I generally find hacker news interpretation of business jargon as uncharitable and unnessarily hostile. Not sure why such an innoccous expression like 'circle-back' sends people into fits of rage. There is good reason to be circumspect about heavy project-management overhead as its often misapllied, but that really has nothing to do with this jargon.
HN probably has a higher proportion of people who prefer a slightly more direct style of communication, and enjoy working with code which is much more functional IO than working with humans. If those people are coming to HN to blow off steam, that’s what you should expect - doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be disastrous if anyone tried to implement it in the real world.
Because it’s not innocuous, it’s fucking obnoxious, that’s what.
Just as I was thanking my deities of choice a few years ago that “touch basing” all the time had become uncool and all but disappeared from the workplace parlance, now all of a sudden everyone is happily “circling back” to topics of choice. It seems to be coming and going in waves.
This new hotness of a slang is also particularly shitty because it alludes to going through a few rounds of unnecessary talk before getting to the point.
It’s also one thing if one person is doing this, but if everyone and their dog keep circling back to stuff, it sounds quite idiotic.
The only thing that’s even worse is when a manager adopts military terminology while knowing nothing whatsoever about military.
A good example of this is "learnings". I have seen multiple managers use the word "learnings", usually in in phrases like, "What were our learnings from this?" Or, "What learnings can we take away?" But there's already a perfectly fine word to use: lessons! The only reason to use "learnings" instead of "lessons" is to show that you're a serious manager. It's just empty signalling.
Similarly, "ring fence". Is it really that much better than, "set aside"? Does it add any nuance, or is it just meaningless change for change's sake?
I am far more tolerant of jargon in law and technology than I am of it in business, because, in my experience, legal and technology jargon does function as shorthand, putting complex topics into a labeled box that allows the speaker to quickly make their point without having to repeat a bunch of knowledge that the audience can be assumed to be familiar with. Business jargon, on the other hand, is far more often merely different for the sake of being different.
I can’t really comment on Signalling, but the word learnings isn’t a new and modern invention. It’s in Shakespeare!
It’s also a fallacy to think that there’s a canon of ‘acceptable’ words we can choose from, nor that we are only allowed one word per concept. Language evolves over time and acquires meaning through use.