Bracket busters: Workers vote on the worst workplace jargon

From “circling back” to “fleshing it out,” work meetings and emails are filled with corporate buzzwords that many of us would never use in conversations with friends. We’re joining in on the fun of a “fantasy bracket” to kick off the 2024 NFL season with our own corporate phrase faceoff to pin down which workplace jargon workers would like to hear the least. A series of Glassdoor community polls helped us crown the winning (or losing?) phrases. 

The big picture: “We’re building the plane as we fly it” has been crowned the Worst Workplace Jargon, closely followed by second place “Let’s double click on that,” and third place "Let me circle back with you.” Take a look at some of the phrases community users ditched over others in the running for “most invaluable” jargon.  

What else: Glassdoor community users may have narrowed it down to these three, but they didn’t hesitate to chime in with key traits of cringe-worthy jargon and other words at the top of their lists. For example, one user named “anything incorporating an acronym” as a nominee. Another suggested nixing the word “bandwidth.” They joked, “Why would you have bandwidth? Are you a person or a network?”

One more thing: While this list covered the worst jargon according to Glassdoor based on hand-selected phrases, they were all inspired by real community conversations on the platform. The comments revealed that professionals use many words and phrases to convey simple meanings. Don’t be afraid to save time and get to the point more. There are certainly other common jargon phrases likely soliciting eye-rolls from yourself or your coworkers. Join the conversation, and share the phrases you think should be dropped. 

Methodology: The series of polls ran from August 26, 2024 through August 29, 2024 and was answered by hundreds of professionals.