Monday, June 21, 2010

New Pet Peeve

I blogged once about how much I hate the phrase "the perfect storm". I would like to add the phrase "special sauce" to my list. As in, "our program has that special sauce" (software and agile folks love to use it) or talking about anything and adding, "that's the special sauce" or "it still needs that special sauce." Or, Klund would be just another tall guy, if it weren't for the special sauce. Or special sauce would be a great catch phrase, if only it had that special sauce. Or Scooter seems to be missing that special sauce, perhaps because he never says, "special sauce." I get the willies just typing it that many times, let alone hearing execs say it over and over and over.

Phrases I will never use:
1.) The Perfect Storm
2.) Special Sauce

I'm sure I'll have a third by next year.

2 comments:

Shawn said...

Ones I hate the most:

"At the end of the day,..." --> I go home and stop thinking about work.
"The 80%-20% rule" --> 20% of the software sucks?
"Bring our 'A' game . . . " --> I typically bring my F game. Fail.
"Let's take this off-line" --> because arguing in front of this big group just makes us both look incompetent.

And that is just a few... apparently some people don't like "It is what it is", but I like that one. Because quite often, that is what it is.

Shawn

CookieQueen said...

Execs have been using "special sauce" in my meetings as well. So apparently it crosses industries. It must have been in some management journal that we missed.