The Office Translator

Meetings

Phrases born in the meeting room — the calendar invitation's native dialect. Where decisions go to be postponed and time goes to be spent.

30 phrases

Emails

The written word at work, where tone is invisible and every adjective does overtime. The phrases that land in inboxes and occasionally on nerves.

27 phrases

Management

The language of those who arrange the work of others. Often well-meant, occasionally a shield, always worth translating.

23 phrases

Corporate Jargon

The shared vocabulary of the modern organisation. Impressive-sounding, lightly meaningful, and remarkably contagious in open-plan offices.

71 phrases

Passive Aggression

Phrases that say one thing and mean rather another. The politeness is real; the subtext is doing the heavy lifting.

17 phrases

Project Management

The vocabulary of plans, scopes and timelines. Where work is organised, tracked and, with any luck, occasionally finished.

26 phrases

HR

The careful language of people, policy and difficult conversations. Designed to be precise, frequently read between the lines.

2 phrases

Leadership

The phrases of vision, direction and the strategic view. Where the stakes are higher and the nouns are noticeably grander.

24 phrases

Remote Work

The dialect that flourished when the office moved into the kitchen. Asynchronous, screen-mediated and quietly exhausting.

7 phrases

Consultants

The borrowed vocabulary of decks, frameworks and billable hours. Often useful, often expensive, often in PowerPoint.

18 phrases

Acronyms

The compressed shorthand of busy inboxes. Three or four letters that save the writer seconds and occasionally cost the reader minutes.

7 phrases