I received, read, laughed, and forwarded a list of “50 office-speak phrases you love to hate” from BBC News. Some of us also call them phrases for Business Bullshit Bingo. They’re both hilarious and painful. In reply, I got this from my uncle:
It is amazing the lengths people will go to in order to make everyone as confused as they are. One of the people who contributed to this noted that their unfavorite saying was “There are no problems, only opportunities” (or something to that effect). The following actually happened to me back in the mid 60’s:
The 60’s was a time (not unlike today) where management thought you could fix problems with catchy sayings, posters, etc. I worked at a place that had a LOT of quality problems. I did not do much engineering as I was busy problem solving. One day I got a newly hired Quality Engineer assigned to my projects. When the first problem after his arrival came up I went to him and said, “Homer, we have a problem.” His reply was, “No, Don, you have a problem, I have an opportunity.” He did this with every problem. After a couple of months I would go to him and say, “Homer, we have a problem” and he would put his head in his hands and say, “Oh what the hell is it now?”
This company made me keenly aware of how correct W. Edwards Deming was when he said, “85% of all quality problems are caused by management.”