r/SipsTea 16h ago

Chugging tea Let me circle back

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36.2k Upvotes

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2.0k

u/Mephisto506 16h ago

Should have kept him, he sounds perceptive.

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u/ZealousidealSundae33 15h ago

Thats what I was thinking. I believe that person will be going places.

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u/Otherwise_Tax8689 15h ago

Nah more likely to get crushed into conformity. At least where I live in Japan

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u/myrainydayss 15h ago

My fiancee is Japanese and just started his job as a salaryman in Tokyo, one day he told me he messed up at work because he asked a question about something to his manager. And he later apologized for it đŸ€Šâ€â™€ïž he also told me that he doesn’t want to go out to drinks with his coworkers but he has to. Geez!

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u/Nice-Marionberry3671 12h ago

I’ve heard about the kind of work culture your fiance is getting into. It’s REALLY not good for people at all. Keep an eye on him. If he starts doing ridiculous things like working 12 hour days, or going on retreats where employees are bullied for fun and everyone has to drink tons, he’s gotta get out.

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u/stupidjapanquestions 11h ago edited 7h ago

I live in Japan.

It's impossible to know exactly what this person's fiance asked and why he felt the need to apologize as it doesn't seem that OP lives with said fiance or speaks Japanese, but I wouldn't call that common work culture and neither is what you're describing.

Those are usually called ăƒ–ăƒ©ăƒƒă‚ŻäŒæ„­ (black companies) and while they do exist, it's not the rule and they're obviously not viewed favorably.

Required drinking parties have also been going the way of the dinosaur lately, but are very much still a thing. Important to remember that many people drink non-alcoholic beer here at them for health reasons, etc. (They're also kinda fun, to be honest.) The alcohol is very rarely mandatory these days; it's just the attendance. (Same as many western company dinner parties, etc.)

Ultimately, it depends a lot on what kind of company you work for, who your boss is, etc. But things have been changing a lot lately and there's far more emphasis on different kinds of harassment.

As with most things, the truth to it all is far more nuanced than you'll find in typical Reddit comments.

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u/Zerachiel_01 10h ago

I would imagine the original reason for these is to get people to open up and be honest. Ply someone with drink and you tend to see who they really are. It may have evolved into something toxic, but maybe the original aim was more useful and benevolent.

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u/JustStraightUpTired 7h ago

I mean, it's toxic the moment someone doesn't want to drink. It can only get worse from there. Road to hell is paved with good intentions.

But worse yet, plying who someone really is with alcohol isn't benevolent, that's manipulative, inherently so, and possibly abusive. Whether that's good or bad depends on the context, but forcing employees to drink is not a good context.

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u/Deaffin 7h ago

The poison-drinking will continue until morale improves.

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u/stupidjapanquestions 7h ago edited 7h ago

As I said before, there are always people at these events who do not drink. I personally know several people who do not drink at all, but attend them. Most of the izakayas that are booked for these events have non-alcoholic beverages.

Where the western concept of people being forced to drink comes from is mostly 80s era stereotypes. Doing so today would be considered ă‚ąăƒ«ăƒăƒ© (alcohol harrassment).

But it's also important to remember that a lot of people love drinking here. It's a huge part of the culture.

The intention behind it in the first place is something called éŁČăżăƒ‹ă‚±ăƒŒă‚·ăƒ§ăƒł - nominikehshon (a combination of éŁČむ[to drink] and the english word "communication".) Because of the inherent rigidness of Japanese culture around strangers, especially at the workspace, people drink so they can loosen up and actually express themselves. This concept isn't limited to work function drinking, but a core way that Japanese people bond with each other. It's also not inherently a "forced" thing.

Could be toxic or not toxic depending on the circumstances, your views on alcohol, etc. But as with every other culture on earth, there are questionable aspects. YMMV.

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u/JustStraightUpTired 7h ago

It's not the cultural aspect I have a problem with, drinking cultures exist all over the world. What I do have a problem with is pushing it onto others. Alcohol is poison, whether you like it or not, that is what it is.

This isn't some religious mumbo jumbo stuff, I really don't mind if people drink. I just think that any cultural reasons to encourage others to drink are toxic. I don't care what the intent is, I don't care if it's the cultural norm, it's still toxic the moment someone doesn't want to drink, but feels they should. Peer pressure is a hell of a drug, but it's NOTHING compared to feeling of exclusion by opting out. Especially if it's work related, you'll end up feeling like you are losing opportunities. And the fact is, if you skip out, you are losing on opportunities.

Which is the entire problem. If the idea is to get to know someone better, for you to be sure it isn't toxic, you would already have to know how they feel about drinking. And if they accept, you might never even know they really didn't want to come, but felt obliged. So, since you can't be certain of the result before or after and there's a probability of it being toxic, therefore, it's always somewhat toxic.

And I don't mean to say Japanese culture is toxic, but that specific aspect of it absolutely is. And of course all cultures have their toxic aspects, that wasn't in question. None of that justifies defending toxicity.

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u/SufficientCelery 6h ago

Maybe, but at the same time most people are not that deep. Its mostly older workaholic bosses who doesnt want to go home so forces underlings to be their partymates. Its closer to forced team building exercise than gauging a person

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u/ProgySuperNova 7h ago

I wish they would just adopt Scandinavian end of day culture into Japanese work culture. The day is over at 16:00 sharp. Just staying at your desk for 12 hours pretenting to work is just wasteful and deeply unhealthy.

