And what do you do?

[j4]

Overheard in the office:

"What does your software do?"
"It's a management information system."
"Ah, I SEE."

[a few minutes later]

"Basically what we produce is a technology-based learning solution."
[Everybody nods sagely.]

Comments

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

Er, no.

You were the one providing a counterpoint of head-shaking, were you?

[j4.livejournal.com]

I was the one making the tea! Play to your strengths, that's what I say.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Talking about the same piece of software? [boggle]

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

You're trying to put me off applying for the job, aren't you?

[j4.livejournal.com]

Hahaha... no, but, well, don't say I didn't warn you.

And if you do get the job, please don't hate me for the mess I've left things in here...

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

That's the kind of conversation where I find phrases like "You're just not coping-strategy-oriented, are you ?" really rather hard to avoid.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Are you sure you don't work for an investment bank?

For full business-buzzword bingo points, you need the word 'customer'.
But I'll settle for any of the following if you take a handful of hyphens and commit linguistic miscegation with these unpleasant adjectives:

• Interactive;
• Proactive;
• Focused;
• Value-added;
• Enriching;
• Maximising;
• Maximal;
• Optimal;
• Leadership;
• Marketplace;
• Redefining;
• Paradigming*;
• Global.

* Yes, I really have seen this repellent utterance in writing, in an internal presentation. My 'reading' brain protected the frontal lobes by representing the 'word' as paradigm-minging, thereby engaging my sense of humour for just long enough to prevent the violent death of the author.

[j4.livejournal.com]

When we were embroiled in the Web Review at Cambridge, I made a handy phrase-generator (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~janetmck/buzzword.html). It's actually fairly generally applicable...