Outside the box
A tongue-in-cheek homage to jargon and weasel words
‘Yah, yah, absolutely,’ said Quentin, his red framed spectacles glinting as he combed perfectly manicured fingers through perfectly coiffed hair. ‘I’m in session now, sweets, so must scoot. But, run it up the flagpole and see if it flies, will you? Get back to me? OK, ciao.’ He fiddled with his phone. The latest version, no doubt.
‘Sorry about that. Not enough bandwidth.’ He rolled his eyes for effect. ‘Now where were we? Are we thinking outside the box yet?’ Glued on smile; perfect dazzling teeth.
No we bloody aren’t, Quentin, thanks all the same. There was no blue sky thinking here. Only dark, ominous clouds. ‘The first mention of ‘downsizing’ and I’m outta here,’ grumbled Mick. ‘That’s a word I do understand.’
Our team provided a well-respected, quality service but we needed to change, apparently. Do more with less, push the envelope, value add and achieve all this while moving forward. Most were silently pondering from where the money had come to pay for this overgrown schoolboy who knew nothing about us, our clients or our agency.
Nancy raised her hand. ‘Quentin, sorry to sound negative but have you ever worked with clients with a disability?’ Nancy, the guru and legend in her field with a CV that made your eyes pop.
‘It is what it is, I’m afraid, and we really need your buy-in here, peeps. You know, take it to the next level, find solutions, yeah?’ He nodded encouragingly. We slumped further in our seats and kept our arms crossed.
‘Nancy, we can take this off-line, if it’s too challenging?’
‘It’s not too challenging, Quentin! We are talking about a human service here. You simply can’t apply factory productivity to ‘peeps’. We offer something valuable that suits the unique needs of our clients. Doesn’t that count for anything?’ Rumblings and murmurs of agreement from the crowd.
‘OK, OK, let’s just circle back here. We’re on this journey together, right?’ Vigorous head nods from Quentin; manic, bulging eyes. You had to admire the thickness of his skin.
John, the service manager, beckoned for the whiteboard marker and gestured for Quentin to sit down. He did so gratefully and the room hushed. John turned his back on our jargon-laden facilitator, caught us all in his steely gaze and raised one eyebrow.
‘For Quentin’s benefit, we’re going to whiteboard our thoughts, OK? I’ll bite the bullet and unpack them right here.’ He uncapped the pen and held it poised. ‘He’s been brought in by management to shift the paradigm, so let’s not throw him under the bus.’
Mutterings of, ‘Oh, please, why not?’ were tastefully ignored.
‘Quentin, mate, we need a win-win here so if we peel back the onion, you must see that sustainability and core competency are what gives us our leverage.’
Several murmurs of ‘What the …?’ were followed by stifled giggles.
‘Does that provide the synergy you need to move the needle with management?’
Quentin’s smile faltered but he knew an exit strategy when he saw one. ‘Yes, yes, absolutely,’ he blustered. ‘Well done everyone. I knew we were on the same page.’
THE END