Stupid Quotes by your Stupid Boss (or co-worker)

We've all heard them. Classic butchery of the English language by bosses and co-workers who are trying to look intelligent.

My (ex) boss used to come up with some doosies:
"Basically in essence" where most people woudl simply say "basically".
"Stake in the sand"...classic meld of "line in the sand" and "stake in the ground".
"Work in Process" instead of "work in progress".

And one day I heard him saying on the phone...."we have to have everything subimitted by 3:00 on Friday so it's going to be "pencils closed"...

I kid you not.

On a Thursday the Base commander told everyone at a base wide brief to have a nice 3 day weekend Friday was an off day. Our Capt said to show up on Friday and he would check to make sure it was actually a day off.

I had a talk with the Chief who helped set him straight.

I had a boss who would say "...that being said,..." about 200 times a day. Not 'stupid' per se, but f*cking annoying as hell.

Most of them where I work are science related, but we do have a quote board for things taken out of context including things like:

"We're averaging 15 minutes per dump"
"Did you leave something salty on my bench?"
"I slept with my sister 'till I was 15 years old"

"please prepare as-build (its as-built) drawings."

I'm a musician, in particular an upright bassist (like a big@ass cello). I HATE it when musicians that I work with tell me I should have played flute because my bass is so big it's a PIA to move around.

How about...."at the end of the day...."

A co-worker of mine begins almost every sentence by saying "Let's see... uh...". It makes me want to smack the ever loving s**t right out of him.

ours use words like

Ops Tempo
Tiger Teams
Manpower
By C.O.B.
Proactive
Lean Forward
bah!!!

Someone at my work says "pacific" instead of "specific"

Not really a quote, but .... today I exchanged a series of emails with a coworker, and several times he used the abbreviation "tx" instead of "thanks".

It's only 6 letters! How hard is that to type????

JustDave said:

Not really a quote, but .... today I exchanged a series of emails with a coworker, and several times he used the abbreviation "tx" instead of "thanks".

It's only 6 letters! How hard is that to type????

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I had a secretary ask me last week if I could program her boss's number on one of her speed dials for her. It's the President's secretary so I went ahead and did it.

She decided that it was worth a phone call to me to do this for her, even though she has the ability to add the speed dial herself, the speed dial saver her from pressing *3* buttons on her phone and the person who I added as a speed dial is in the office right next to hers.

I hate people sometimes.

JustDave said:

Not really a quote, but .... today I exchanged a series of emails with a coworker, and several times he used the abbreviation "tx" instead of "thanks".

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Sometimes I like to see how long I can keep a "thank you" chain going. I get WAY too much e-mail, so it's irritating to get two word e-mails like, "Thank you," especially after I've completed a rather mundane task. To entertain myself, I'll sometimes repeatedly respond with my own rather content-less e-mail, just to see if I can keep receiving a "thank you" in return. It's a complete waste of time, and it solicits more junk e-mail, but it makes me laugh.

Thanks Yuri

Yuri_Rage said:

Sometimes I like to see how long I can keep a "thank you" chain going. I get WAY too much e-mail, so it's irritating to get two word e-mails like, "Thank you," especially after I've completed a rather mundane task. To entertain myself, I'll sometimes repeatedly respond with my own rather content-less e-mail, just to see if I can keep receiving a "thank you" in return. It's a complete waste of time, and it solicits more junk e-mail, but it makes me laugh.

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That's a great idea, I am definitely going to start doing that.

Other stupid e-mail tricks (if you're on an MS Exchange Server):

MS Outlook has "rules" that you can apply to e-mails based on the sender, subject, content, etc. It can be particularly useful to create an auto-delete rule that sends mail from a particularly annoying source straight to the trash can. It's way more fun to create a rule that auto-responds with a message like, "Gee, thanks for that gem!" The annoying senders soon get the picture. Be careful whose addresses you add to such rules.

There's a "read-receipt" system, where a sender can ask for confirmation that his all-too-important e-mail has been read. Highlighting an unread message (or group of unread messages) and pressing Ctrl-Q marks the e-mail as read, whether you've opened it or not. It's a great way to expedite the deletion of superfluous e-mail without drawing attention to yourself.

I heard a good one recently: "We've picked the low-hanging fruit of outgo." It was referring to some budget cuts.

The stupidity made me want to fling some flair at him.

Around our office there's always a catch phrase or two that our VP will use and then the managers will pick up and use. One manager in particular is always using these little phrases. I've personally heard him use them a dozen or more times in a single half hour meeting. I think he even realizes how much laughing goes on at his expense. Two of his favorites:

&#8220;from a <fill-in-the-blank> perspective&#8221;
&#8220;push it over the goal line&#8221;

I had a boss who always said, "catch 21" um I think it might be catch 22 there moron.

Now I have one that likes to make it look like he actually does something. Whenever we get a mass email he forwards the email back to everyone with "see attached".

Two from a previous manager:

"If anyone who reports to you likes you, you have failed as a manager."

"If the customer ever asks the cost, you've failed as a salesman."

