I loathe buzzwords. They go against everything I stand for. They are so of it. They imply that the user of the buzzwords is stupid, or doesn't mind sounding stupid. I refuse to use them. I am not ashamed to admit that I have consulted a thesaurus to find an appropriate word to use instead of a buzzword, when I knew it was expected that a buzzword should be used.
There are two particular words, or more accurately, phrases, that are used more often at my company than any others. I cringe when I hear them. They are: beta test and one-off. These are both outstanding buzzwords, as they don't make any sense at face value. I have unfortunately gathered that in the context of my company, "beta test" means they're testing something out and gathering feedback before expanding to a wider audience, and "one-off" means that you're going to deal with that particular situation individually, rather than have a blanket policy.
In product development meetings, I keep score. One point for the use of either of those buzzwords. Five points if they use the same buzzword twice in a sentence, and a whopping ten points if they can use "beta test" and "one-off" in the same sentence. After the meeting I enter the points into a spreadsheet I keep. So far, some software development guy is in the lead, having amassed 23 points during a meeting in May. Of course, there are no winners in this game, only losers.
Anyway, the reason I am writing this all now is because I was pulled into a meeting yesterday with five other people, to catch up with some shit that happened during my vacation. My boss went over a couple of meetings I missed, and wanted to get my input. Then he uttered a fantastic ten-pointer. "Do you think we should continue with the beta test, or should we roll it out and deal with problems on a one-off basis?"
I was trapped. In the past, I have been able to avoid saying one-off and beta test by simply choosing different ways to express the sentiments behind the buzzwords. But this time, it was like a multiple choice test, not a fill-in-the-blank. He had presented me with two buzzwords, and I was to choose one of them. Ten eyes looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to express my opinion through the use of one of my vocabulary enemies. Ever the smartass, I said, "While I think we could probably benefit from additional market-specific trials, I think we should move forward and handle the issues as they arise." My answer was met with silence, before my boss said quietly, "Thank you for your input. You can go now."
