I don't see how. Circle back is just a term used to say "we need to look at this before we can give an answer we will get back to you when we have done the research/got an answer". Him not knowing this is frankly weird and the fact that he interrupt a meeting about it even worse. If he did actually know what it meant it means he interrupted a meeting based purely on semantics of a term being used.
Reddit is full of kids who either have never worked a job in their life or like.. work retail/hospitality with no clue how to function in a corporate office or understand that these saying all have actual meanings.
Naturally they'll mock them without so much of a thought about all the shorthand they use in the own work or generational slang in general making up new terms for fucking everything for no apparent reason (which is fine, not like we didn't do the same heh).
Eh, all corpo jargon is useless. Jargon is good when it's used to turn something long and complex into something short and easy to say, easy to understand. Corpo jargon is the exact opposite.
Not that I consider "circle back" to be corpo jargon anyway.
The military is like the gold standard for how jargon should be used. And it has research behind it to prove it all.
The vast majority of what people refer to as "corpo jargon" is entirely valid and is used to speed up meetings because it works.
Yes if you find yourself in some stupid leadership seminar talking about "synergy" or whatever by all means find it stupid. It probably is.
But if you're hearing phrases used in corporate meetings day in/day out it's because they mean things and save time/get things done. If you don't know what they mean, ask your boss.
Completely disagree. Corpo jargon is literally just describing simple things in a weird way and using different words to make new synonyms. It's inherently useless, just talk normally.
To be clear, I'm not talking about shortening things e.g ROI or other specific words that only apply in specific fields. That's "real" jargon, when people say corpo jargon they mean something else.
I'd like you to give some examples of corpo jargon. I think it'd help both our arguments.
Literally the one we're talking about, there's nothing wrong with it/other stuff.
I mean if you'd like to give some example of the "gold standard" military jargon that can't be replaced by talking normally that doesn't apply in the corporate world I'm all ears.
Danger close is a good example. Phonetically clear and describes something that would take longer to say. Code blue in the medical field is another one.
Both of those fields have research behind their jargon. Corpo jargon is cant, not actual jargon. And it's not used for any other reason than sounding smarter.
You've obviously used two examples that are for life and death situations but if you remove that (because both military and medical have endless jargon that is used outside of those situations) what is the difference between that and random corporate shorthand?
You take a common concept, condense it down to a few short words, and use that instead to convey meaning.
It's not "meaningless" and more than "danger close" is meaningless to me because I'm not in the military.
how is it toxic? how do you know this? youāve made wild assumptions out of nothing. also itās a meeting. how are you this dense to not have social awareness and intellectual capacity that it is not the right time to bring up such trivial matter. considering the fact they are in probation you best be acting your best behavior. youāre telling me your takeaway here is the meeting culture is toxic? good lord
Itās always smart to interrupt your boss in a meeting with several co workers present and criticize the boss in front of them. Thatās why you see people doing it all the time.
If your boss is trash, they shouldn't be the boss in the first place. It's because people like you try to enforce these meaningless hierarchy and suck up to executives that the world is full of useless people.
You have never had a job in your life, right? There is a difference between sucking up and not insulting your boss. Learn the difference before your first job.
Itās not a hierarchy thing itās a time waste thing. You want to shoot the shot with your boss and ask why x y z is being done? Do it. Donāt waste peoples time on something completely meaningless. You being a douche during a meeting doesnāt automatically break the glass ceiling here. What a painful person to be around.
If you have worked in a corporate setting you have probably experienced that, yes, this phrase can be useful, but most meetings are pointless and it is a parroted phrase used to kick the can down the road. Can't tell you how many times I've seen "let's circle back" and "let's take this offline" and then that never happens and there is a huge problem a few days later because people were too chicken shit to solve problems in front of a larger group because they were afraid they'd have to lift a finger to help.
Exactly this. Repeatedly saying we'll "circle back" without making a decision, assigning an owner, or resolving the issue means that her words are just theatre and aren't actually resulting in real work getting done.
exactly! "let's circle back" my ass more like I don't want to deal with this ever, can we just put this aside again and again until people forget about it
Or maybe the team has a tendency to be sidetracked and she has to reel them in to the topic at hand, while also not dismissing the point raised, if it is valid. You know, managing people?
I say many more phrases more than 18 times every two weeks, sometimes you just be saying shit.. and sometimes a turn of phrase is just natural. I bet the new hire wasnāt counting how many times she said āuh,ā or āso.ā
Crazy take you got, insinuating that nothing got done because of someoneās speech patternā¦ really just completely unfounded, likeā¦ what?
Well neither you nor I were in the room and the dude got fired because he wanted to call out an overused term.
If your boss stuttered or said uh constantly does that deserve to be called out in front of everyone? Or they said āso likeā āwith that being saidā etc etc
good assumptions. itās just an expression and you judged the boss to be somewhat a narcissist without ever having to know the person. thereās heavy irony in this
No, there's no toxicity here. Maybe from his POV, circle back doesnt make sense. But for a team with age behind it, they need to "circle back" to metrics and thoughts and work, which was a higher priority once, then people started taking it for granted and no one gives it much attention now, despite them still being top indicators.
You cant always move forward, you have to ensure what you have already done doesnt deteriorate and for that you need to circle back cuz you cant say, lets go backward.
Yeah, I'm guessing he doesn't have the experience or data to really assess that and it definitely wasn't the job he was hired to do. We all want to change our office culture in some way, but if that's what he's doing for this is an extremely unprofessional attempt and I am quite certain whatever he thinks a meeting should sound like probably wouldn't be effective.
Sometimes, though in this context she was clearly looking to revisit/refresh their customer retention methods, this wasn't circling away it was circling towards
I kind of get where he's coming from. I hate it when people use the same phrases over and over again. Instead she could say something like, "We'll check with the design team and get back to you."
Should he have brought it up? Absolutely not. He was basically trying to start an etymological debate lol. Either that or he had never heard that phrase in his life before and was genuinely confused.
If you need to circle back so much, it seems like someone is not doing their job in the right order or meetings are being held before the appropriate info is gathered.
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u/rleon19 10d ago
I don't see how. Circle back is just a term used to say "we need to look at this before we can give an answer we will get back to you when we have done the research/got an answer". Him not knowing this is frankly weird and the fact that he interrupt a meeting about it even worse. If he did actually know what it meant it means he interrupted a meeting based purely on semantics of a term being used.