You’ve Been in Corporate America Too Long When…

  • You ask the waiter what the restaurant’s core competencies are.
  • You decide to re-org your family into a “team-based organization.”
  • You refer to dating as “test marketing.”
  • You can spell “paradigm.”
  • You actually know what a paradigm is.
  • You understand your airline’s fare structure.
  • You write executive summaries on your love letters.
  • Your Valentine’s Day cards have bullet points.
  • You think that it’s actually efficient to write a 10 page presentation with 6 other people you don’t know.
  • You celebrate your wedding anniversary by conducting a performance review.
  • You believe you never have any problems in your life, just “issues” and “improvement opportunities.”
  • You calculate your own personal cost of capital.
  • You explain to your bank manager that you prefer to think of yourself as “highly leveraged” as opposed to “in debt.”
  • You end every argument by saying “let’s talk about this off-line”.
  • You can explain to somebody the difference between “re-engineering”, “down-sizing”, “right-sizing”, and “firing people’s asses.”
  • You actually believe your explanation in number 15.
  • You talk to the waiter about process flow when dinner arrives late.
  • You refer to your previous life as “my sunk cost.”
  • You refer to your significant other as “my co-CEO.”
  • You like both types of sandwiches: ham and turkey.
  • You start to feel sorry for Dilbert’s boss.
  • You believe the best tables and graphs take an hour to comprehend.
  • You account for your tuition as a capital expenditure instead of an expense.
  • You insist that you do some more market research before you and your spouse produce another child.
  • At your last family reunion, you wanted to have an emergency meeting about their brand equity.
  • Your “deliverable” for Sunday evening is clean laundry and paid bills.
  • You use the term “value-added” without falling down laughing.
  • You ask the car salesman if the car comes with a whiteboard and Internet connection.
  • You give constructive feedback to your dog