I worked with an engineer who seemed like a really smart guy. He dressed well, he looked good, and he sounded wonderful. He was helping me write a proposal. After reading what he’d written several times. I started editing thinking there might a structure problem and I could just rearrange what he’d said. Then I ended diagramming sentences, taking out meaningless clauses, etc. There was nothing left. He’d used, say 1500 words and I couldn’t use any of them. No matter how I tried to adjust them, they were a word salad. Further, I couldn’t make him understand that he was producing nonsense. When he went to verbally explain himself, it was more word salad. He finally went to complain he couldn’t work with me. I talked to the company president who loved what he’d read, and I asked him what he thought it said. He paused and started talking. I stopped him and asked, “show me where he said that.” He couldn’t. I ended up writing the entire thing by myself.
My point is, some people seem intelligent and they don’t even know they’re speaking word salad garbage. In thirty plus years I’ve run into maybe three people as bad as our Vice President.
A word salad is the required side order with a nothing burger.
At one point in my life I pretty much did analysis and wrote reports. They were beautiful, concise, and provided great information.
Forward twenty years. I took a job out of retirement and one function was writing reports that were for my boss’ boss’ boss—a level in the Org chart where I worked in a rival company years before.
My boss would take my brief and turn it into a passive mess of dog crap. He boss would add more fluff. In the end it was unreadable and drew few action items.
When I asked why my info was removed or edited (stuff such as, “You are spending 25% more than your competitors”). They said the Regional VP had enough problems and didn’t want to hear such things.
I would come home and tell my wife this buffoon would never get funding for his project. I was right. Three years later they are laying off dozens of people, and are still trying to make the old way work. I cannot wait until they bring in “consultants.”
I ended up working an entire career in general construction. Many project managers that worked for me came from different engineering programs.
None of them knew how to write an intelligent business letter.
They were smart and educated but that part of business training was missing.
Now, I will admit that the project managers that had been trained in architecture couldn’t count... but that is another story.
Obama is as bad, but more skilled at crafting phraes that aren’t obviously empty.