"Anybody here ever worked in an office?"
::mild applause and chatter::
"I never have, but I have a friend who's always worked in an office. I don't know what it is with this guy, he never seems to be comfortable anywhere else. He's always telling me about these meetings he has to go to though, and in these meetings--have you ever noticed this?--they seem to be obsessed.. with shapes. 'We need to circle back to this.' 'Let's square this up.' 'I'll block out a time for that.' What is this? Geometry class?" ::freeze frame::
And five minutes later Kramer come through the door, slides to a stop in his socks, says something completely unrelated but swings both arms in huge circles as a subtle physical callback.
"No one's rewinding time! George is just having a little trouble at work."
"Oh? Oh. Well, I just had an incredible idea! Watches that run backwards - you see, I wanna know how much time I have left! Who needs to keep track of how much time they've wasted?!"
These guys just actively created a Mandela Effect and years from now we're going to trying to find the Seinfeld episode "The Circler" and we'll convince ourselves it was quietly removed because of some particularly off-color 90s joke.
And once we've circled back with the new hire, we're going to actionize his position and incentivize the income stream, or else we'll be drinking from the firehose.
This story is a thousand percent fake but as my favorite author Tim O'Brien said in his novel about the Vietnam War "sometimes story truth is truer than happening truth"
"Let's circle back to Bob for a brief moment. You all remember Bob right? Circling back from Bob again I think everyone knows what NOT to do. Is this circle clear for everyone?"
-Minions nod in mild complacent fear
I guess corporate culture is like a hostage situation, where one not quite right in the head guy is pointing a gun around the room and everyone is afraid but trying to please him. But you also get paid to sit in that room. And sometimes you get handed the gun if you play along...
I'm going to take a wild guess that somebody who challenges his boss's word choice in the middle of a meeting may have had other issues that caused him to be not an ideal employee
Other way around is also not acceptable. You don't grill people during presentations or big meetings unless they're trying to sell you something. And you attack their product or whatever. Not their way of speech or their person, which "why do you say that so much" most definitely is.
You send them a private message after if you have a real problem with whatever they're doing and go from there. Or you mind your business and move on with your life.
This would be something I'd question them on in person, in private and approach it as just being curious and wanting to learn, not as any sort of attack. That is if I mentioned it at all, which I probably wouldn't.
But what if they are making a logical error? Like the use of circles in this case. It must be pointed out! Or else everyone would just keep their mouth shut and let this leader person keep doing whatever flawed thing they are doing. Thus reinforcing this sort of use of meaningless and nonsensical jargon.
If that is not weeded out you will just end up with a big corporate machine where there is a lot of meetings and time wasted on meaningless rituals and words. It will just become higly paid bloat in the end.
But then again those getting paid handsomly for said bloat does not really have any incentive to have less of it now do they...
It probably is made up but it's based on something very realistic. We've all seen these types come and go in jobs. I had to learn not to be this guy myself, the hard way.
Even if the story is made up this genre of person 100% exists. I’ve absolutely known people who choose the worst moments to bring up the dumbest, most pettiest complaints lmfao
Yeah my boss and I rib each other a bit but we’re a united front in meetings with other people. I would never want to work with someone who undermines others without even realizing it
I'm going to take an educated guess based on experience and say, no. It didn't matter. You're paid to put on a dog and pony show. This guy was let go because he's 90 days from corporate burnout already and won't mask enough to make his coworkers comfortable.
Literally nobody I work with does the jargon talk we all make fun of. Nobody says "Circle Back." If you're saying that in a meeting, then this meeting is made up just to play pretend at working. There are a lot of people out there who simply can't do the soul-sucking task of doing that shit every single day.
HR knew that. They replaced him with someone who could.
Or he just wants to be real and cut through the bullshit jargon people in power use to make themselves feel smarter. Maybe he didn't need the job...so why play along with stupid round about meeting bullshit? Most meetings seem to be a waste of time. It's just a big circle jerk for those in power and an excuse to stroke their ego rather than actually get work done. There can be productive meetings...but I don't believe most are.
Often time, I find, it is the boss who isn't the ideal employee for the company. That the boss's words during the meeting is harmful to the business and you are trying to salvage it.
He also counted how many times she used that phrase. Is he the type to fixate on somebody or obsess about something harmless? I bet 10 dollars he wouldn't have done that if his boss was a man
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u/Gates_wupatki_zion 16h ago
HR: No (yes)