I thought we would try a poem this week. About all those kind of crazy work phrases that people use that don’t actually mean anything and make you (well, me at least), quite cross. Enjoy.

Work language issues

By Chris Dixon

“Can I borrow you for just a sec?”, a phrase you often hear

But by borrow they mean steal, and by sec, they mean a year

You’re playing devil’s advocate, oh right, that sounds just swell

Except I’m getting work done, so don’t want to be in hell

I’ve never found the goal posts, but they’ve moved, or so they say.

The box we’re told to think outside, must have been put away.

The loop that we keep people in is very well concealed

And the ball I must get rolling, well, it’s yet to be revealed.

The Short lists seem much longer than most other lists I know

And don’t start with “Teamwork, Dreamwork”, I gave up long ago

I’m stacked with blue sky thinking, yet I don’t know what to do.

And the journey’s never ending? well at least that much is true.

If another single person, asks me to think win-win

Or wants me to consider just how long’s a piece of string

I’ll beat them with a drawing board until they’re nice and numb

and pick their brains with rusty forks, from now to kingdom come.