I have a great relationship with my HR contacts. True, they tend to be more wokey than the folks in operations. However, if there is a REAL problem character in the office, they have ninja-like skills for dispatching that character as cleanly as a Clinton associate’s suicide.
Nowadays I’d recommend staying away from jokes or sayings that skate on the edge like “too many Chiefs, not enough Indians” or “between us girls...” All you need is one misplaced word or phrase.
I’ve heard that there are still guys that ogle and make 11th grader-like comments in business. I conduct myself in a way that’d make my Mom (and wife) proud. Perhaps that conduct sends a signal - as a result, they “trust” me. In turn, sometimes my HR reps let their mask slip a little. They may not be FReepers, but they aren’t antifa folks either.
“if there is a REAL problem character in the office, they have ninja-like skills for dispatching that character as cleanly as a Clinton associate’s suicide.”
I kinda saw the opposite, with most of the ees members of SEIU in the city where I worked. They were protected. Decent people were dispatched. HR and the union thugs had a cozy relationship.
But I don’t have to think about that any more. It was amusing to run in to people who believed HR was there to help and protect the ees.
Thanks for the ping! Agree with posts above that said this list is dated to the 90s. Most of it was “spot on”—even the items that were “early on”, “as well”—grrrr, Brit speak.
Today’s most grating jargon is the commie spew coming out of DEI and ESG in the corporate world, and also ESL in the schools. Acronymization has crept out from engineering like kudzu, smothering clear communications everywhere.
Some fields still have shop-talk particular to their craft. I get a laugh when the print production people talk about “booger glue.”
I did think the OP’s definition of thought leadership was inaccurate—it is a real form of strategic development, not advice about how to “optimize your user interface on the granular metric.”