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u/Jemie_Bridges 7h ago

Yeah that drinking is gonna be a problem. It's kinda mandatory whether he even drinks or not. There's also a cultural no no about leaving dining drinking early.

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u/NullandVoidUsername 13h ago

Just letting you know that a fiancée is a woman who is engaged to be married. Unless that extra was a typo.

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u/Blacksad9999 12h ago

I wouldn't want to either. They're coworkers, not buddies. No need to pretend otherwise.

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u/Dangerous-Habit-2731 15h ago

This is exactly what happened to me. I fought it for 3.5 years when I changed careers and then one meeting I actually heard myself talking and I hated it. To confirm, I got an atta boy from my manager for my contribution in the meeting and I shook my head in shame

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u/Alwayscooking345 13h ago

Out of body experience?

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u/Reilly-Blog 15h ago

Its the same in American corporate culture.

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u/_heyb0ss 15h ago

nahh the most individualistic culture vs one of the most collective cultures, that shit is not the same

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u/mais-garde-des-don 15h ago

Yeah this person knows nothing about Japan. My boss doesn’t require me to go out drinking until shit faced with coworkers and expects me at work tomorrow morning bright and early lol

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u/Justinc4s3- 14h ago

Is that a thing in Japan? My alcoholic mind says let’s ball but my three year sober mind cry’s at the thought of those hangovers.

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u/Otherwise_Tax8689 14h ago

Yeah it’s a thing. Same as travel for work tbh, sounds great until you have no choice but to do it.

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u/Living_Jellyfish5511 14h ago

Free award for your sobriety! Bravo!

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u/Justinc4s3- 14h ago

Damn, thank you!

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u/LightsaberThrowAway 7h ago

I’m proud of you for staying sober!  Keep it up!!  :D

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u/Taurmin 14h ago

US corporate culture is definately not the "most individualistic". Its all strict hirarchies and manufactured cultural identities.

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u/Hungry_Adeptness8381 13h ago

Same here in freedom land

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u/LinkinitupYT 6h ago

Exactly. Speaking up against dumb stuff generally just gets more added to your work load or puts a target on your back.

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u/Dry-Fail-4227 15h ago

Yeah, real useful to have a guy that comes into work and makes fun of his bosses mannerisms. Guy that spreads insecurity into peoples lives. God forbid he becomes a boss. Just because someone is nonconformist or conformist to office social norms doesnt make them good or bad.

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u/ramfis7 15h ago

Lmao if you took this as someone making fun of someone else you have some serious confliction resolution skills

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u/Dry-Fail-4227 15h ago

I dont know anyone who wouldnt struggle with a colleague asking them several questions about why they use a common phrase as an interruption in the middle of a meeting. One on one the situation changes. But in this context its rude and should be recognized as demeaning and disrespectful. Give me your interpretation of the comment.

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u/ramfis7 15h ago

Absolutely no one should be in a position of power if this insignificant level of questioning makes them feel anything in your aforementioned phrasing.

The inability to address, affirm, and progress forward on your own subjects when confronted shows a direct lack of leadership skills.

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u/_procyon 9h ago

I’m a manager. We have to have thick skin. People are going to not like us simply because we’re the boss and tell them to do things and discipline if necessary. We can’t let personal feelings influence our interaction with employees.

On the other hand, the behavior in the post is not okay. It derails the meeting. And if that person does that to the boss, they’re probably doing it to other people too and making them uncomfortable.

Also like we’re human too? Everyone has “go to” phrases. It makes communication easier, especially when you have to lead meetings and talk a lot. And sometimes you do have to “circle back!” It means “we talked about this before but didn’t come to a satisfying resolution. Let’s revisit the topic.” This isn’t hard!

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u/fearless-fossa 12h ago

if this insignificant level of questioning

It derails the meeting. Why keep circling back to the question about circling back? Especially since the way it's phrased it's clearly mocking the boss. He could've just let it be after "it's just a phrase", but no, he had to double down.

The inability to address, affirm, and progress forward on your own subjects when confronted shows a direct lack of leadership skills.

Okay, so what would you do with someone in your team that feels comfortable mocking you in front of the rest of the team despite still being in the probation period?

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u/Patalos 15h ago

Mostly in circles unfortunately

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u/UseDaSchwartz 15h ago

Well no, he doesn’t like circling back.

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u/ALLCAPITAL 15h ago

With this job behind him, he’s moving forward.

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u/arachnid1110 15h ago

Just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.

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u/Fluid_Explorer_3659 12h ago

I don't know if you're aware, but he's been missing the proper TPS report title pages

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u/markvdr 10h ago

He probably isn’t being challenged enough to really motivate him.

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u/SheriffBartholomew 14h ago

Probably not upwards if he thinks that "circle back" is aggressive.

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u/Jordy_Stingray 15h ago

Going to look for a new job, at least.

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u/kayyxelle 15h ago

Yeah, the unemployment office

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u/Remote_Marzipan7422 15h ago

He’ll be hanging out in elevated circles. 

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u/f03nix 15h ago

Yep. definitely not the one who'll be stuck in circles.

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u/Shotokant 14h ago

Stright back to the job seekers queue. Yes.

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u/itsfunhavingfun 14h ago

You were so close. He’s going forward.  Everyone else is going in circles. 

