Jabberwocky (I)

This post begins a new series exploring the muddled world of consulting jargon. Such slang is not particular to my company, though I hear dialects do form, but is common across many firms and business schools. Slang is particularly clever, and particularly useless, when borrowed from other realms of use.

In my first few weeks as a consultant, I came across a few phrases that I abhorred, or at least could not figure out. An example:

Jargon: "Let's bake it in."
Usage: "That's a great piece of research. Let's bake it into section 4 to complete the story."
Meaning: To use
Realm of legitimate use: Confectionary
Justification for using jargon: None

The spur for this post came from a conversation I had today about setting up a meeting. At no point was the word "meeting" used. Instead I was asked:

Person: "What's your bandwidth like tomorrow?"
Me: "What?"
Person: "Your bandwith? Tomorrow?"
Me: "I use DSL?"
Person: "When are you free tomorrow?"
Me: "Oh. 2pm."

To translate that conversation, let us use the framework from before:

Jargon: "Bandwidth"
Usage: "What's your bandwidth tomorrow? We've got a client coming into the office."
Meaning: Free time
Realm of legitimate use: Information and Communications Technology. Should not be used to categorize humans.
Justification for using jargon: None/To sound baller?

Oops, I've got to run. My bandwidth is limited tonight and I've got to bake this new deck into my workstream.