Short Takes Short Takes (January 05, 2005)

Synergies, paradigms and deliverables, oh my!

One of the many pet peeves of reporters in the Almanac newsroom is the deluge of indecipherable press releases studded with meaningless biz-school jargon. Apparently, we're not alone in this gripe.

A recent national poll of executives commissioned by Accountemps in Menlo Park tallied the most annoying or overused workplace buzzwords. Their top answers include: paradigms, solution, synergy, win-win, value-added, alignment and incremental.

"Deliverables" wasn't on the list, but it's a personal pet peeve.

Readers who would like to test their skills at detecting ridiculous workplace cliches are invited to find and obliterate the tired jargon in the following sentence: Our redeployed people need to think outside of the box, so at the end of the day we can get on the same page and make sure our core competency is more customer-centric.

New buzzwords to thrill and delight friends and co-workers in the new year include: watercooler games, smell test, low-hanging fruit and brain dump.
Raise money, earn praise

The group of dedicated locals working to restore a century-old stable to its former glory got a pat on the back from county officials recently.

Members of the Woodside-based Folger Estate Stable Committee got a letter of praise from the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors for their fundraising efforts benefiting the historic stables located at Wunderlich Park.

The committee, an off-shoot of the Friends of Huddart and Wunderlich Parks, has so far raised $250,000 that was spent patching the roof, improving fencing, conducting a feasibility study and researching an application to the National Register of Historic Places. Thanks to committee members' work, the stable is now on the register.
Edited by Andrea Gemmet. Send ideas for items to agemmet@AlmanacNews.com.

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