Going Forward
 

Going Forward, I will be keeping track of how many cow orkers use the phrase "going forward" It's driving me nucking futs. it's is WORSE than like the teenagers who like don't even, right?

start using your own annoying preamble.

Say, 'Being Honest' before every declaration. Or, Irregardless... or .....Ostensibly.

Or 'at the end of the day...'

I was ready to drive off the road while listening to Tom Ashbrook's program On Point because he kept saying "unpack this"

WTF is wrong with the word explain?

The kids picked this up from a friend's mom, "No offense, but..." except they never used it properly. I finally got them to knock it off by explaining that what ever comes next is going to be offensive, you know it is going to be offensive, and therefore shouldn't say it, thus negating the need for "No offense, but..."

Business-speak threatens all of us. I spent a short time in the Big Consulting arena in the 90s. It was important to forge enormous amounts of bullshit to convince business managers that it was a good idea to fly a team of experts to Cleveland, at enormous expense, for six weeks, to upgrade their operating systems. I didn't write the following... but it's perfect:


Why did the chicken cross the road?

Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Andersen Consulting, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), Andersen helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. Andersen Consulting convened a diverse cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with Anderson consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to synergize with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing an enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of poultry cross-median processes. The meeting was held in a park-like setting enabling and creating an impactful environment which was strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent, clear, and unified market message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution. Andersen Consulting helped the chicken change to become more successful.

That kind of shit has infected education and academia as well. All project proposals have to come with 'impact assessments' that are just a nightmare of bullshit.

That's because the mindset is such that, at the end of the day, core competency dictates we buy-in to the best practices. No one is willing to punt, or think outside the box, to take it to the next level. Everyone thinks they're giving it 110%, but in reality they're boiling the ocean, and only going after the low-hanging fruit.

Shaw, have I told you that I love you lately?

That was a gorgeous effort.

Amanda won on the conference call. She already annoyed the crap out of me, so in a way I'm glad it was her. *shudder*

Going Forward, we will be looking to maximize revenue by breaking out the letters of the phrase and cross-merchandising them, effecting their full potential.

#2 on my hate; lst of currentmanagementterms is "Team". Cow Orkers has so much more potential then TMs.

so first email in the list this morning... from the boss....


Team,

Going Forward, we........

Tell 'em you find the term "team' derogatory; because, mules working together are called a team. Hand 'em a box of 20 Mule Team Borax and say you'd prefer to be addressed as "crew."

That'll throw them for a loop.

so, moving on...

I don't know how Tom was using it, but "unpack" ought to be used more like "explore the consequences of" than "explain". Though it probably used as "explain" quite a bit.