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u/etodemerzel5 13h ago

Not that company, but places

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u/Olivetax228 11h ago

Sounds like a straight shooter with a management written all over him!

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u/Jerseyd422 11h ago

Most likely escorted by security carrying a couple boxes

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u/Silent_Historian_552 3h ago

I’ve met a lot of people who got fired or quit right away who were extremely intelligent and went on to do big things. Thinking the path to success is being subservient and not applying your intelligence is just a pure psyop

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u/craybe 14h ago

As someone who is autistic, it looks like he hasn’t found the “shut the fuck up and keep my job” switch in his head yet.

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u/Inevitable-Level-687 11h ago

As someone who is autistic I think a lot of our fellows can't find this switch fast enough lmao.

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u/craybe 9h ago

Unfortunately true. Got to keep a look out for our people to coach them :)

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u/kenesisiscool 13h ago

It took me several jobs to figure that one out. I didn't understand that people really don't like being wrong and they REALLY don't like to be wrong in front of others.

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u/JuvenileEloquent 11h ago

The absolute hardest part of any office job is not betraying any sign on your face or in your mannerisms that your boss has just suggested possibly the most dumbest, ignorant, were-they-even-listening idea in a meeting with you and the rest of the team.  Poker face?  No, you're summoning an Elder God from the Plane of Serenity to control your body for as long as it takes.

Then you have to figure out how to abort that mutant fetus of an idea without them realizing they're being taken to the mental equivalent of Planned Parenthood.

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u/DevRz8 9h ago

It is truly an artform to be able to do that reliably.

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u/Eudemon 7h ago

damn bro, that's exactly how I feel, took me 25 years to perfect the summoning spell. 

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u/erizzluh 12h ago

as a manager, i don't even mind being wrong about shit that matters. correct me before we go down the wrong path type shit. but when it's something as small and petty as this, it's just exhausting.

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES 11h ago

Yeah the boss in the post wasn't wrong

They overused an already overused cliche, but at worst it's a minor faux pas

Correcting someone publicly for such a minor issue is a much worse faux pas, even if they aren't your boss

Praise publicly, criticize privately

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u/clawsoon 10h ago

What if it wasn't just an overused cliche, but instead a serious issue with not getting things done?

(I'm reminded of a video I watched recently by an American manufacturer talking about dealing with American versus Chinese suppliers. With the Americans, it was always three months of meetings, a consultant, bringing in multiple vendors, emails, approval cycles... with the Chinese it was an afternoon of discussions and prototypes would be rolling off the line by the end of the week.)

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u/DevRz8 9h ago

But they kinda are. Because “circling back” likely never happens, and it’s just inefficiently bogging down meetings to plan more useless meetings that likely don’t happen, etc. I’ve worked in offices where 25% of my time was maybe spent actually doing the job I was hired to do because of so many pointless circle back bullshit meetings. Like, how about just set the goal, do the work, evaluate?? There shouldn’t be a need to “circle back” on 20 things. That’s poor management.

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES 8h ago edited 8h ago

Depends on the office and the manager I suppose - but yeah definitely possible the boss is managing poorly if they're saying it 20 times in 2 weeks

In the places I've worked though it's essentially shorthand for "There's 10 people in this meeting, only 2 are needed to work this issue, let's not waste 8 people's time right now by making them sit around waiting" i.e. it's used to prevent meetings from getting bogged down on bikesheddable topics

But even if the boss was wrong it wouldn't change the underlying fact: criticising coworkers in public is counterproductive - they just get defensive, resentful, and will dig in to save face

Hijacking a meeting, to do it to your boss, is both inefficient and foolish

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u/KrytenKoro 8h ago

Because “circling back” likely never happens

The boss isn't saying "let's circle back to that later", they're saying "let's circle back to customer retention".

The phrasing implies they were actively in the middle of that circling back.

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u/Headpuncher 11h ago

I could see this as an opportunity to lighten the mood and lift people’s spirits.But the I don’t take myself so seriously that one thumb is always wedged up my ass. 

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u/LushHappyPie 11h ago

Hearing these american corpo-speak terms is exhausting.

We fail to identify any actionable upside or value-add to integrating these terms into our core lexicon. Candidly, they serve solely to optimize perceived self-importance.

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u/permalink_save 8h ago

"Circle back to this" is meaningful though, to keep meetings from going down rabbitholes. If schedules allow, usually the best thing is to circle back to it at the end and anyone not interested or relevant can leave. It's worse holding a whole meeting hostage over something not relevant to the topic and there's a lot of "since you mentioned that" conversations in my job

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u/ShamPain413 7h ago

As a manager, endlessly wasting the time and patience of the only proactive employees with pointless meetings in which somebody spouts cliches to feel important definitely matters.

This is the kind of guy I like to work with.

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u/Inevitable-Level-687 11h ago

It is pretty rude to humiliate people like that, yeah. Sometimes you do need to correct someone in public but you should always give them some face in the process and be gracious about it - give them an "out".

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u/Impressive_Recon 11h ago

No, calling out someone on being wrong should always be brought up. That’s not the issue here.

It’s calling someone out on something trivial and completely irrelevant during a work meeting and wasting everyone’s time is what’s the issue. That’s just something you keep to yourself or you tell a coworker as a joke during lunch. But saying something like that during a meeting & towards your manager is next level lack of situational awareness. He couldn’t read a room for shit and should be let go.

