Worst corporate jargon of the week: Cascade
Offender: Cascade
Every one of us has been an email chain which is borderline unintelligible for the amount of corporate lingo thrown in there. At CityAM, we’re taking a stand and calling out the worst jargon which travels around the City faster than you can drink an overpriced pint. This week: cascade.
What does it mean?
To tell people something, most usually something your higher-uppers don’t want to tell people themselves, so it’s up to you to “cascade” it down the lines.
The term suggests a sort of preternatural order, where messages ethereally float down the hierarchy, floating from side to side in a swirl before reaching the krill at the bottom, rather like a silicate shell sinking to the bottom of the seabed. The reality is this is the start of an email chain. And it won’t propagate itself.
Used in an email: From now on employees will no longer be permitted to laugh in the office due to a company policy change. We would be incredibly grateful if you could kindly cascade this message to your team. All the best.
Who uses it?
Lace-trimmed superiors and erstwhile Earls of Pretty Little Water Features, who maintain military discipline from their conservatories whilst dressed in a pink tweed twinset.
These pond patricians trill orders with an earl grey in hand, sending so-called cascades of ‘requests’ flowing down the workspace with a swish of their fluffy pen.
Such highnesses believe all things happen incidentally, and have never stumbled across a loose stone disaffecting the stream of their water fountain, let alone found the CC or BCC buttons on an email chain. Such trivialities are not for the likes of them: no, it is you the humble butler who must tend to both stone and cascade – all the while maintaining the pretence that your actions simply happened without intention and certainly not an ounce of manual labour.
What could it be confused with?
- A steep, usually small, fall of water
- Your lover’s sumptuous cascade of curls
- 2000s Eurodance sensation Cascada
Should we be worried?
Undoubtedly. It’s been over 4,000 years since the Flood, which Noah courageously saved us from, and the Cascade could well be our next reckoning with the Lord. And let’s face it, us keyboard pushers don’t know the first thing about shipbuilding.
How do we get rid of it?
Redirect the flow. Stem the fountain. That is to say: pass on the task to a colleague or simply refuse the request.
If neither works, catch that surf and cascade away. Cowabunga.
Corporate ick rating: 9/10
So far away from reality is this demented fantasy of a metaphor that CityAM would like nothing more than to cement all over the mouths of anyone who dares use it – be they an earl or otherwise.