Survey reveals the most annoying jargon used in the office

Whether you’re in the office or working remotely somewhere, you might find yourself eye-rolling at your boss’s morning speech filled with unnecessary buzzwords or your coworker’s excessive use of punctuation in a passive-aggressive email. These clichés in the workplace today that ranges from office-to-office, like a coach trying to pump up his team for the big game, except it’s work and work isn’t a championship game.

Everyone has a list of the buzzwords their boss uses, but which are the most hated in the office?

A recent survey by GetResponse interviewed more than 1,000 employees across different ages and industries to get their opinions on unnecessary jargon used at work. From marketable terms to clichés used to replace “work harder,” the survey found what phrases really peeve employees the most: Synergy.

Synergy was the most commonly pick term in the most hated jargon terms to hear in any context at work. It was followed by the dreaded “teamwork,” “touch base,” “raising the bar,” and the ever-present “think outside the box.”

As for passive-aggressive emails, we’ve all sent them and used similar phrasing. But the most dreaded five-words found by all respondents was “As per my last email,” which more than a quarter of respondents found to be the most passive-aggressive email line. It was followed by the slightly-less demanding “Just a friendly reminder” and “Please let me know if I’ve misunderstood.”

The least passive-aggressive way to send an email was “Going forward I’d prefer.”

If you’re hunting for a new job, companies may want to try to avoid using the word “badass” to describe an ideal candidate. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said badass was the worst jargon ever seen in a job posting, beating out other odd phrases like rockstar, ninja, and superstar.