Sayings I Hate

Overuse of the word "Sexy" to describe the look and feel.

I was attending a presentation about the new Macintosh computers and their features. Excellent presentation except the person giving it kept using the adjective "Sexy" to describe the look and feel of OS X Leopard. I know the look and feel is pretty and such but using the word Sexy doesn't get me interested. "That interfaces is Sexy." and then I could reply with "Saddam Hussein was Sexy too."

You might want to Ping me, her, him or Oberon on that one.

The term to Ping is used and over used in IT in the USA and has made it's way to Canada. I know we're in IT but I refuse to use this term. For those that aren't here's the scoop. Ping is a command used in the computer world to see if a computer, device or website is online. It sends small pieces of information and sends back the amount of time it takes to send it.
My response should be the common response to an unsuccessful ping or maybe I could user Robospeak, Access Denied... Cannot compute.


Going forward, bla bla bla blim bloo

This goes right up there at the top of common words and sayings I absolutely hate. It's never used in a good light ether. It's never something like "Going forward, all employee can wear sweats to work and drink beer at their desk". It's always something like "Going forward, we're going to ask all of you to make up the work Jim did when he left suddenly". Screw Jim and screw his work. I'm not going forward with anything from now on. If you stop and notice, it's always used when something new will be required from you on a regular basis. People that use this term should have their teeth kicked in by a gang of baseball bat-toting children hyped on sugar filled gummy bears.

Exercising Due Diligence

This one really irritates my little gray cells. Exercising Due Diligence! And a one, and a two and a corporate restructuring and a service off-shoring and a reduction in salary and wages. Whew! What a workout. I remember when my job was threatened by IBM, they used this term a lot. This basically mean keeping a lid on things because no ones going to like the announcement you have to make. The kicker is, if enough of the right people hear about the change, it might actually be stopped. You'll hear this term a lot when they off shore your job to some country you never want to visit. This is the type of sentence that makes me cringe, just like exercise.

Headwinds and Tailwinds

I've actually seen this used in an HR presentation. Headwinds are supposed to be the bad things and Tailwinds are the good things. This is confusing because, people generally associated getting a head as a good thing, thus, headwinds get confused with tailwinds and everyone has to go to Wikipedia to see what the hell they're talking about. Everyone's afraid of using simple language. Instead of Good and Bad or Positives and Negatives we get Tailwinds and Headwinds. Hey Captain, I've got a few for you. How about spanking and godawful.

Lets leave the Nautical References for people drive planes and fly trains for crying out loud.

Business Values

There's an oxymoron if I ever heard on. That's like saying "...here at Ultra-Max penitentiary we support prisoner values". I don't think there are values in the world of business because your always trying for exponential profit and doing anything for a bunch of greedy shareholders. There are no values in screwing your own employees with under employment and benefits loss. This of course depends on the company your working for. There might be exceptions. In general I don't like this term.