You've heard of Millennials and Gen Z leading the great resignation and
quiet quitting.
Well, now they're coming out against workplace jargon.
This is one of those hilarious, Duolingo did a study, and
it points out just how against workplace jargon many generations are.
We'll tell you about the phrases that Millennials and Gen Z picked as the PMC,
professional managerial class jargon.
Professional managerial class, it sucks sometimes that they find most confusing.
But first, you should know that 23% of baby boomers,
50% of Gen Z or Gen X, 65% of Millennials, and
60% of Gen Z want to reduce or eliminate the use of workplace jargon.
And here's some of the jargon that they find most annoying.
John's never had to live in this.
And I have.
Here are the terms boiling the ocean, herding cats, ducks in a row.
Let's move the needle, let's run it up the flagpole.
Drinking the Kool-Aid.
I'm sorry, but I'm out of pocket.
And we have to build this plane while we're flying it.
Throwing spaghetti at the wall.
And is the juice really worth the squeeze?
Have you ever heard any of these?
>> I've heard almost all of them.
I hadn't heard boiling the ocean, but I get it from context,
which I feel like is true of almost all of these.
A lot of them are kind of old timey, like not quite President Biden,
but, getting there.
But it's not slang.
It's metaphoric language.
It's evocative phrases.
Why would this be a problem?
It's not words that no one knows the definition of.
>> Yeah, and I get it.
Here's a quote from the study.
Jargon creates an in-group and an out-group.
People often use these phrases because they think it sounds clever or
have heard someone else say it, and thought they sounded clever.
Often it's aspirational, whereas if you actually listen to the best speakers and
leaders they use stories and metaphors to get their point across, not jargon.
>> Okay, I guess, first of all, the fact that people say things that they've heard
or think sound cool is why everyone says everything that they say.
That's what slang is.
I don't know.
It seems like I get that there's definitely language that could be
exclusionary.
I'm not generally saying that.
I'm saying the ones that I just saw there are a bit old timey, but
I don't think that they're super insular, are they?
Am I a bad guy?
>> I don't know.
This is how my dad talked.
My dad was like a salesman, and he would be on conference calls downstairs, and
he would be like, let's not put the cart before the horse.
The real bad language, the real jargon that stinks is people going,
let's synergize our way to this next break as we're doing
cross departmental acuity integration.
[INAUDIBLE].
Okay, well, unfortunately, that's all the time we have for the main run of the show,
but for the members, the bonus episode is coming up.
Thank you, Brett, obviously, for running us through the second hour.
Thanks again to Jordan for the first hour, but there's more to come for
the members in the bonus episode, so don't go anywhere.
We'll be right back.
The cool thing, though, so you youngens might think,
old people, they don't like the new slang.
And you're right.
The new slang is always terrible as you get older.
But what I have discovered is, why fight against it?
The thing about the new slang is that, man, people tire of it fast.
Every six months, they come out with new words that I just cringe inside when I
hear people like, no, I'm not going to-.
>> What's one now?
>> Cuz every time someone says it lasts a second long.
>> What is it?
Just say one.
I don't know when-. >> Can I say one?
>> Yeah.
>> It's subtle, but it annoys me because it's so needless.
>> Is it riz?
>> No. >> Okay, go.
>> Probably that, too, actually, but no.
Mid is the least needed word ever.
We have 10,000 words that already mean that same thing, but
I'm doing the opposite of what I was implying.
Just shut up about it, and it'll be gone in six, because people get bored
of it because it's not actually a good term that will stand the test of time.
>> I'm so sorry that I had to rush through that last story.
I was like, definitely super boomer in the morning meeting, though, with it.
I was like, my God, I got to learn new words.
No.
I'm a Zoomer, I got to learn words.
You created an out-group.
What are you talking about?
These colonialisms are 800 years old-.
>> Look and they held cases in which I think it makes sense.
There is terminology that can be exclusionary.
>> I worked with a guy who every day, every other word would be,
at the end of the day.
And so-. >> I hate that.
>> My God. We're all just kind
of trying to figure it out.
And so my buddy joked, he was, I'd love to see his calendar, cuz it's nothing,
nothing, nothing, nothing, everything.
>> [LAUGH].
I do hate at the end of the day, it's such a fake,
I'm a serious person thing to say.
There's a podcast I listen to where the guy constantly says,
I guess you could say, and then he says his thing, and
I just wanna call him and be, you're the one saying, just say it.
>> Or you just go, good guess.
>> Good guess, yeah.
>> Good guess, cuz you did.