Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit An A to Z Lexicon of Empty, Enraging, and Just Plain Stupid Office Talk

A accounts payable 1. department responsible for processing the fulfillment ofinvoicesrendered to a company 2. one of the least glamorous and most underappreciated departments of any organization, as its staff members are seen as merely number-crunchers and paper-pushers; identified by sprawling and depressingcubefarms, big calculators, and the palpable sense that the employees there know that no one knows their names and, really, doesn't care, and/or the thought, "I went into accounting because I thought it would grant me job security . . . but this sucks. And PS: Screw these elitist liberal arts grads hounding me for checks." 3. may behave as policy Nazis, due to the fact that any previous deviation from departmental rules (perhaps encouraged by anoffice flirt) has resulted in serious repri-mand and multiple departmentalmemos 4. a black hole forinvoices; when you inquire about the status of aninvoice, you will inevitably be met with the uncaring statement that there is no record of it and it must be resubmitted, indicating the need to begin the process all over again, even though your job depends on delivering a check the next day; and, resubmitting means securing sign-off from yourboss, who is too busy havinglunchat a nice restaurant to approve the payment of a bill. In extreme circumstances you will have to venture to the accounts payable department to physically retrieve an unsignedinvoice, check, etc., to ensure payment and the avoidance of the cancellation of a priority contract. acronym 1. a term formed with some of the letters (often the initials) of a phrase, used as an abbreviation 2. "words" that are so prevalent in business that people will often string them together with a few articles to form a complete sentence, and worse, not even realize they are doing it. The fact that people constantly ask them to translate what they have just said does not deter them from doing this. 3. terms that are frequently indecipherable to those not "in the know" (i.e., people who speak plain English), and which therefore serve to alienate them and make them feel stupid. People may enlist the use of acronyms for this very purpose. action items 1. issues on ameetingagenda that require decisions 2. issues that are classified as such because no one wanted to deal with them/take responsibility for them in the lastmeeting, that suddenly requirevetting, a deep dive, etc., and therefore will be tabled until the nextmeeting. Also seeparking lot. actionable 1. giving grounds for legal action 2. that's right, this is a legal term, and doesn't actually mean "the things that can be done," as it's repeatedly hijacked by the smarty-pants who went toBschool 3. the things that can actually be accomplished ormoved forwardon, e.g., boss: "Tom, how many of the eight items in this proposal would you say are actionable in the next six months?" Tom: "Uh, maybe two." add-value 1. to increase the worth of something by supplementing it with services, products, or access to resources 2. classicsalesandmarketingspeak used to justify charging more than the competitor by offering frequently intangible and often unquantifiable things like "knowledge" or "experience," which are referred to as "value adds." Employees will continually be hounded by management to find ways of adding value to products so that the company can jack up the price. 3. means nothing in terms of quality, especially sinceanythingcan be claimed to add value administrative assistant 1Beckwith, Lois is the author of 'Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit An A to Z Lexicon of Empty, Enraging, and Just Plain Stupid Office Talk', published 2006 under ISBN 9780767920742 and ISBN 0767920740.