The first was during a discussion of the guys who reported to me, but I will say he hadn't failed for the reason stated.

Rick

We have another "boss" who was spreading a rumor saying that most of the employees jobs were going to being eliminated. I asked him to stop trying to scare the employees because we both knew that it wasn't true. He told me he did it to motivate them into working harder.

"Lets split this into three halves"

"I'm gonna rip him a new *******"

"Don't stand here in front of all these people and tell me....." (I was sat in his office, no one else)

"Tell them you're not his *****"

For some reason they assign all jobs "data numbers". Everyone always comes to me with lists of "datas". I've been so close to yelling 'DATA IS ALREADY PLURAL!"

The CEO of our company says "budgetarily speaking" at every meeting, sh*t you not.

and I work for a 1000 employee company with $250 Million in annual sales and this is the CEO talking this jibberish.

Not really a quote...but I have a co-worker that CCs EVERYONE in the company, at least 3 times a day. Sometimes it *almost* makes sense for him to do this, but most of the times I'm asking myself: "Now was that $hit really necessary???".

Oh yeah...same guy has a auto signature like this:
"If you have any questions, please feel free to call or email."

On every damn message...so even when he sends one of those annoying "Hey thanks" emails it looks like this:

Thank you!

If you have any questions, please feel free to call or email.

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I work in hydraulic generating stations. I once got a work order from a guy who had 20 years of experience telling me to fix the equipment going into the 'squirrel cage'. The bottom area of a generator is the 'scroll case'.

I said something stupid last week, and I'll own up to it.

I had a medical student who *really* didn't understand his role in the hierarchy of things. He began his rotation with me (I'm his attending physician) by telling me what he would and wouldn't do (!), and here he was, maybe all of 2 weeks into his clerkship year. Then he followed up by directly disobeying my orders and putting a patient at risk.

As you might imagine, I kind of lost it. A little. I found myself telling him "If I tell you to hop around the unit in your underwear, your next words need to be 'boxers or briefs?' ."

Yeah, not my brightest moment, I admit. Good thing I'm well used to embarrassing myself.

It's not Rocket Surgery!

I have a secretary the precedes most sentences with "Like I said....." even though she hasn't said anything at all yet. Sometimes I can't help but laugh.

I say hi to a guy at work at least half a dozen times a day just so he'll say "hey, how's it goin" just like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.

Marine corps classics:
A high rate of speed
Conversate
Quick, fast, and efficient
Irregardless

I have a coworker who had gotten into trouble with unpaid parking tickets. He learned that I was in Law School and decided to inquire as to the proper course of action (pay them, duh).

15 minutes later, he came back and asked me if I had graduated High School.

That being said, I have a Professor who teaches us upper level math (ODEs, PDEs, Fourier Analysis, etc) who is impossible to understand because he is way too smart (higher level of understanding) and he's had a freakin' STROKE- writes like a 3rd grader and has massive speech impediments. Anyway, kids have started keeping track of how often he says/asks/confirms "okay" in each lecture. I think his record stands at 200+ times in one 1.25 hour lecture.

He sounds like Mr. Mackey when he says mmmk?:

jcarson83 said:

I have a secretary the precedes most sentences with "Like I said....." even though she hasn't said anything at all yet. Sometimes I can't help but laugh.

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ahh my worthless boss, *I do his job plus mine, but he gets paid more* always says "like I said" it hits a nerve with me I want to punch him square in the neck.

-=Jason=-

"Let me see what I can do."



Translation:

"It's going on the back burner, and probably won't see the light of day. Now get the hell back to work."

My boss is obsessed with saying "opportunities" instead of "things we suck at".

Example: "What do you think your opportunities were today?"

Just say, "What do you think you could do better?" or something like that.

nyer said:

Now I have one that likes to make it look like he actually does something. Whenever we get a mass email he forwards the email back to everyone with "see attached".

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This is common practice amongst the more worthless "E-7" and above in my command. I'll get 15 emails that all say "See attached" seconds after receiving the original.

Not a boss, but a former co-worker. We have a truck at work with a spotlight on the roof. One evening, while driving through fog (with the spotlight on), he turns to the guy driving and says,

"I'm surprised the headlights don't work better at this speed"

at this speed?

When referring to doing a favor for a customer, my boss always says that we are going to "trade a cracker for a ham"...

This same boss also says that "we are going to cut a fat hog" on projects that have a potential for a high profit margin

As an assistant, I wont work for anyone that refers to me as a secretary. Its actually one of a very few things where my sense of humor completely shuts off.

I've had managers over-use almost completely meaningless terms such as:

value-added (blech)
bio-break
hawk-eyes
you need to have a thick skin (code word for "we are insufferable a-holes here. we neither like nor respect each other, and after about a week here the idea of me being hit by train will give you an erection")
and my least favorite words of all time:
detail-oriented (basically a code word for "sometimes I freak out over stupid crap")

Also, when I finally get my lunar colony set up, anyone who ends a nasty email with a passive-agressive "thx" will be shot directly into the sun.