The current story arc started with this strip: Bad Sign.
If you have to ask “Why IBM?” then just have a look at their website.
- Richard: … And this diagram shows the material usage and the warehouse stock so that new items can be ordered in time.
- Management consultant: ?
- Management consultant: ??
- Thomas: These are management consultants, Richard. From IBM. They don’t understand your technobabble.
- Richard: Oh.
- Richard: … which means that this solution offers an overview of resource allocation deviations to enable the implementation of just-in-time purchasing strategies within the scope of the remediation process.
- Management consultant: Ahh. Very good!
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Is it geeky of me that I understood both versions?
This is hilarious!
It seems all business-geeks have their own language. Phat 1337 skillz, mon
Is there a translator in the house?
when you say “deviations” are you refering to devianart, aren´t you?
I do -not- have to ask “Why IBM?” I used to work there. You caught their upper management thinking style perfectly. 😉 🙁
And who says you need a college education to run a business.
ROFL
I’ve played buzzword bingo in the past.
@ Agurth:
“Deviation” literally mean going out of the line of the normal or usual. DeviantArt supports art of all sorts, thus is considered “out of the ordinary” art to one or more art styles.
Deviation in the sense here is “change” or in reference to the first panel : the change of material count after usage.
Yes, I’m being a smart-alec
dilbert much?
How to be a management consultant:
1. If they say “resource allocation,” nod in agreement
2. If they say “Just-in-time”, say it’s good
3. If they say “remediation process”, approve it
4. If they do none of this things, have them do it over, ignoring their complaints that those things don’t apply and have nothing to do with their project.
Now you don’t need to go to any of those expensive management courses!
Makes a Very Good thing to Do in a WareHouse.
working on literature & translation I can read anything, but all that academisism is good when you are going to specifics (example, you cant use the word truth, author or concience lightly in a paper) but for god´sake is becoming a disease of a yippi hipster talk. All that snoby words just alienate the ones who lisent.
In spanish the word for “teach” is the same as “show”, while the word for education or educate is used as teach. All show offs and no teachers are going to get us all like uptigh IBM businessmans
Both are just overly complex ways of saying they got a system to keep track of storage to sell ratio, letting them effeciently restock when a product is in high demand.
… Right?
Wow, I didn’t know Richard spoke management!
@ MrGBH: I think it’s kind of scary that you could understand the IBM-ized bit. I remember having to read an instruction manual for one of their products and then having to translate it (read: dumb it down) so that I could actually use it. IBM is *not* known for their clarity of language…
I usually don’t comment, but this is too perfect. I get accused (sometimes rightly so) of speaking in techno-speak in front of those who do not know it. I’m an engineer. It happens. But management lingo is THE WORST. Every company uses it and NO ONE has a clue what it means except that its time to shut off one’s brain and wait till the technical managers are able to explain what it means if it means anything at all.
So I love how here plain english is techno-babble to the management consultants. Too perfect. It’s like you plumbed Scott Adam’s brain for this one. Bravo! 🙂
I don’t know if it makes it more or less funny that it’s… well, that it’s true XD
Some people are so “swollen”, they don’t understand the normal language anymore ^^
There exist three spheres of modern language:
1. HR (Human Readable)
2. Tech-Talk (including 1337)
3. Business/Mgmt Talk
Knowing seven languages (including formal mathematics) I’m still to master the third sphere.
As an English-to-French translator, I often have to deal with documents that contain such vocabulary. Sweet gawd, do I hate these words – you never know how to translate them accurately.
I work for IBM, and this comic is painfully accurate. Though for full authenticity you need to have every other noun turned into an acronym.
LOL. Sounds like some meetings I’ve attended.
Oh yeeeaaah managers, we got alot of them in our collage… almost all of them are chicks that’ the good part, but never saw any informatics guy from us be able to talk to them. :p
But I guess Richard is just one heck of a jack of all trades. Cool. XD
i forget what exactly is his job again?
IBM commercials here in Russia are sooo funny. Because they have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with what they actually sell. They spend lots of money on advertising in the city center to create an image of a modern company. But still, you can never understand what the hell they mean. It’s like, “hey guys, we are so old and now we try to look as a teenager” – looks so silly for an epic company of the past. But epic fail now instead.
isaac wrote:
Richard is the department head of the software development unit.
that goes to show you how hard it is to be a good boss. O.0;
Had a friend who was an IBM office manager. She got into hot water once for writing a memo that was readable.
Yay, now do one for Microsoft! 😀
sadly… thats so true :/
LOL, I like the reversal on this language joke. As Slappy Squirrel used to say– “Old gag, new twist”. *thumb up*
@ Shady Kitsune:
More or less, minus the auto-replenish, the managers have to still order the stock from the warehouse but now they can do it last minute and on impulse like they usualy do and not have a problem, ’cause the product will get to the store “just-in-time.”
=P Silly management peoples.
Darn, I almost had Bingo. If only he had said synergy.
Well, if you think that management-speak is bad, you haven’t had enough exposure to legalese yet ;). Well, to every group their own means of separating themselves from the common people…
MrGBH wrote:
And I just realized that I didn’t have trouble reading any of the panels either D:
so…where does the turboencabulator come in to play in all this?
Bob’s Your Uncle wrote:
Heheh, I use Synergy every day at work… But then again, that’s not quite the same, is it? 🙂 So probably won’t help your game, I’m afraid. 😛
Ironic thing is that the stuff they understood was simply techno babble of another sort.
@ MrGBH:
I only understood the first. I guess I could be called a techno merchant :b
I can understand a lot of different trade-babble having worked and dealt with many different types of people and my voracious reading appetite. But every aspect of life seems to generate shorthands and buzzwords. One of the newest types is in the mmo gaming community bringing words like noob and pwned. Any person just starting will find chat channels filled with 3-4 letter terms for places, quests, class, race and etc.
ekimmak wrote:
Translation in Laymens’ Terms;
Version One;
Richard has created a program that monitors the stock that goes in and out of the business and automatically refills the stock to the right levels. (Sending purchase orders to sellers and such). Its just like that Futuristic Refrigeration they were trying to sell once…
((Can I put links up to this??? If not sorry didn’t mean to…))
Internet Fridge!!!
Version Two;
It lets you know when you are running out of stuff so you can get it to nip to the shops to get more just before you needed that bottle of milk for that coffee tomorrow morning…
His vernacular is spectacular!
Grr… Let’s try this again…
Link
Hmm, I suppose it’s a good thing for my bachelor of Business Administration that I understand every word that was said. But I still feel like a business nerd now…… 🙁
@ Heritage:
Join the club, Heritage.
Sadly, anyone capable of reading the second part is already too far gone.. Irredeemably lost to the ways of the managers and businessfolk.
…. I find it rather odd that I’m one of them, I’ve never had to deal with either of those people.
Icalasari wrote:
To tell ya the truth the first one had nothing special in it, but after I read the last one again even that one was pretty clear. 😀
means the warehouse is going to have shelf space ready by the time the product gets to it
@ MrGBH:
Nah. Just means that either you took an introductory business class at the college level, or that you used the first version to translate the other.
I’ve worked at Siemens and they are just as bad at using biz-talk. In fact my first manager there used it in everyday language! *running away screaming*