Here’s the Corporate BS for July 20-26:

July 20–Monday/Friday layoff rule:  The unwritten policy that downsizing should not occur on Mondays or Fridays, as it’s a long, bad workweek if you’re let go on a Monday, and Fridays don’t give people much time to adjust to the new world order; plus, people laid off on a Friday may never come back; Wednesdays and Thursdays are much preferred for canning employees.

July 21–deploy:  One of many euphemisms for getting rid of people that companies insist on using even though everyone knows what it really means and finds the feeble attempt at linguistic camouflage insulting and even more evil than just being told they are being laid off or canned.

July 22–devil’s advocate:  To adopt an opposing view in an allegedly nonpartisan way for the sake of testing an argument, but which actually conveys genuine disagreement.

July 23–dial it down/dial it back:  To reduce intensity; often used in reference to a person’s behavior; to calm down, relax, or get a freaking grip for God’s sake; new millennium version of “take a chill pill” or “chilling out”; when referring to a presentation or sales pitch, to be less aggressive, with the hope the audience will not be aware they are being snowed with a soft sell.

July 24–rebrand:  To create a new identity for a company, often undertaken in a drastic attempt to trick consumers or investors, who may have cooled on an organization due to scandal (WorldCom is now MCI), the distribution of a controversial product (Philip Morris is now the completely generic “Altria”), or the company’s scary monolithic positioning (ADM, formerly “Supermarket to the World,” is now pleasingly “Resourceful by Nature”).

July 25–receptionist:  A meagerly paid employee who mans the front desk and main switchboard of a department or company and whose schedule is first and foremost dictated by the start and end of the business day; takes one of two forms:  may revel in liberally spreading workplace gossip and acting as a mole for senior management, or will be the most generous, kind soul of a company, the one person you can count on to look out for you; befriend these people above all others.

July 26–recruiter:  Job market parasite who shoehorns any warm body into a job so he can make a buck from the company that hired him to find a good candidate; will call you saying a friend of a colleague of his boss gave him your name to talk to you about some great opportunities (that in reality are jobs you would never wnat), and then pumps you for a name, any name, of someone who might be interested.