Ever wonder what the hell your manager is saying? You sit there and watch their lips move, but yet there appears to be no content… just flap flap flap. Thing is, they are trying to say something to you, but they’ve been going all day on three cups of black coffee and no lunch and, besides, you’ve been working together for years so, of course, you know what they’re saying.

The only time they realize they’re poor communicators is when the get home and crash on the couch with the coffee shakes. At that time, their husband/wife/dog walks in and asks them about their day. The moment they start flapping, the husband/wife/dog says, “Uh, I have no idea what an MRD is and why are you shaking?” It is then your manager realizes that a) they drink too much coffee and b) that even though they say big words with authority and enthusiasm, they’re just words and, without context, they’re useless words.

I’m here to help.

I’ve already taken issue with the inane language of managers, but bitching about it has not solved the problem and I’m a problem solver, so I give you the Rands Management Glossary.

The Rands Management Glossary is not going to help you explain your job to your dog, but the Glossary is going to demystify some common managementese terms that we, as managers, throw around meetings with impunity. As language is constantly evolving, so will the Glossary.

The Glossary is hugely biased. It’s based on the opinion of a software engineering manager which means that if you’re in Sales, I make fun of you. Sorry, I’m sure you work hard in Sales, but I don’t know your language which means your ways are foreign to me. Maybe if you read the Rands Management Glossary, we engineers won’t be so foreign to you.

As you read through the current version of the Glossary, you’ll see the tone is pretty much the same as the rest of the weblog — a bit of cynicism and a bit of yelling. They’re not intended to be definitive nor professional, but they should convey some wisdom. For example:

Interview: Interviews are where you, the hopeful candidate, pitch yourself to a group of folks who have 30 minutes to figure out if they want to spend 5 years listening to your dumb jokes.

Now, I don’t actually know whether your jokes are dumb or not. I do know that an interview is a bizarre thirty minute ritual where we’re asked to do the impossible: assess character, ability, and intelligence. Gimme a break, I’ve been staring at myself for decades I’m still not sure what I’m all about.

Here you go: Rands Management Glossary