bad, too:

“How about putting a couple of slices of bread in your intellectual toaster to see what pops out?”

In structure it reminds me of:

“Let’s put some milk in the cappuccino machine and see it comes out frothy.”

Funnily enough, some buzzwords that were new to us 8 years ago, are in common usage now:

“They’ll work on it 24-7,”

“He’s been left out of the loop”

“It’s a complete no-brainer,” and

“We’re being proactive, not reactive,” If we’re honest, we all use them, and they’ve probably made it into the O.E.D.

So what are the latest buzzwords buzzing around right now? See The Buzzword Dictionary at http://www.buzzwhack.com, a website ‘dedicated to demystifying buzzwords’. It would seem that I’m already a ‘buzzwhacker’, ‘cos I whack the hell outta them there buzzwords. So proud… But I still don’t know how to ‘cold-towel’ a document. Damn.

My on-line shrine

One of the things I miss most about living with my Former Flatmate is his shrine. On entering his flat, there is a large dresser covered with so many religious knick-knacks that it’s hard to tell exactly what colour it is. The shrine, as FF has named it, is not mono-theistic. In fact, most of the world’s religions (if not all) are represented in some way. Even celebrities who are venerated by FF have a presence. The only rule is that you cannot appear on the shrine unless you are dead or religious in a good way.

Counting among the various objects on the shrine are: a Lady of Lourdes holy water bottle in the shape of the Virgin Mary, a nun doll circa 1970 valiantly rescued by FF from a charity shop, pictures of Hindu gods with various skin colours (blue, green…), a Buddha sat happily on a pile of glass pebbles and a Pope-on-a-Rope soap from the John Paul II era. There’s a box of matches depicting a serene Christ, saying “Jesus is coming, look busy!”, a monk doll in miniature sackcloth habit but no indication of precisely who it’s meant to be, and a Princess Diana doll (yes, FF was a Di fan). Heath Ledger’s picture was placed on the shrine following his untimely demise and Kylie is represented, both in doll-form and in a Kylie and Jason postcard of some age. (She is the only living person to make it onto this dresser of sanctity, partly because FF worships her and partly because her fight against cancer makes her worthy.)

At home with Monsieur, I’m trying to get my own shrine started, but it’s not very well populated yet. There’s a Lady of Lourdes statuette next to a postcard that looks like Saint Bernadette or the Virgin Mary, depending on which way you hold it. The Archangel Michael is there in technicolour plaster, with his spear stuck into a demon at his feet. This one came from an ecclesiastical shop in Naples, where the owner insisted on wrapping the spear separately as he explained that the spear must be packed in the hold on our way back to England, lest it be confiscated from my carry on as a ‘dangerous weapon’. Well, it worked for St Michael when he slayed Satan…

Anyway, in homage to FF’s shrine, I’ve decided to create an on-line shrine, depicting deities and people who have had an influence on me. Here it is!