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  1. VultureMolly Young2/20/2022 min
    19 reads17 comments
    9.4
    Vulture
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    • aleph4 years ago

      I saw this phenomena a couple of days ago while talking to a group of friends some of which are out of the tech world. They kept making faces when some of us used garbage language. Let's be more conscious about this!

      • bill
        Top reader of all time
        4 years ago

        Let's be more conscious about this!

        +1. I'm with you! In the last week, I have stopped myself, mid sentence, and just been like, "Wait, I'm just using all garbage language. Let me start over." lol

    • Alexa4 years ago

      Yep this is great, and so much of it is flexing that we have a clue whats going on. My dad had this theory about the corporate world "act smart, fool everyone". Bandwidth, sync up, calling a presentation a "deck". It's all a facade to convince people we aren't just phoning it in at work.

      • SEnkey4 years ago

        Agreed. I tend to be the 'too-honest' guy who makes everyone a little uncomfortable when I keep asking what people mean. Example: Our CFO: "Would you say our cadence will escalate as we scale?" Me: What do you mean? Him: Our cadence. Me: {inquiring look} Him: Do you think we will need to meet more as the project gains traction? Me: Oh, sure. It will depend on how much demand we see. Him: Obviously {nodding his head}

        I walked away thinking, why did you ask me that, in that way, when you seem to already know the obvious answer? What was the point of that?

    • SEnkey4 years ago

      Amen.

    • bill
      Top reader of all time
      4 years ago

      So true. So well-written. The garbage is everywhere. This is evidence of a society in transition from real to fake.

      • Alexa4 years ago

        This is evidence of a society in transition from real to fake.

        Too real. You know it's bad when even pre-teens have an online brand. We've become a society obsessed with putting on a charade for others, even the word "authenticity" is a farce these days lol.

        • bill
          Top reader of all time
          4 years ago

          Ok so this is really weird because two nights ago I COULDN'T sleep thinking about the intense bullshit of the word “authentic.” We are using it in a profoundly incorrect way. I’m so glad you said “farce” - that’s exactly it! There is no such thing as being “authentic” online. Our authentic selves are our real world selves. Then we have a bunch of digital fake selves. That’s okay, but let’s just call it what it is. Society is a mess because of all of this confusion.

          If you buy a Gucci purse that’s not a real Gucci purse, it’s fake. “Authentic” doesn’t mean real(ish) or real-looking. It’s still not an “authentic” bag, even if it looks really really really close to real.

          We have the acronym IRL to denote “in real life,” aka non-digital, aka not through the black mirror, which warps us. So, yeah: Non-IRL authenticity is a lie. And I think Susan Sontag would be with me on this one.

      • Alexa4 years ago

        I actually lay in bed last night thinking about this one. With garbage language people would rather sound important than communicate clearly. 🤯 There is so much power in knowing your message is understood, wish that was more commonly considered.

    • vunderkind4 years ago

      This is my favorite article this week!

      • bill
        Top reader of all time
        4 years ago

        👍👍💯💯🕺🏻🕺🏻

    • chrissetiana
      Top reader of all time
      4 years ago

      I heard “I am using meaningless words and forcing you to act like you understand them.”

      Lingos appear in all types of groups. Funny how we will always have the tendency to make up and use "meaningful" gibberish until everybody else (from within the group to the world) conforms to it.

      Once you hear a word, it’s “in” you. It has penetrated your ears and entered your brain, from which it can’t be selectively removed.

      • bill
        Top reader of all time
        4 years ago

        Yep. I love that second quote. So true. I very distinctly remember in my first job out of college everyone saying “leverage.” No matter how hard I tried to “unhear” it, it was impossible. Then, suddenly, I was using that word as leverage in conversations. :P

    • jbuchana4 years ago

      I'm so glad that I'm not swimming in this verbal swill any more. Retirement is so nice.

      My two favorite quotes:

      Sometimes a phrase will pop into my head that I haven’t heard in years — holistic road map — and I will feel as if someone just told me that in July 2016, I ate a bowl of soup that contained a booger. I’m overcome with aversion; I’m too late to do anything.

      it confirms delusion as an asset in the workplace.

    • Plum
      Reading streak
      4 years ago

      its ratio of ingenuity to bullshit — a ratio present in every organization and, indeed, every human — was tipped too far in the wrong direction.

    • deephdave
      Top reader of all timeScoutScribe
      4 years ago

      “If you’re in a meeting and you’re a 20-something and you want to sound in the know, you’re going to use those words.”

    • jeff4 years ago

      Amazing piece! Quite a few moments that made me laugh out loud. I hadn't seen the memo from Steph Korey before. I would love to know what she was actually thinking.

      Did Korey really believe that withholding paid time off from lower-level employees counted as a career opportunity? Was her mind a ticker tape of sentences like this, or had she run it through an internal executive-translation plug-in?