At the end of the day: can be taken literally; suggests that the speaker is stalling for time so that he or she can come up with a better answer.

B-HAG: big hairy audacious goals. Yes, of course they want you to think of testicles.

Blamestorming: similar to brainstorming, comes only after things have gone wrong rather than before. Mostly an a***-covering tool.

Blue-sky thinking: you’ve heard of thinking outside the box? Well, this is thinking even further outside an even bigger box.

Boiling the ocean: attempting an overly ambitious task. Related to reinventing the wheel, only without the unfortunate Stone-Age connotations.

Buzzword-compliant: any document containing enough buzzwords to get corporate approval.

Bozo explosion: “The large number of inept employees that a company ends up with when it hires an incompetent executive, who in turn hires incompetent managers, who then hire incompetent workers,” says wordspy.com.

Cactus job: “A bad, degrading, perhaps dull assignment, especially one perceived to be beneath perceived skillset,” says Martin Kihn in House of Lies (£7.19 plus postage from Amazon).

Circling the drain: what a bad idea does before it ends up in the sewer where it belongs.

Cockroach problem: “A problem that is bigger than it initially appears.” (wordspy)

Cook: Kihn insists that this means finish rather than falsify. Should be used with care; telling a client you’re off to cook the figures could create overly high expectations.

Core competences: “A thing you can do,” Kihn says. See, sounds much more valuable in jargon.

Don’t gimme none o’ that jibba-jabba: Mr T speaks the truth. The quotation that inspired the authors of Why Business People Speak Like Idiots (£8.57 plus postage from Amazon); could be used by the brave/independently wealthy if a particularly well-fertilised meeting gets too much.

Drink the Kool-Aid: “To accept an argument or philosophy wholeheartedly or blindly.” (wordspy)

Intellectual capital: things that people know. Not to be confused with, say, Sartre-era Paris.

Learning opportunity: a mistake.

MBWA: management by walking around. It may look as if your boss is aimlessly wandering through the halls, but give it an acronym and it becomes a management technique.

Mushroom management: keeping people in the dark and feeding them manure.

Opening the kimono: flashing your accounts (or other hidden thing) around for inspection. Professional development opportunity: a nightmare project that no one else wants.

Proactive: even better than active; getting your oar in first. Helpful when blamestorming.

Put some pants on it: “To fill in the missing details on an idea or concept.” (wordspy)

Think outside the box: I can’t think of a new bit of jargon but that doesn’t let you off the hook.

Throw it over the wall: ditching a problem by passing it on without asking or co-ordinating the transfer (wordspy).

Wheelbarrow culture: one where people will work only when they are pushed.

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