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The Corporate World Colonised My Vocabulary
I thought corporate jargon belonged in the office. Then I caught myself using it at Sunday lunch and a funeral.
The popup on the screen gave me a five-minute warning until the next meeting. H2 Roadmap Brainstorm. I closed my laptop with a muffled bang, stood up from a chair that costs more than my first month’s rent, and walked toward a meeting room with a funny name.
On the way there I passed a row of lit screens showing the worst things a person can upload to the internet. Violence, exploitation, the occasional naked selfie sent to the wrong audience. The content moderation floor.
After enough years in this field, you get strangely used to it. The only thing that keeps you sane is believing you’re standing between other people and that material, though most days it feels less like protection and more like drying ice with a wet towel.
I found a seat by the door. Twelve of us in the room. Our Operations director opened with a slide deck full of charts.
“Right, team,” he said. “We need to make sure we’re all on the same page on the synergy opportunities between orgs this quarter. The roadmap’s robust, but stakeholders want more visibility before they buy in.”
