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Note: Most of the recipes are from our family archive and other sources but a few of the recipes are from a former site called Tammy’s Recipes which was at TammysRecipes.com. The site is no longer available but she had the best tasting recipes so I wanted to include them here for people that might be looking for them.

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Introduction

If you walked off the street and into an office
for the first time you’d probably be utterly confused by some of the language
that you would hear.  Not only is it more
formal than casual conversation and contains business specific jargon, but it
contains words and phrases that you would here nowhere else besides an office.

Consider the following conversation that could
take place in any home:

Husband: 
I think we need a new TV.

Wife: I don’t think we can afford one.

Husband: I think if we eat out a few less times
we could.

Wife: OK, that’s makes sense.

Now let’s convert that to an office
conversation:

Employee #1: I’ve written up a proposal based
on the need for a new digital content display.

Employee #2: I don’t know that we can support
that in the current fiscal year.

Employee #1: My analysis shows that we would
have the ROI but I’m not sure about the resources to implement the
project.  I’ll work through channels to
see if we can actualize on this.

Employee #2: Are you sure you have the
bandwidth to make this happen?

Employee #1: Sure, I just hope there aren’t any
red flags that turn out to be show stoppers.

This talk can be confusing to anyone not in an
office on a daily basis and so this dictionary of office talk or office speak was
created for people who are new to the office environment.  It contains over 500 words and phrases that
you will hear in an office setting and almost never hear outside of the office
with that meaning.

A word of caution – many, if not all, of these
words are disliked when they are used too often.  Some are just annoying in their own
right.  Your best bet is to just use them
sparingly.  You can spread them out
occasionally and you’ll sound like an up and coming business professional.  Use them too often and you’ll start to sound
like someone who doesn’t know what they are doing and people will start
questioning everything that you do.

My suggestion is to use this guide to
understand what it is that others are trying to convey to you.  After a while you’ll start to spot the folks
that just like to scatter their speak with buzzwords just for the sake of doing
do and those that know what they are doing.

Here are my top 10 tips for using this
dictionary

1. Start small – Try a word out.  If it feels right, go with it.  If it feels awkward, try again.
2. Use them sparingly – Don’t use too many at once .
3. Make sure you know the context! – Some words or phrases need to be used in context.  Look at the example sentences to understand the context a little better.
4. Don’t go up against an expert – If someone is a professional buzzword user, it’s best to not try and out “business talk” them.  They already know that they are superior.  You can’t win.
5. Know your industry – Some of these words are used in Information Technology shops.  Others in Financial shops.  Try to keep terms relevant.
6. Be a listener – Listen to how people are talking.  You might be the quiet one at first but you’re taking it all in.
7. Know your position – If you’re talking to someone who is above you, try and use positive actional words (like that’s even a word!)
8. Be yourself – Like I said in tip 1, don’t try to use or say words that don’t reflect you.
9. Be Flexible – This dictionary is a snap shot in time.  Some new words may come into parlance and some may go out of style.  Using a cutting edge word (see how I did that?) can reveal to someone if you are on the bleeding edge or old fashioned.
10. Don’t carry this around – You’ll automatically looks like someone who doesn’t know what they are doing!

Office speak or jargon is a relatively new
phenomenon but it’s become the way people talk in professional settings.  You won’t hear it outside of a business
setting.  While there have always been
words that are coined to suit the technology and times that it comes be, it
wasn’t until the 80s that things started to shift.  Personnel departments became “Human Resources”
and terms started shifting reflecting the increased use of computers.  E.g. Bandwidth.

By the 90s the phenomenon became so popular
that words were entering popular vernacular and cartoons like Dilbert© were
making fun of it.  Despite attempts to
slow the tide, the speak became the norm and it is with us whether we like it
or not.

This dictionary attempts to chronicle the most popular words in Office Speak but does not include every word.

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