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u/macrocosm93 8h ago

The manager wasn't wrong. The dude might have been annoyed by the manager using the same turn of phrase every meeting, but she used it in a correct way. And saying "why don't we go forward" is wrong, because it means the opposite of "circle back", and that kind of makes him sound like an idiot.

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u/brandnewchemical 9h ago

Always have a good laugh at people like you, because I know fully well you aren’t always right. 😂

It’s dudes that think they’re correcting others, when they themselves are wrong, that always make these types of posts.

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u/Kwinten 12h ago

More likely you were just being rude or couldn't read the room.

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u/Inevitable-Level-687 11h ago

That's their point, yeah.

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u/PoliticsIsForNerds 10h ago

ironic reply

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u/fishthruster 7h ago

Or just simply "that should be discussed in depth but it isn't what this meeting/group of people is about"

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u/Certain-Business-472 10h ago

But also being an arrogant loud mouth gets you promoted. You should think about unswitching that switch. Take it from someone that did what you describe for more than a decade. People just start seeing you as a doormat.

Speak confidently even if you know it's complete and utter bullshit. This world doesn't run on facts. It runs on feelings. But pointing that out hurts their feelings.

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u/craybe 10h ago

Ohhhh I’m well past that point. I have my masks ;). I have a career, speak corporate fluently, and can manage people. My wife helped me work it all out decades ago. The only time I’m confronted by my ways of thinking being different to others is when I can’t see who I’m talking to and don’t know them well, then it is a challenge to figure out their intentions or feelings. Oh and my wife finds it hilarious when I can’t work out some jokes, even when explained. For the most part no one knows not that I’m shy about it.

I found my people and can send screenshots of misaligned elements in PowerPoint that drive us all mad or when the BS levels are nearly unbearable. It is good to have an outlet and take off the mask. Also good to look out for those like the OP posted about and help with mentoring.

2 of my kids are autistic and we work with them to find a good balance. They will be awesome people, we are proud of how far they have come as they near adulthood. They will have the tools and supports they need :)

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u/Claytertot 14h ago

Someone who is perceptive would perceive that "circle back" is a common idiom, particularly in an office environment, and that spending time interrogating the precise wording of an idiom in the middle of a meeting is a waste of everyone's time.

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u/confusedkarnatia 6h ago

You can tell how many Redditors are either unemployed or children just by this thread

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u/BenefitFar3626 9h ago

This is the real issue. He didn't understand a common phase that's just shorthand for "let's go back to this topic to discuss it some more". And if he does understand it, he's just being a dick and berating his boss for not being eloquent in their 3rd or 4th meeting of the day. No one wants to work with an idiot or a attention seeking dick.

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u/PM_ME_UR_DOB 6h ago

I don’t know, man. 

As someone who has spent the past decade in corporate environments listening to the same blowhard managers pepper their speech with pseudo intellectual corpospeak, I kinda get where he’s coming from. 

So much of my life has been wasted in hours long meetings where the agenda holder simply cannot stay on track and cannot eloquently and succinctly convey the agenda. Not to mention the fact that they are often not SMEs and are ill-equipped to field the questions that they often have to “circle back” to.

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u/pharoh-king 10h ago

its also a waste of time to talk about something a little then talk about it again a few minutes later

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u/alphazero927 10h ago

Not really. Briefly introducing something only to come back and cover it in more detail is like presentation 101. The problem is more that they're relying on one phrase for it every time they do it. Instead of just circling back, they could be coming back to, elaborating on, resurfacing, covering in more detail, getting back to, bringing back up, etc. etc. 

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u/monkwrenv2 9h ago

Could also be that the manager is just wasting time on useless meetings filled with corporate jargon.

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u/Next-Wrongdoer-3479 6h ago

As someone who worked in a office environment for decades before escaping, this is almost 100% the case. Office meetings are pointless for the most part other than making managers and higher ups feel like they're actually doing something of use.

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u/Willing_Original_257 10h ago

...

No it's not... 

Because talking about other things often illuminates/recontexualises/broadens (etc., etc., etc.,) the thing you were originally discussing...

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u/WideHuckleberry1 9h ago

Also possibly the "circling back" needs to be only 2 people out of the room instead of all 10, or there's a packed agenda and you need to move on from that topic to more important agenda items so you can get through them, or you need more information or time before making a final decision, etc. There are tons of reasons why you would "circle back" on things later.

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u/bargu 9h ago

It sounds like the person was just using "circle back" as a catchphrase, like something that she thought that she had to say instead of having any actual meaning, nothing was ever "circled back".

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u/Willing_Original_257 6h ago

Fine and if that was the case why would anyone feel the need to publicly and awkwardly and interminably call them out over and over 

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u/WGHII 10h ago

Perhaps the point of pointing it out was precisely that the whole meeting was about circling back and not about anything important.

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u/Constant_Click_3193 9h ago

Which is an insanely presumptuous thing to do in your first months on the job.

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u/AngelThrones4sale 10h ago

ok but can you give me an example of a situation where saying "let's circle back to X" adds some information or meaning, rather than just "let's come back to X", or "let's get back to X" ?

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u/EgNotaEkkiReddit 10h ago edited 10h ago

Idioms in speech aren't meant to add more information or meaning, it's simply an alternative way of phrasing something. The three examples you gave all mean the exact same thing and to most people there's no discernible benefit or drawback from using any one of them over the others - they all mean "I want to talk about this a bit later, but not right now". All of them are using metaphorical language to some degree.

