Bulldozer00's Blog

One incredibly overused word heard repeatedly like a metronome across the vast corpo wasteland is “aggressive“. We will “aggressively pursue new opportunities“, “aggressively cut costs“, yada, yada, yada. It’s most commonly used by anointed BMs everywhere in long winded inspirational sentences that contain its most beloved twin: “schedule“. Here’s what my corpo jargon decoder ring tells me what it means:

Aggressive Schedule (AS) = Work your ass off at least 12 hours a day for months on end without receiving any overtime pay and expecting  the same 1% yearly raise as the rest of the DICforce that smartly exits the psychic prison after five to seven hours of work per day. Oh, and I’ll get a bonus if you meet schedule.

The AS(s) phrase is always wielded by someone with no real skin in the game except for the possibility of fewer stock options if the “S” isn’t met. Since chronic overuse of any word takes the sting out of it, how about creatively mixing it up from time to time with a synonym replacement:

• Barbaric schedule
• Contentious schedule
• Destructive schedule
• Disruptive schedule
• Disturbing schedule
• Intrusive schedule
• Pugnacious schedule
• Rapacious schedule

I can’t decide on my favorite surrogate replacement. It’s either “pugnacious” or “rapacious”. What’s yours?