Business Buzzword Bingo!

TL/DR: BINGO!
Social Posts
Facebook: not your grandmother's #bingo! #outofthebox thinking from young employee creates #paradigmshift in corporate #workflow
Twitter: #buzzwordbingo is a boon for #bigdata businesses looking to #benchmark #bestpractices
LinkedIn: Oops, you thought your employees were taking notes
Microsoft Lync: 
Snapchat: Sorry, that picture was supposed to go to my other girlfriend

Working for big companies can be fun. You show up to a fancy building with that snazzy personal key card that works 87% of the time and gets you VIP access to the all the amenities your office has to offer: 3 toilets per every 100 employees, rigorously-vetted time sheets, and scooters OMFG so fun! Since your modern office is also all windows, you can stare out at everyone having a worse time than you. Smiling, walking, enjoying fresh air. Chumps. Luckily those windows don't open, amiright? You'd be compelled to share your joy with the passers-by. And the sidewalk.

Another one of the inherent and underrated benefits of working for a well-established, rigid corporation is the amount of meeting time you get to enjoy in any given week. Sure, the majority of them have nothing to do with you and either start an average of 10 minutes late or the technology breaks, but it's a great way to sit shoulder to shoulder with people you're forced to interact with and compete to see who can send the most texts without getting yelled at. That kids, is called "team building". 

Look, I get it, you're having enough fun as it is. That guy standing at the front of the room reading the 56 slide power point presentation word for you word has you absolutely captivated. Understandably so. So much so, that you haven't yet realized that though there are words flowing from his mouth, or sporadically via the faulty Lync connection your office has, this presenter hasn't actually said anything. 

No, no. Must be your software.

Secret's out. 

Although he's properly displayed the vertical agility necessary to accurately optimize all the low-hanging fruit in his deliverable for maximum efficiency, he hasn't entirely and/or cohesively baked-in his 90 day plan for synergy or pushed the envelope... at all. There wasn't enough sustainable ideation to leverage all necessary touch-points to ensure the paradigm adds value. And shame on him for not giving you a download of the 10,000 foot view of that information.

It's actually a fairly easy language to learn, and works amazingly as a parlor trick if you happen to be confused or don't know the answer to a question. You don't have to strive to make sense, you just have to say the proper buzzwords and you'll get some shockingly agreeable head nods from the audience.

As a way to help you familiarize yourself with this vernacular, be a better employee (you're welcome, you need it), and stay awake in meetings, we've developed for you Business Buzzword Bingo. Patent Pending. Alliteration approved.

THE RULES:

1. Print the included board and bring with you to your next meeting. Make sure you've distributed other boards to your friends and mixed up the placement of the words. Duh.


2. Sit scattered throughout the meeting space. You can't all be right next to each other. 


3. Pretend like you're taking notes. You do this anyway, but, try harder. 


4. Once you've connected 6 in a row horizontally or 10 vertically (admittedly, I really didn't think this through but it should really only take you like 3 minutes either way) you have to yell "Bingo!" If you don't yell, you don't win.


5. Confidently stare back at your colleagues and superiors who are now looking at you confusedly, and be filled with the pride of your victory.


6. Get kicked out of the meeting for being disruptive and pretend to be remorseful but actually just go to Sweetfrog and wait for an hour while everyone else suffers.


7. Be at your desk when everyone wanders back aimlessly, and apologize profusely and vow to be better next time.


8. Don't be better the next time. 

If you like this, visit sansbullshitsans.com. Actually, even if you don't like this, but for some idiot reason made it all the way to the end, then you're a liar and you did enjoy it, and visit the site anyway. 

Black White Shades of Gray

There have been a lot of racial misunderstandings in the news lately. Unfortunately, the reality is that these almost always end with a black guy getting killed. Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, Apollo Creed... the list goes on.

I'm not here to say who's right and who's wrong. Political statements aren't my thing. What I am here to do is solve a problem.

Black and white people communicate in markedly different ways. There. I said it. Luckily, I happen to sit on both sides of the fence (because straddling it too painful), so I feel I can act as a translation medium of sorts, to help the two cultures better understand one another and hopefully lead to a reduction in the amount of violence and tension.

Whenever we travel to other countries we bring with us a translation dictionary, or use Google translate, or if you're really bold just wing it. But that's how you end up trading someone's child for an organ. Alas, while no translation service is perfect and have left me with more than a few apologies to make in various countries, they at least give us a rough idea of what we're saying and what is being said to us.

I also think this will allow you to mark that your "bilingual" on LinkedIn. You're welcome.

Shank
This one took me a couple years to learn, but the difference in definition is important.

White Culture: Believe it or not this means to pull someone's pants down. If one of your white friends says he "shanked" someone, he is referring to the art of pantsing him... or her. But that's techincally a precursor to rape so maybe don't condone that.

Black Culture: Can be a noun or a verb, but both refer to stabbing. A "shank" is a makeshift knife typically made in prison, and to "shank" someone is to stab them. So white people, if one of your black friends says he "shanked" a guy, a cordial chuckle and a bare-ass joke will leave you both confused, and you will be an accessory to a crime.

Fam
White Culture: Someone you are related to and share genetic material with.

Black Culture: Literally anybody, regardless of age, race, or familial affiliation.

That girl is bad
White Culture: She misbehaves and is difficult to be around.

Black Culture: That girl is fine AF.

What's good?
White Culture: What should I order? What do you recommend from this menu?

Black Culture: What's up with you? How are you living these days?

Damn
White Culture: Drat. Something bad just happened.

Black Culture: Holy shit, Something surprising just happened.

Doe
White Culture: A deer, a female deer.

Black Culture: Translation of "though". Who the fuck has seen Sound of Music?

Yo
White Culture: Half of your favorite child-hood toy.

Black Culture: Anything from a greeting to an entire sentence. Can stand in place of "hello", or, if said like "yooooo", could mean that you need to chill out before something bad happens to you. I have added more o's to calm myself before I do something unpredictable based on your behavior.

C'mon son
White Culture: Let's get a move-on young person who came from my balls.

Black Culture: You fucked up. Can be said to any male, regardless of age. Usually accompanied by a handwritten sign on a piece of hastily torn cardboard.

You are trippin'
White Culture: You're having a hard time keeping your balance. Work harder to stay upright.

Black Culture: You're out of your mind.

Steel/stole
White Culture: To take something unlawfully that is not yours.

Black Culture: Somehow this means to punch. If you "get stole" then you get punched. Yeah, go figure?

I don't mean to be racist, but
White Culture: I'm about to say the most racist shit you've ever heard.

*Subtle Nod
White Culture: You're obviously confused. Stop doing that.

Black Culture: Maybe I know you, or maybe I've never seen you before. We may be total strangers, acquaintances, or in fact related. Nobody will ever know.

I can't breathe
Well... yeah.

Print it out, fold it up, take it with you. Next time you're in a conversation with someone who's culturally different that you, you guys can communicate without hassle.