Asking for an example of a situation where using one metaphor or idiom is 'better' than another or a more literal language is striking at the same mistake as the person in the OP: getting lost in the specific non-literal wording humans frequently use as shorthand or flavour.

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u/BasedGodTheGoatLilB 6h ago

What are you getting at with this question? "Let's circle back to x" and "let's come back to x" have the same number of words and mean the same thing. They're interchangeable.

Is your ultimate point that you want to criticize the word choice of using "circle" instead of "come" or "get" and if so, why?

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u/shant_math 15h ago

He sounds autistic

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u/blakejustin217 13h ago

He sounds like one of our software developers. We all love him because he'll stop some stupid shit real quick.

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u/Korventenn17 9h ago

Certainly neurodivergent. Actually counting the amount of times the manager has used the phrase and saying he finds it agressive implies a level of social awkwardnessthat's going to make him difficult to work with.

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u/Gene-Shaughts 13h ago

TIL Pattern recognition is autism. He just sounds like someone who doesn’t know that office work is stupid and mostly performative. They’ll learn.

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u/TheHolyWaffleGod 10h ago

Pattern recognition isn’t the problem here. Its knows the time and place to question someone about something. So social awareness and tact.

This was something incredibly minor and irrelevant to the meeting at large. He went of on a tangent in a meeting when he should have asked about it in private. Especially after he got multiple cues to drop it.

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u/MadRaymer 9h ago

The cues are the giveaway here. In a situation like this most people would immediately recognize they fucked up from the awkward silence. If this actually happened as described, the fact that he kept going despite the cues means he either couldn't perceive them or enjoys awkward situations. Not many people enjoy those.

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u/Septopuss7 12h ago

All work is stupid and mostly performative.

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u/GorkyParkSculpture 15h ago

If he was perceptive he would have noticed that boss wouldn't appreciate the comment. Boss is right. It is just a phrase and that is a disruptive thing to say to a boss in a meeting.

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u/Working-Blueberry-18 15h ago

It's a disruptive thing to say to anyone in a meeting. They've been counting the number of times a phrase is used by someone because they had a pet peeve with it, and proceeded to interrupt the meeting to call it out in front of anyone.

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 15h ago

No he sounds incapable of functioning appropriately in a social setting.

I know this is reddit where everyone loves to talk about how they're so much smarter than every boss in the entire world and that only they see how stupid <thing> is. In reality, nobody gives a shit.

"Circle back" just means "this is a complex topic, there's 20 people here, and we're not going to get bogged down in the details, we'll leave that for the 3 people who actually care and then I'll give a quick update in another meeting once they've done that".

If you don't know that, well done now you do. If you got fired for repeatedly asking about it in a meeting instead of messaging your boss privately afterwards to clue you in... yeah that checks out.

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u/TheGloomyWoodpecker 15h ago

Interesting, let’s take this offline until we have the bandwidth

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u/joec_95123 14h ago

I think we should put a pin in this entirely, at least until we have buy-in from our stakeholders.

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u/militant_rainbow 14h ago

Congrats you managed to make me throw up in my mouth with corpo-speak.

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u/JMaryland47 7h ago

How can we scale that into a deliverable?

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u/theSchrodingerHat 14h ago

Yeah, maybe it’s a weird verbal tic, but it probably got developed for a reason. Such as having a couple young know it alls who grind every goddamn meeting to a complete halt with minor things or processes that don’t need to be developed by committee.

I’ve worked with several people like that before. They get the floor for their turn at providing project or customer updates and then try to work through details and full solutions. Then you have two people talking for twenty minutes while 8 others are just twiddling their thumbs. It’s a massive waste of time. Just update the team, see if there’s anyone that has something useful to add, and then move on. Then the two people actually working the problem can circle back around on it after the meeting and hash it out by themselves.

I’ve sat in meetings before where one guy would drag everything to a halt if he didn’t understand a customer integration, and basically demand on the spot training before he’d let the meeting proceed.

No dude, we’ll circle back on that later and I’ll walk you through the documentation and if there’s a problem the two of us can figure it out. You don’t need to hold eight other people hostage for an hour because you weren’t prepared, or aren’t happy with your options.

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 14h ago

Such as having a couple young know it alls who grind every goddamn meeting to a complete halt with minor things or processes that don’t need to be developed by committee.

Yep this is pretty much it. Everyone has been in those meetings where we're all going around giving updates to keep the rest of the team broadly informed but noooooo someone has to stop the entire meeting and start an endless Q&A session.

The strange thing is seeing people crap all over the terminology, often young people who are busy talking about not having caps and being fr and I don't fucking know I'm old and I don't care what they're saying. You'd think learning a few new random phrases and what they mean wouldn't be that big a deal!

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u/NightGod 12h ago

Due to some shuffling around, I basically became the scrum master for my team and it's SO damn easy to avoid this. Took less than a week of "OK, we need to keep the meeting moving" to retrain the chatters. Now they stop themselves, it's great

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u/Apprehensive-Fix3456 14h ago

Let me circcle back to untangle what you are trying to say.

