How Buzzwords Divide Different Generations at Work
Corporate jargon — whether you’re putting a pin in something, circling back, or promoting synergy — is generally devoid of any real meaning and should be avoided. But a recent study by Preply found that while Americans find corporate jargon annoying, it has managed to find a way to take hold in social interactions outside of office settings, with buzzwords like FYI used by 81% of respondents at home.
With work talk so prevalent outside the walls of our workplaces, and the knowledge that many of us find it off-putting, we took a deeper dive into the findings of the study to find how American workers really feel about jargon.
The most annoying buzzwords
While many phrases can be categorized as buzzwords, the study found that American workers found some more irritating than others. The top culprit in 2022 was one we’ve all heard hundreds of times since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic — “the new normal”. Forty-two percent of survey respondents claimed this as their most annoying jargon phrase of the year, with the additionally irritating “lean in” at a distant second place at 18%, and the dreaded “hop on a call” in third at 16%.
Let’s unpack some of these and why they annoy the modern employee. The “new normal” is particularly bad because the normal isn’t new anymore! We’ve been doing many of the same things as a workforce including hybrid work and Zoom meetings for nearly three years now — this is just normal.
When you overuse a phrase, you’re bound to wear it out and it’ll start annoying people.
Another related one is the “hop on a call” phrase. This one can be particularly bad due to the well-documented phenomenon of Zoom fatigue and how it can contribute to employee burnout. If it doesn’t need to be said on a Zoom call, just leave it in an email. We’re all busy people, and “hopping on calls” all day doesn’t leave the proper time to get things done. As communicators, we should be optimizing our communication, not hanging on to extraneous methods of it.
