Seeking clarification on phrases used in offices nowadays? Hopefully this A-Z will help!
Ask hole: A person who asks questions in meetings to look busy or important, but just succeeds in extending long meetings
Bandwidth: Time available to carry out a task
C.Y.A. (Covering Your Ass): An action carried out to absolve oneself of blame
Demised: Fired
Email tennis: Back and forth emailing with no outcome
Four-eyesing: Checking a document or communication for mistakes
Guru: The ‘knowledge leader’ who creates an aura of mystery around them, because nobody else in an organization gets what they do
Hot desking: Seating system where people find whatever desk is available at the beginning of a day. While this is sold as being modern, it also reflects your impermanence in the organization
Inbox rot: When you have procrastinated excessively and your inbox is filled with emails on which no action has been taken
Jackass of all trades: A person who is dreadful at a number of tasks
Knowledge transfer: The action/result of teaching or learning
Low hanging fruit: Easily achievable goals
MAD (Mutually assumed disinterest): Situation where disengaged employee slacks off and HR doesn’t have the will or ability to engage, promote or fire
Notice me email: A late night/early morning email sent purely to demonstrate someone’s total dedication to the job
Office hot: When an average guy or girl is made ‘hot’ because your office has a lack of lookers or is exceedingly boring; they are only “office hot”
Please advise: Phrase used when you want to call someone stupid and do so by indicating lack of clarification in their written or spoken communications
Question fart: Asinine query made in a meeting that reveals lack of attention to the conversation or alarming lack of self-control
Radar: Awareness of something (i.e “on your radar”)
Synergy: When companies are forced to work together due to buyouts, partnerships, or mergers. Framed as a magical advantage it is in fact generally despised by both sides
Tetris: A work situation where mistakes pile up and accomplishments have disappeared
Upward demotion: Act of “promoting” a person to a less important job instead of firing them, generally due to their relationships to senior people or clients
View from the bridge: Overall situation
Work life balance: Phrase used to denote there is a life after work; only you probably don’t have one if your company repeatedly stresses their focus upon it
X–files: Documents that have miraculously vanished
Yell phone: A mobile phone that is transformed into a loud speaker as a result of its user’s loud conversations on it
Zombiance: The dead atmosphere of a boring office
1:30: The time you tell colleagues you got home after a work night out that ended much later
Drunken master 