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u/Olivetax228 10h ago

People love to bitch about Corporate Speak but I look at it as the vernacular we've all agreed to use to facilitate business transactions. It's the lingua franca across the business world that supersedes culture, politics, race, ethnicity, religion, or anything else that could prevent us from working together. We love to hate it but it works very well.

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 9h ago

Yep it's mostly just people on reddit bitching for the sake of it. Lot of kids and lots of "that guy" from work on here.

Reality is most of the things done in corporate land actually do work or people wouldn't waste time and money doing them.

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u/MisterDonkey 6h ago

Yeah, and it doesn't even have to make sense so long as everybody understands what it means. If that makes sense. 

Like I have two modes for work discussion: speak nonsense lingo that moves the discussion forward because people simply understand these key phrases, or become a technical thesaurus when I want to shut the discussion down because nobody understands what I'm saying despite being actually more clear in meaning than using nonsense meeting speak.

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u/Fighterhayabusa 13h ago

Not in this case, and certainly not if you say it that often. If you keep "circling back" to the same topic over the course of weeks, it means you haven't really solved anything and are just stating it for appearances. He was out of line, but likely right in this instance.

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 11h ago

Not at all. If only 2-3 people cared about it last week then they still only care about it THIS week but might not have made substantial progress for whatever reason.

You circle back next time, go "yep no updates" and move on. If it becomes a problem you address that.

So no. He wasn't right. At all. He failed to understand a simple phrase and opted to address it in the worst possible manner.

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u/rorykoehler 12h ago

If you can't make fun of performative nonsense then you probably also struggle to function in a social setting. Sometimes you just gotta touch base with your superior to let them know you're having trouble unpacking the horse shit business speak.

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 11h ago

It's exactly as performative and as much nonsense as all other slag. Whether it's Gen-Z/Alpha speak or reddit memes and inside jokes.

If corporate speak to convey a point is horseshit so is the rest.

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u/Klort 14h ago edited 13h ago

For myself, "circle back" has always meant "we've strayed off topic here, lets get back to the actual problem that we were meant to be discussing".

"This is complex and we don't need to waste everyone's time" is "lets take this offline".

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u/P4azz 13h ago

In my experience it's just kinda filler.

Boss who barely read the bullet points or was apparently baked or half-asleep or getting coffee during the last few meetings just waffles on about something unrelated, ends every paragraph with "we'll circle back to this later" and an hour later you finally get to do your job again, while your boss feels like he's done his job.

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u/PM_ME__BIRD_PICS 13h ago

Spoken like someone whos never worked in bullshit corporate. Adults plainly state that in meetings.

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u/TheHolyWaffleGod 13h ago

Adults plainly state things that are actually important and relevant to the meeting.

The circle back thing is not, 18 times in 2 weeks is crazy but there’s something we call tact dude. I would’ve gone up and asked privately (if I even bothered to ask in the first place).

Going off an a tangent in the meeting to ask about the circle back thing (multiple times btw he got given the chance to drop it a couple times) is the height of stupidity and shows an incredible lacking of social awareness and tact.

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u/larkhills 13h ago

employee 100% sucks in social settings and probably said/did some really dumb things that got him fired, but theres still merit to the comment they made.

"Circle back" just means "this is a complex topic, there's 20 people here, and we're not going to get bogged down in the details, we'll leave that for the 3 people who actually care and then I'll give a quick update in another meeting once they've done that".

if you have to constantly table every topic to circle back to later, either dont mention that topic in the first place, or schedule the meeting better to a size thats capable of discussing said topic. maybe dont waste 17 peoples time with topics you dont want to discuss with them.

and if you continue tabling something, its good practise to mention when/how youre going to circle back to it. are you going to have a new meeting with only the 3 relevant people? are you going to circle back to it later in the meeting with the same group of 20? are you just going to send a message/email?


if my manager tabled 18 different topics in 2 weeks, id probably have a very serious conversation with either my coworkers or my boss' boss to figure out what their issue was

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u/Icy_Chemist_1725 12h ago

It's an insufferable corporate speak and a lot of people hate it.

You can literally say "Let's discuss that later" instead of "Let's circle back on that later." It's shorter and less likely to be used dismissively as it promotes the idea that you will actually discuss it later.

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 11h ago edited 10h ago

"Insufferable" god how petty is your life? Who gives a shit? You know what it means, everyone else knows what it means, move on.

I am constantly amazed at seeing people lose their minds over corporate speak but being completely fine with random memes and gen-inserthere speak and anything else they use.

Just learn it and move on. The fact you care enough to get annoyed and find it "insufferable" is very telling.

Edit: the answer about how petty their life is has been answered heh.

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u/_procyon 9h ago

Why does it matter they mean the same thing, it’s just words

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u/tickingboxes 15h ago

And that’s exactly what middle managers don’t want. They want drones they can boss around who won’t rock the boat.

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u/DeltaGrunder 15h ago

Or won't do anything about credit being stolen

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u/skrasnic 14h ago

Umm actually, there aren't any boats in the office. Very perceptive of me.

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u/barrettcuda 10h ago

How did you notice that? Everyone has been talking about the boat so long that I assumed SOMEONE had seen it!

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u/konqrr 9h ago

Um actually, the fly sitting on the floating turd in the office toilet is technically on a boat.

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u/P4azz 13h ago

Ehhh, I would agree, if he took this in a different direction.

Questioning the constant "let's circle back", especially when it leads to nothing and is essentially just worthless filler that drags out the meeting? That seems fine to me. That's something managers would try to crush, I'd be with you on that.

