Finance502
Cost optimisation
Redundancies, but with a slide deck and a line about 'shaping the organisation for growth'.
"We're entering a cost optimisation phase." Update your CV.
Translation
Layoffs.
319 entries · 10 sections · updated daily
Office jargon, honestly defined.
Every phrase your manager uses, translated into what they actually mean.
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Growth hack
A tactic that worked once, for someone else, in 2016.
"I've got a growth hack: what if we did a giveaway?"
Translation: Marketing, but urgent.
Sections
Tech
Sprints, stand-ups and synergy at scale.
40 entries
Sales
Pipeline poetry and quota folklore.
27 entries
Finance
Spreadsheet scripture and EBITDA rituals.
24 entries
Banking
Deck-building, deal toys and 2am comments.
12 entries
Marketing
Brand voice, funnels and vibes-led strategy.
42 entries
Retail
Footfall, shrinkage and peak-season survival.
7 entries
Consulting
Frameworks for frameworks. Billable.
62 entries
HR / People
Culture decks and 'informal chats'.
55 entries
Legal
Redlines, caveats and commercially acceptable risk.
14 entries
Startups
Runway, pivots and default alive.
36 entries
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HR / People421
We're like a family here
A statement about pay, presented as a statement about warmth.
"Base is under market, but we're like a family here."
Translation
The salary is the perk you don't get.
Tech412
Circle back
To postpone a decision indefinitely while sounding collaborative about it.
"Great question — let's circle back on that after the sprint."
Translation
I have no answer and hope you forget you asked.
Tech388
Tech debt
The pile of shortcuts holding the product together, spoken of like a mortgage nobody intends to pay.
"We'll tackle tech debt next quarter" — said every quarter since 2019.
Translation
The code works and nobody knows why.
Banking361
Deck monkey
An analyst whose life's work is aligning boxes on slide 34 at 3am for a meeting that gets cancelled.
"Two years a deck monkey and I dream in Arial 9pt."
Translation
Junior banker.
Tech356
Quick sync
A 15-minute meeting that reliably consumes 47 minutes and produces one action item assigned to nobody.
"Popping a quick sync in for 4:45pm on Friday."
Translation
I refuse to write this down.
Freshly added
Core hours
A theoretically flexible working window during which employees must be contactable, which inexplicably expands to cover their entire waking lives.
"Our core hours are ten to four, but most of the team finds it easier to stay until seven."
Translation
"If you leave at 4:00 PM, people will assume you have resigned."
Startups61
Running lean
A euphemism for being drastically understaffed and poorly funded, successfully rebranded as an admirable display of agile discipline.
"We're running lean ahead of our Series A, so everyone is pitching in on customer support."
Translation
"We can't afford to pay you overtime, but we do have a ping-pong table."
Finance53
Sweating the assets
Squeezing every ounce of utility out of existing machinery, software, or human capital until they experience a total and catastrophic system collapse.
"Rather than hiring a new analyst, we're going to focus on sweating the assets we already have in place."
Translation
"We are going to work you until you cry, because we don't have the budget for a replacement."
Cross-pollinate
The practice of forcing two entirely unrelated departments into a meeting room in the vague hope that their proximity will spontaneously generate a profitable idea.
"We need to cross-pollinate the compliance team with our creative designers to see what sparks fly."
Translation
"Neither team has any idea what the other does, but it makes the calendar look busy."
To bubble up
To escalate an issue or piece of information through the corporate ranks, ensuring it is sufficiently diluted by the time it reaches someone with the power to make a decision.
Let's bubble this feedback up to the steering committee to see what they think.
Translation
I want to pretend I am doing something with your complaint without actually having to resolve it.
Startups78
Pre-seed
A highly optimistic funding stage where an enterprise consists of nothing more than an ambitious slide deck, a shared workspace subscription, and a mountain of personal debt.
We are currently raising our pre-seed round to help us build the minimum viable prototype.
Translation
We have no product, no customers, and very little time before the rent is due.