It's been about 6 months since I started a job in government.
The learning curve can be steep at first — especially if you're unfamiliar with the parlance of bureaucrats.
For the uninitiated, here's a 🧵 with some commonly used phrases and what they mean in plain English:
"Tasker" — a thing you must do.
"Due-out" — a tasker from a previous meeting or engagement.
"Hi" — buckle up, nobody says "hi" without an agenda. You're about to be tasked.
"Let's" — pay extremely close attention, you are about to be tasked.
"<your name>," — if they are using your name then you are definitely being tasked.
"run to ground" — means to do your job. If you're not running things to ground then what are you really doing?
"more fulsome" — you didn't add enough content.
There are many longer ways of saying things, usually with prepositions.
It is imperative that you memorize and use them wherever possible:
"to the left" — sooner.
"to the right" — later.
"chop on" — edit.
"sight <person> on" — inform.
"pull down" — cancel.
"Let's take this offline" — please stop talking.
"We'll take that into consideration" — they are not going to take it into consideration.
"Why did we do X?" — X is moronic. We're not doing X anymore.
"Please" — this is a command, not a request.
"Info by request" — there is too much bullshit here to be worth fighting about.
"Do you have the pen?" — they are asking to make this your problem. Do not let them get away with it!
"I can take the pen" — they are trying to seize control of the narrative. Do not let them get away with it!
...I really didn't mean for this to go viral. Please nobody tell GPA.
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