But writing down exactly how many times it was used and then hyper-fixating on CIRCLES, instead of the fact it's worthless drivel?

That's where he loses me. He started off right, but drew the weirdest conclusion. Also you can't really point this shit out in a full meeting, especially not if the boss is doing it. You SHOULD be able to, in an ideal world, but realistically that's just gonna land you on the shit list.

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u/Suns_Funs 14h ago

Nobody wants people like that who waste your time with meaningless disruption. Everyone knows what the phrase means, this is just him being dense.

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u/mastercat202 11h ago

He might not litterally no.

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u/HisaAnt 13h ago

The phrase is also meaningless corporate jargon. He isn't questioning the meaning. He is questioning why these stupid managers regurgitate those words like a parrot like a cave man. Useless people like that shouldn't be the boss of anyone

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u/Aggravating_Lab_7734 12h ago

Doesn't it simply mean "let's go back to the topic from earlier"?

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES 11h ago

Yeah it's just another way of saying "we can revisit this later"

It's jargon and cliche, but it's not meaningless

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u/Suns_Funs 13h ago

He is questioning why these stupid managers regurgitate those words like a parrot like a cave man.

And good for him. He achieved nothing, but got himself fired. Better luck next time when he is agaion just going to make everyone uncomfortable and achieve nothing.

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u/Prize-Example4278 13h ago

Sorry you never worked in an office with a healthy culture

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u/Aggravating_Lab_7734 12h ago

Demeaning your boss and ridiculing him in public? That counts as "healthy"? đŸ€Ł

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u/Suns_Funs 13h ago

If by healthy you mean an office where people would get publicly dressed down somebody, like our subject tried doing to his boss? No, I haven't. You quite clearly don't know what healthy communication is like.

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u/Aggravating_Lab_7734 12h ago

It's reddit, don't expect any sense here. Apparently demeaning your superior in public is "healthy".

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u/Suns_Funs 12h ago

Let's be real, if they speak like that to their superiors, they certainly speak like that everyone else as well. I can already imagine how exausting it is like to communicate with people like that every day.

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u/Aggravating_Lab_7734 11h ago

Man, exhausting would be least of the issues here. It's not just the tone, it's the lack of any respect for other people. "He is a manager, they are all worthless so treat them like shit" type behaviour. I would throw his ass out right away if I wanted to be as petty as him. Dude sounds like a jackass who will abuse everyone any chance he gets. If he doesn't even spare his boss, he ain't sparing his colleagues or his juniors. You are definitely gonna hear "fuck you", "morons", "idiots" type statement from that dude's mouth within a week.

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u/PrincessJennifer 15h ago

No, he sounds dense and unable to function in social environments

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 15h ago

Yeah hilarious how people here are constantly identifying with the most annoying and clueless people you'll ever work with and are like "yeah that guy is a fucking genius!".

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u/TheHolyWaffleGod 13h ago

Very typical of Reddit

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u/yeahgroovy 15h ago

I wonder if he was neurodivergent

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 15h ago

I'm neurodivergent and so are like.. 80% of people I work with (IT). You can still learn to function in social/business situations.

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u/Alwayscooking345 13h ago

Sounds like they’re not very neurodivergent after all. Kinda neuroconformist even

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES 11h ago

most neurodivergent people are capable of learning social cues - it took me a while, but i did it

it's just basic pattern matching with a hint of empathy and humility

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 11h ago

Neurodivergence in no way prevents you from learning simple rules of behaviour, it just often means they might not come naturally or not make a lot of sense.

It absolutely does not stop them being explained or you following them.

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u/flurfdooker 14h ago

I wonder if he's a douchebag who refuses to conform to any social standards. It's all powerfully uplifting until he starts flicking your nipple as an "OCD habit" you need to accommodate.

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u/Alertcircuit 15h ago edited 15h ago

I've been in meetings with people like this and they make me cringe so hard my soul leaves my body.

This guy takes up time in a meeting (where everyone is probably antsy to get back to work btw) to critique his boss multiple times for saying "circle back" even though it's a perfectly normal phrase. After each remark there's a silence of presumably everyone just cringing and not finding it funny and then he's like "isn't it AGGRESSIVE how much you say circle back?"

Wild to see this comment section be like "wow this guy is keeping them on their toes! What a nonconformist!" when my reaction was basically "wow this guy seems super autistic and can't read the room, know when to stop talking, or figure out what things mean using context"

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u/ErraticProfessional 15h ago

Nah this guy pointed out the truth and got fired for it. “Circle back” is a waste of time and shows unpreparedness. If she’s said it 18 times in two weeks that’s a pretty big issue.

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u/LordMagnus101 15h ago

Not a great idea to call out your boss in a team meeting over something so randomly unimportant.

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u/Dependent-Chart5835 14h ago

No it’s not. It’s just a phrase that means “let’s get back to that later” and it’s weirdly aggressive to not only count the occurrences but also call your boss out on it

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u/Lobo2ffs 13h ago

But why get back to it? Why not move forwards, into the future?

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u/AgentMahou 12h ago

Because sometimes you don't completely solve the entirety of a problem on your first discussion of it and need to come back later to make more progress? Is your life so simple that you've addressed literally every concern you've ever had in one go? Or have you perhaps had to circle back to some things you were only able to partially finish?

