Post by Gerrit Goedecke

I had an unexpected guest at my next meeting. This guest had three initials, no LinkedIn profile and, as it turned out, no pulse. The Outlook title had been changed to: “𝐽𝐹 𝐺𝑜𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑘𝑒 | 𝐶𝐻𝑀 - 𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑙. 𝐻𝐽𝐺”. I knew the first two. JF was our Jour Fixe. CHM was my boss, Dr. Christian H. Meyer. 𝗛𝗝𝗚, however, was new. My brain did what brains apparently do in these situations 🧠. It started searching through colleagues, committees and contacts, trying to work out who this important person might be and why they were suddenly joining. Over the years, I have learned that pretending to understand acronyms is rarely a good strategy. It works surprisingly well until someone asks a follow-up question... 😳 So I called Christian’s assistant and asked who HJG was. There was a short pause. Then laughter. HJG was not a person. It stood for “𝗛alb𝗷ahres𝗴espräch” - our mid-year review. The full word was apparently too long for an Outlook title. From now on, “Halbjahresgespräch” will always make me think of a very important person I never met. And probably make me chuckle. 😁 How do you deal with acronyms at work? And what is the strangest abbreviation your workplace has produced? #WorkLife #Communication #OfficeHumour