This list is a few weeks in the making; I’ve been taking notes at meetings.
- reached out, as in “I reached out to George yesterday as I know he is looking for help with your online efforts,” instead of “I contacted George yesterday as I know he is looking for help with your online efforts”
- touch base, see reached out
- mission critical, as in “drop all projects that aren’t mission critical,” instead of “I know what you should be spending your time on better than you do, you lazy fuck.”
- offline, as in “Fred, let’s offline that,” instead of “Fred, let’s talk about that later; it’s not pertinent to the other people in this meeting, you stupid ass”
- robust, as in “Michael, that report is very robust,” instead of “Michael, you’re smarter than me, how did you make that report?”
- due diligence, as in “I can’t offer you a solution on that today, I’m still doing my due diligence to determine an optimal solution,” instead of “I totally forgot you asked me to do that. After I check MySpace, I’ll get to it.”
- put to bed, as in “there are a couple more problems we need to put to bed before we can launch that initiative,” instead of “it’s taking longer than I thought because my friend broke up with her boyfriend and I had to console her on Google Talk all day yesterday.”
- going forward, as opposed to going backward?
- with all due respect, as in “with all due respect, I think we should try something else,” instead of “no, that idea sucks, Mr. Bossman.”
I wish I would have started at the beginning of the summer; this list would be amazing.