Death by Bullshit

I'm knee deep in job applications at the moment, which is an inevitable and necessary, if tedious, part of life, but the process is rendered all the worse by so many organisations' love of management bullshit.

The language slays me. Yesterday I was tapping out a cover letter addressed to a Director of Continuous Improvement, for crissakes. That isn't a job title. That's meaningless. You might as well call yourself the Officer for Being Good. A small piece of me dies every time I have to deal with such an organisation and, worse, have to do so seriously.

Sometimes I even have to attempt to play their stupid game myself, never more so than when, shudder, filling out an application form. These companies are the absolute worst. Instead of the old CV and cover letter routine, these organisations, some of whom contain literally thousands of people and positions, make you fill out a generic application form with the same questions for all their positions. They have horrendous, generic questions like Show how you have exercised tolerance of diversity, with examples. By not being a racist? Isn't that enough? I once managed a meeting with a black person without assaulting them? Do you really want me to say that? It's humiliating. I'd absolutely love to be able to simply ignore organisations that require you to fill in application forms, but I'm nowhere near that secure in my "career", tragically.

Then, assuming you manage to hold your nose for long enough to wade through the rivers of bullshit and actually get the job, you get someone with such dreadful "communication skills" that you literally can't understand what they're talking about a good proportion of the time. I insist that it's not just that I'm too stupid to understand them, either. I've got a bloody Master's (he cried in anguish, more to himself than anyone else)! In theory! I've sat through enough waffle in my time.

I detest it. Why do they do it? Surely, surely they can see the ridiculousness of speaking in such a way? Thank God for the Campaign for Plain English. I need a job with them. Failing that, my sincerest wish is to somehow get myself into the position to influence an organisation's communications. My only Mission Statement will be to do away with all facets of management studies and what passes for its language.