Here’s the Corporate BS for July 13-19:

July 13–follow-up:  A meeting after the pre-meet and the meeting associated with it, often featuring people saying in really polite, modulated tones how someone blew it, or some obnoxious wanna-be hotshot pointing out participants’ fumbles and jockeying to take charge.

July 14–friends:  People who can be told what to do by someone in a position of power; execs will often “reach out” to friends in different departments, which just means they’re calling someone who is buried under a mountain of work and ordering the person to get involved in a project whether he or she likes it or not; this relationship may, in fact, be characterized by mutual animosity and not resemble real-life friendship at all.

July 15–voicemail greeting:  “You’ve reached X at X company.  I’m away from my desk or on the office line, but if you leave a message I’ll get back to you as soon as possible”; the script everybody uses, because really, what else are you going to say, “I’m screening my calls or trying to take a nap and I’ll call you back if I feel like it, but hopefully you’ll forget you left me this message and not bother me again”; some people attempt to deviate from this with greetings like “It’s John.  Leave a message,” but this usually only confuses people and causes a lot of hang-ups and repeat calls.

July 16–FYI e-mail:  An e-mail that may contain useful information, but which no one will read because the abbreviation “FYI” is so irritating and usually indicates that extremely boring information is to follow; as a result, costly mistakes will occur; also, an-e-mail you send to your boss to give the impression that you are working; if received from a supervisor, a way of bitch-slapping you, telling you you screwed up, and often humiliating you further by including a cc to the sender’s boss.

July 17–gap analysis:  An official assessment of how something got screwed up; also functions as a form of penance for those who have screwed up, who will ensure their commitment to a thorough gap analysis to account for their sins, though probably they are hoping some other crisis will make everyone forget they’re supposed to be doing one.

July 18–deets:  An extraordinarily annoying truncation of “details”; often used regarding information someone will provide, e.g., “Send me the deets,” “E-mail me the deets,” ad nauseam.

July 19–delegate:  To assign the responsibility and execution of a task to someone else, which some managers do so much and well that they have loads of time to surf the Internet, take long lunches, and talk on the phone all day, while their underlings do all the work they will ultimately take credit for.