Anyone here speak creative?

Posted by The Practitioner on Wed, 18/01/2012 - 20:01 in Blogs 923 3 comments | report

I have been doing a bit of networking for light relief this week -anything to get away from Tax Returns for a couple of hours.

So there I am at a business event, pinned into the corner by a couple of arty-looking people who tried their best to completely confuse me with a long presentation of what their organisations did, but worded in some sort of strange 'creative-speak' that left me none the wiser.

I have come across this phenomenon before, so before anyone comes to the defence of the arts let me say that I am a big supporter of the arts and creative industries generally. What I think I struggle with is actually consultant-speak from people who appear to have become somehow institutionalised, and apparently never speak to real people. In the real world no-one ever "facilitates" anything, we just get on and do things. If "public space" means a park or street, that's what we call it. If "conceptual", "mixed media" or "disadvantaged" are involved in the same sentence, I'm lost. "Multi disciplinary" apparently has nothing to do with a dual qualified accountant who has done something to offend his professional bodies, but I'm not always clear what it means in any specific context!

So I find myself in the strange position of a fifty something accountant, well used to the criticism that we and the legal profession talk only in jargon, finding myself unable to share a meaningful conversation with people with few qualifications to their names but a whole new language of their own!

* * *

SA update: about 100 Returns still to submit, but only a couple of sets of accounts not yet done so we're on the home straight.

Comments

thanks button 1 thanks

FirstTab | Thu, 19/01/2012 - 09:19 | Permalink

We need a thanks button for OPs. Thank you for the blog post.

Interesting post and it got a giggle from me

ShirleyM | Mon, 23/01/2012 - 09:23 | Permalink

We try not to use any jargon at all, but even then it seems to confuse some clients when we refer to mortgage statements, or HP agreements, or complicated things like dividend vouchers and P60's.

It can be quite amusing trying to convert 'client-speak', when they have forgotten to record the 'thingy' in their bookkeeping .... and they have bought a new 'whotsit' ... and that isn't in the bookkeeping either, but the invoice 'is in the records somewhere'!

Accounting terminology

Nasus | Wed, 25/01/2012 - 16:38 | Permalink

I have experienced something similar in working in accounting in different countries:

For some reason it was confusing for others when I used the terms Creditors, Debtors and Age Analysis in an accounting office. I have worked in South Africa and Canada and I am currently in the UK and wondering if I should be saying Payables/Accounts payable/Creditors?

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