Do your eyes glaze over with the vacant stare of a dairy cow when reading most company websites, brochures, case studies, and white papers? Once I interviewed with a company whose tag line was Trust. Value. Integrity. It took me forever to figure out what their business was. After scouring their site and search engines, I deduced they were loan origination technology developers. Can you imagine what this does to potential business? Their website was jargon-jammed with corporate speak and communicated nothing.  The powers-that-be who insist on cliché, jargon and words with no marketplace meaning undermine their own profit potential and branding power. As E.B. White wrote in  The Elements of Style, these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. Let’s take a look at a few of the offenders.

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Whew. Glad you clicked here before continuing your online shopping at work. Take the forthcoming advice from someone who uses “being green” as an excuse for being too cheap/lazy/both to mail holiday cards this year. It’s been kind of a rough one considering Sarah Palin became an author and I became more cynical and willing to drink rail liquor in any libation with an umbrella.

I digress. We’re nearing the birthday of the Baby Jesus so instead of baking him a cake, you’ve chosen names of co-workers (that haven’t been laid off) to spend your post-tax dollars on. Skip the candles and scented salts for your secret Santa gift this year. You need to find gifts that strike balance.

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I just want to be me. But, I also want to eat. Let me clarify that: I want to eat food from a refrigerator plugged into one of four adjoining walls that are capped by a roof. On one of these walls I want the 1970’s poster of the kitten clinging to a tree branch, encouraging me to “hang in there!”

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I’ve started and stopped this article the way a 13 year-old boy, or anyone for that matter, dials (or texts?) a number in hopes of a first date. This is a difficult conversation that can no longer sit on the sidelines. I know you’re waiting for me to make the first move, but let’s break the ice with easier topics first:

• Remember when you were seven and your hamster suddenly stopped getting nowhere fast on his wheel? Your parents lied when they told you he went to a rodent resort and spa.
• On December 25, if a red-suited, overly-gregarious man enters your house via chimney, he is a drunk burglar. Give him the mace, not milk and cookies. It’s not a question of naughty or nice.
• Only our moms truly believe we’re special. Everyone else finds us average-to-moderately unannoying.

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