Navigating Jargon
Let me tell you about the time I joined a philosophy-themed book club as a part of their volunteer book review team. I was, and still am, extremely interested in reading books on philosophy. However, I am no longer part of the team. Why? For me, a newbie to philosophy, discussing books with a group of people who use words like absurdism and epistemology and hegemony and sprinkle them into every sentence was taxing and overwhelming. If it were any other book club where the effort required to blend into the group was minimal or negligible (read: where I was already familiar with the jargon), I am sure I would still have one more hobby to pursue on the weekends.
While jargon may be popularly associated with the medical and legal community, a milder form of this steep hill exists in almost every group of people. The very formation of a community implies that conversations happen much more frequently in a limited group of people. The development of a short-hand of sorts, called jargon, is a by-product of these regular conversations. Call it convenience, or conveying an oft-repeated and well-understood message with a specific term, it still is plain old jargon.
The Oxford Dictionary defines jargon as “words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group of people, and are difficult for others to understand”. If you look closely, you’ll notice that there is no mention of why jargon is created by a particular profession or group of people. However, from our interactions with various groups in society, I’m sure that each and every one of us has had at least one encounter with creating jargon, following jargon, and being stymied by jargon. Let’s analyse the why of jargon before we move on to understanding how to deal with them.
In my first real job post-qualification, there was a huge barrier in feeling comfortable in my new role — navigating the jargon. Jargons are not a conscious barrier put up by anyone at work. Quite the opposite: everyone I work with encourages me to ask even the silliest of questions. Jargons are not even a bias, conscious or sub-conscious. Jargons are like trying to find a segue into conversation with a group of friends who’ve known each other for years. The inside jokes would seem confusing, and apart from laughing awkwardly while waiting for someone to explain how the inside joke was derived, there really isn’t any other option.
Or is there another option?
At my new role, there was this constant tossing around of the jargon “cut”. Revenue cut, payroll cut, expense cut, you get my drift. To an ordinary person who has absolutely no idea what I do at work, they’d assume there was a conversation going on about budget reductions (incorrect, just to clarify). To me, using context from online meetings, I knew that the word “cut” was being used in relation to Tabs created in Excel spreadsheets for revenue data, payroll data, etc. To someone who’s been working at the organisation for a really long time, “cuts” means presenting a variety of analyses of the same data in a way that answers a different question in each table. But my new-joinee brain assumed that “cut” means working on the same data in the same tab, and reworking that same data over and over again to create a more legible “cut”. Yes, you understood right: I assumed that the whole purpose of cuts was to create one cut that was the mother-of-all analysis.
I’m sure you can predict what happened next. Due to the whole WFH situation and my inherent introversion, I ended up asking a colleague sitting next to me in the office about the meaning of this jargon AFTER the project was over, and that’s when I got a brief understanding of the term “cuts”. As time passed by, and I got over my fear and hesitancy of talking to new people, I asked many more colleagues and understood the actual meaning of that term. I even confirmed it once again before writing it here.
Dumb fresher stories aside, I understood the why of jargon through this experience. My book club colleagues and members were not wrong in parading around fancy words which made me double-check the dictionary (once for the meaning and once for usage in a sentence). My office colleagues were not wrong in choosing to use commonly-understood words that meant three different things to three different people. Jargons make work and communication happen faster. Imagine what would happen if I am repeatedly told to “create multiple tables using the same data in a way that answers different questions” day-in and day-out instead of simply using the shortcut “cuts”. I’d lose my mind, and I’m sure anyone else in my position would too. Hence, the easy way out is to use jargon.
You can equate the use of jargon to the use of red-yellow-green colours at traffic signals. Instead of one person screaming out the words for stop, ready, go in multiple languages, three colours do the trick. Another great example is the use of hashtags on Instagram. Using hashtags on Instagram is basically a shoutout to everyone else interested in #CheesePasta to come and look at this insanely gorgeous spaghetti with meatballs and cheesy burrata and if they want to, they can also have a look at the recipe/menu from which I ordered it. Jargons could also be portrayed as calling a specific fruit or vegetable by the name it is commonly referred to as in the local market. I’m sure no one would give you a second glance if you go looking for carambola in your neighbourhood market (or if they are chaotic neutral, they’d give you a carrom board #lamepuns), but saying starfruit would get you a basketful of the tangy right answer.
The internet and meme pages are full of hilarious posts about corporate jargon surrounding emails and online meetings. While they aim to be sarcastically funny, they don’t really impart any actual value while navigating the initial few months at a job. Learning how to pick up jargon at your new job quick and fast is crucial, and here are some tried-and-tested ways which I hope will help you too.
If a word is repeated thrice and it feels like shorthand, it is jargon.
This is more of an intuitive, unscientific way of going about the task of identifying jargon. But if you are an active listener and can read tone well even in a virtual environment, this one will be an easy one to crack. Jargons of this type are usually uttered very fast, and picked up very fast, and are not highlighted in any manner in a follow-up question. To continue my “cut” example, a typical sentence would sound like, “Work on a few revenue cuts and have them ready for review in the Excel sheet”. And the follow up would be, “I have a few ideas for the cuts, which I’d like to discuss, yada yada yada.”
If the dictionary meaning of the word doesn't fit the context of the sentence, it is jargon.
Enough said with the “cut” example. The only downside of this strategy is that there are some jargons that actually match the dictionary meaning context-wise, and yet mean something else for the group of people using the word. Take a moment to think about a jargon in your industry that fits this bill, I’m sure there is one.
Ask, ask, ask
Make it be known to people you’re working with that you’re new to the organisation and would appreciate any and every help in being brought up-to-speed with terms that should be part of your daily lingo now. Initially, it may seem awkward and unnecessary to clarify meanings at the speed of almost a word per sentence, but compared to the agony of misinterpreting something and re-doing the work again in a now-shorter time frame, I’d go for the bug-people-for-answers option. Moreover, always make a list of words that people have explained to you, irrespective of the fact that a few months down the line you won’t ever refer to that list again. Which leads me to…
Tell, tell, tell
Quite frankly, once you’re already used to jargon, it takes a bit of effort to recall the days when you were a newbie to the jargon. The ones who have created the jargon usually do take great pride in it and explain the jargon and the nuance behind it to newcomers, but the ones who have learned it from someone else tend to forget to initiate the learning process for the newcomers. It takes a bit of mindfulness to get around to this, and having a handy list of terms that every new joinee should know makes things easier for all those involved (see, the list comes in handy here).
I sure have a long way to go in cracking all the jargon in my role, and I hope to find more strategies to assist other freshers like me. Till then, do share your thoughts and funny anecdotes on jargon in the comments below!
