Please Stop Saying These 25 Ridiculous Phrases at Work
May 14, 2015
These days, workplace conversations can sound like they're taking place on another planet.
At first, euphemisms surfaced in the workplace to help people deal with touchy subjects that were difficult to talk about. Before long, they morphed into corporate buzzwords that expanded and took over our vocabulary until our everyday conversations started sounding like they were taking place on another planet:
Listen Ray, I don't have the bandwidth for it with everything that's on my plate, but ping me anyway because at the end of the day it's on my radar and I don't want to be thrown under the bus because I didn't circle back around on this no-brainer.
I understand the temptation. These phrases are spicy and they make you feel clever (low-hanging fruit is a crutch of mine), but they also annoy the hell out of people.
If you think that you can use these phrases without consequence, you're kidding yourself. Just pay close attention to how other people react to your using them, and you'll see that these phrases don't cast you in a favorable light.
After all, TalentSmart has tested the emotional intelligence of more than a million people and one of the biggest need areas for most people is social awareness. Most of us are so focused on what we're saying and what we're going to say next that we lose sight of how our words affect other people.
So give this list a read, think of how often you use some of these words, and see if you can catch yourself before you use them again.
Have some fun with it, because at the end of the day if you don't hit the ground running you can always go back to the drawing board and get the ball rolling...
At the end of the day
Back to the drawing board
Hit the ground running
Get the ball rolling
Low-hanging fruit
Throw under the bus
Think outside the box
Let's touch base
Get my manager's blessing
It's on my radar
Ping me
I don't have the bandwidth
No brainer
Par for the course
Bang for your buck
Synergy
Move the goal post
Apples to apples
Win-win
Circle back around
All hands on deck
Take this offline
Drill-down
Elephant in the room
On my plate
What phrases are your pet peeves?
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