Half Moon Talk commentator Zhang Xi

　　At the beginning of 2024, the movie "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop" hit the hearts of countless working people with its in-depth observation and bitter satire of the workplace ecology. A series of "workplace slang" in the film creates a lot of laughter, "Align the granularity first", "Form a vertical matrix", "Open up the underlying logic"... These seemingly high-end fashionable sayings make the protagonist confused. Here, it has also become a vivid aspect of the film's depiction of the workplace ecology.

　　In the plot, a senior fitter accidentally works in a large factory where "elites gather". Because he didn't understand the "workplace slang", many ridiculous things happened. The cinema was full of laughter in the first half, and almost no one left with a smile in the second half. The young people in the cinema saw their own reflections in the movie.

　　Situations in reality are often even worse than in movies.

　　Some people believe that learning "slang" is a required course for a novice in the workplace to transform into an industry "veteran" - learning essential terminology for newcomers is, to a certain extent, a process of improving professional capabilities; becoming familiar with internal terms is also a way to integrate into the group and become one of them. Member recognition ceremony. So, here’s the problem. The “workplace slang” that is frequently complained about does not seem to have become a bridge of communication for people in the industry. Instead, it makes many people feel uncomfortable after hearing it.

　　Some of today's "workplace slang", if you can explain it clearly, you will never explain it clearly. If you can explain it simply, you should explain it in a complicated way. Some netizens compiled a catalog of "black words": "Alignment granularity" actually refers to the caliber of verification between the two parties. "Vertical field" simply means focusing on one's own affairs. Crazy building of trumpets is called "building a matrix" and "underlying logic." It means to find out the root cause. "Closed loop" means to talk things through yourself, "combination boxing" means to mess around together, "collaboration" means to work together and take the blame together, and "private domain operation" means to have crazy private chats and not hesitate to harass customers. …

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　　These "black words" have different interpretations in different industries. They can be described as line by line. An employee who works in marketing operations at a private construction company gave an example: For two identical positions, employee A breaks down his work tasks into 4 tasks, and employee B breaks them down into 8 tasks. This is called "different granularity" "; Some netizens said that "granularity" means dimensions. Large dimensions are then broken down into small dimensions to quantify assessment (KPI) indicators... The more you explain, the more confused you become.

　　If you think that these words will be easy to understand after hearing them many times, you are wrong. The catalog of these slang words is expanding rapidly. The basic version of the verb group includes decoupling, pull-through, radiation, empowerment, and reuse; the noun group includes complement, link, factor, and closed loop; there are even three-character nouns such as tipping point, end-to-end, perception, platform, and Four-character noun life cycle, qualitative and quantitative, abstract and transparent transmission, decentralization, how to close the mouth, attribution analysis, experience measurement...

　　"After 'user transition', seamless flow is achieved across multiple terminals in all scenarios, and a multi-channel user reach matrix is ​​established." Seeing this, are you also doubting your reading comprehension ability? In fact, the meaning is very simple: after ordinary users upgrade to VIP users, they can use this software on mobile phones, tablets, and computers.

　　Nine out of ten people who talk about "empowerment" and "cost reduction and efficiency increase" are newbies. Those who can speak about "upward management" and "SOP" are probably K7 or above employees who know how to use "interface" and "moat" The applause for these must be particularly enthusiastic. "A PPT requires almost no brain planning. If you use these empty words all at once, you can get admiration from the audience. Who would stay up late to write content? Over time, the core business level of professionals will be reduced. You may not be good at it, but your vocabulary has improved by leaps and bounds." said a netizen who works as a human resources (HR) at an Internet company in Wuhan.

　　The Chinese language is broad and profound, and people in the workplace are generally taboo about saying something too directly. Not only should the straightforward "vulgar language" be expressed in a euphemistic form, but also the rhetoric should be used to modify the style and polish. With the rapid development of productivity, many industries are facing technological ceilings and market saturation. They lack the "external driving force" for R&D, so they have to work hard on the "internal driving force". Some netizens said that after entering the workplace, they found that the most practical skills are not writing code and patching loopholes, but making PPT and giving speeches.

　　The person in charge of a consulting company that invests in China said that in the past, these seemingly "high-level" words were used to deceive customers, but now they are deceiving themselves. Looking back at the early days of the company, the technical team led by the partners often had quarrels due to disagreements. Now that the company is unprecedentedly large, the lively discussions have disappeared. Many well-dressed employees speak "black words" that even the CEO often needs to guess, which makes people miss the time when they could talk and have a good conversation.

　　What is worthy of vigilance is that many young people have become fans of "slang" in the workplace, spending a lot of time and energy on research and study, and even use the level of "slang" to benchmark positions and abilities. Some young people are willing to spend money to learn the so-called "emotional intelligence" in the workplace, and carefully dissect and analyze every word spoken by their leaders. If you search for keywords on social platforms, you will see an overwhelming number of tutorials on how to speak.

　　Such tutorials cannot convey positive energy. Because they do not teach young people how to improve their core competencies, but instead induce young professionals to "take leadership as the keystone" and "the core is not important if the core is insufficient", exaggerating a vulgar, kitsch and even flattering personal dependence-style workplace. culture.

　　A truly good language has standards. First, it is easy to learn and easy to remember, and second, it is expressed accurately and without ambiguity. The reason why this kind of workplace "slang" is criticized is not because of the vocabulary itself, but because "slang" is used as a label to classify people in the workplace into three, six or nine grades and circles. If young people in the workplace focus on superficial skills, over time, they may join in the same trend and hinder their progress.

　　Rich experience comes from the accumulation of hard work. I think that reporting, making words, making PPT, or even singing, and cracking eggs are the most useful "skills" in the workplace. Can such "experience" really pass the test of my original intention when I entered the society?