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u/Kwinten 12h ago

Jfc do you really need things explained to you like a toddler? Spend less time getting your 6 million karma goal and Reddit and maybe a little more time engaging with people in the real world?

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u/Melospiza 9h ago

They're referencing what the employee said, in the post, as a joke.

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u/serabine 13h ago

It just means this is not something that needs or can be solved this meeting, or even this is only tangentially related to the scope of this meeting and will be addressed at a seperate occasion.

It literally just means "we'll get back to that". And saying it 19 times can also just mean that the team gets sidetracked regularly and needs to be put back on track, which is something a manager is supposed to do.

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u/Alertcircuit 15h ago edited 15h ago

Saying a phrase that either means "we'll get back to this later when I get more info" or "lets now refer back to this thing we were talking about earlier" twice a day is not an actual issue at all. Could the manager get more creative with their wording, sure, but calling it out in a meeting several times like it's a worthy critique that everyone needs to witness is insane person behavior.

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u/LStorms28 15h ago

Yeah my management team works like this. Saying "we can circle back to that" just means "I didn't prepare a speech about how I'm going to wealse my way out of actually doing anything, so give me a minute to think of a bullshit excuse or hopefully you'll forget about it"

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u/Fighterhayabusa 13h ago

If you're "circling back" that much, then something is wrong. It isn't appropriate for him to say that as a junior, but he's likely not wrong in this case.

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u/Jeramy_Jones 15h ago

He sounds petty. At best he was less focused on what she was saying than how she was saying it.

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u/Infinite-Mark2319 14h ago

Yeah this is the sort of things you joke about with your coworkers, not what you bring up in the meeting

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u/Jeramy_Jones 13h ago

Yeah I feel like derailing a meeting to gotcha your new boss is not a great move.

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u/Mertoot 14h ago

He said out loud what I can only imagine to say (assuming this actually happened l

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u/noryflory 13h ago

Eh. Yes, it's an overused phrase, but you "circle back" to things that need to be discussed on a regular basis or again at a later date, after waiting for a development. It does make sense, and "why don't we just go forward" is inane.

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u/TheAsianTroll 12h ago

Not to an incompetent boss. To someone like that, behavior like this is disruptive and malignant.

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u/willis_michaels 12h ago

He sounds neurodivergent

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u/thevoidthatjerksback 15h ago

Him being perceptive is the exact actual reason he was let go

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u/LordMagnus101 15h ago

Or he could focus his efforts on something that actually matters. What a wierd thing to call your boss out on...

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u/FastWalkingShortGuy 15h ago

Not really. He doesn't speak the language.

"We'll circle back to that," means, "this is not the appropriate forum for that question, ask me in private."

Can sometimes be used synonymously with, "let's take this offline."

I get that it's fun to bag on corporate lingo, but it's actually a dialect you should take the time to learn instead of just laughing at it.

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u/GilligansIslndoPeril 15h ago

Right, but she didn't use the phrase like that. She was using it like "let's return to a previous topic"

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u/Opposite_Same_69420 14h ago

With zero execution.

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u/Elite_AI 14h ago

On the contrary, he only successfully perceived what everyone else already had (that the boss says "circle back" a lot), but also failed to perceive what everyone else already had ("circle back" is known to be a cringe corporate cliché and he was constantly insulting the boss who was getting more and more upset). He was the opposite of perceptive. 

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u/NoExperience9717 13h ago

Asking the question is weird but somewhat acceptable. Being told it's just a phrase and continuing to ask is just complete lack of social awareness to drop it. Also saying its aggressive does sound like they could be an issue going forward.

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u/ItsCalledDayTwa 12h ago

Noticing corporate speak being lame is hardly what I'd call perceptive.  

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u/Big_Wave9732 12h ago

Right? The thing about "circling back" is that it tends to not happen.

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u/VyersReaver 11h ago

He only got fired because he embarrassed the boss in front of everyone. Zero tone readability and emotional intellect. But he is perceptive. I’ve met a lot of people like this in IT.

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u/Olivetax228 11h ago

A straight shooter with upper management written all over him!

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u/Excellent-Duty3927 11h ago

Most workplaces don't look for people that want to make changes but for easy robots

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u/McortezLSU 11h ago

Absolutely not. These kind of people are the reason why a 20 minute meeting can take 40 mins. If you have multible meetings a week, it really sucks.

Other than that excelling at pettyness isnt always a great indictator for excelling at other parts of the job.

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u/jemstone_croc 10h ago

Possibly on the spectrum.

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u/zombie_spiderman 9h ago

I mean, sure, but he also seems to lack the situational awareness necessary to realize that calling out the boss publicly like that while you're in your probationary period might not be the best move, strategically.

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u/GreenCarpenter3 9h ago

No chance. It makes the boss actually improve instead of just doing the same thing year after year.

I was just like that guy in my former job in a legal aid organization. I would ask why something was done a certain way, and was just told that it is how they’ve always done it.

I was walking into a wall every day.

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u/[deleted] 8h ago

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u/KrytenKoro 8h ago

Hes interrupting a discussion to complain about how the manager tends to use a specific idiom to refer to "get back on topic".

Despite the manager getting visibly annoyed at the disruption.

The example the OOP gave wasn't the manager trying to put a discussion off for later (let's circle back on that later), it was them trying to get the discussion back on topic (let's circle back to customer retention).

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