Say "paradigm shift" and I'm Out The Door

There're plenty of them: "let's take this topic offline," "at the end of the day..." (the mathematically impossible) "giving 110%" and many, many more.

They're business cliches that make me want to... to... well, they're like "fingernails scraping across a blackboard" and it makes my teeth hurt!

I've resolved to fight them all with one symbolic protest. If I'm in a meeting where the offending words "paradigm shift" are heard, I get up and leave. Seriously. I walk right back in, protest registered.

AdAge's Bill Imada essays the the topic this morning in It's a Chungle Out There.

For further reading, see the inimitable Seth Godin's website for The Encyclopedia of Business Cliches (about 200 examples, yes 200). Scroll down the page and find books on business jargon, including The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit: An A to Z Lexicon of Empty, Enraging, and Just Plain Stupid Office Talk.

Yikes! A whole category of books on business jargon. Who knew?