Part 3

Bonjour Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn't Pay
by Corinne Maier

(Page 3 of 3)

Foreign Languages: No Pasaran

Nevertheless, even though it's hard for them, the French have to admit that the Americans are the masters of capitalism. Harvard is the Bethlehem of money. So you have to listen to what Uncle Sam has to say on the matter. The business schools of Western Europe suffer from an inferiority complex vis-a-vis their American models. No sooner does a word become all the rage in the United States than it crosses the Atlantic like a wave and engulfs our management schools, our commercial institutions, and our businessmen's speech. Linguistic inaccuracies are irrelevant; it's enough to sprinkle these buzzwords over the transparencies and "charts." That's the basic idea.

Here is a sample of contemporary business French; the italicized words are in English in the original: "I'm doing the follow-up on a merging project with a coach; I'm checking the downsizing." This means you're firing people. Similarly, "reengineering" has taken the place of "reorganizing." And when the French terms have so negative a connotation that they become unusable, English is used as a practical cosmetic measure: in the hush-hush environment of the firm, one must remain positive even when everything is going wrong. You've been fired? Smile and say "cheese"!

This relationship of fascination/repulsion with regard to the United States explains why no one in France really speaks the language of these barbarians. It's a known fact that the French are not very good at immersing themselves in the fine points of English. And we're not talking here about the language of Shakespeare, a difficult author writing in an archaic style, but rather of Michael Jackson, a singer who has more shades of white and gray in his makeup drawer than he has words in his vocabulary.

French executives, who are supposed to be able to communicate with the whole world within the framework of flexible, cosmopolitan networks, are irremediably bad in languages. Is it because of their chauvinistic resistance to globalization? Could they possibly believe that the business world of the future will speak French, which for them (and them alone) is the most precise and beautiful language in the world? To speak a no-man's-language in the workplace is already enough of a chore; no point in making it more complicated by learning English....

Platitudes Aplenty

The rash of platitudes and commonplaces bandied about in the business world, which can't get enough of them, is flabbergasting. Conventional turns of phrase and old chestnuts abound. In fact, only the most conventional and hackneyed expressions find their way into the comforting, cliche-ridden world of the office; the jokey "Damn the torpedoes," so yesterday, and the enigmatic and disturbing "What goes around comes around" are scarcely worth mentioning. But the point, of course, is to "dumb things down," as they say at the office.

The newcomer to the business world is perplexed until he understands that the impersonal appearance of this half-baked wisdom hides nothing more than the interests and ambitions of the person voicing them. In the treasury of commonly used proverbs and expressions, the following are particular favorites (with the translation in parentheses):

"There are no problems, there are only solutions" (an absurd sentence, greatly appreciated by engineers justifying their existence).

"Knowledge is power" (which means: "I know more than you").

"Work less but work smarter" (slogan used by the most hypocritical bosses to make you get to work).

"It's all a matter of organization" (same meaning as above).

"You have to prioritize" ("It's out of the question for me to work harder").

"The sky's the limit" ("I can't stand it anymore").

"Where there's smoke there's fire" ("I smell a rat").

"Let's not beat around the bush" ("I'm going to be frank: no more hypocrisy").

Taking notes in meetings is never futile for the lover of empty phrases and nonsense. And then, every so often (anything can happen), the great, generous womb of language yields up a pearl, an unexpected or pleasant turn of phrase, which makes up for all those afternoons spent listening to garbage.

Copyright © 2005 by Corinne Maier.

About the Author

Corinne Maier works part-time as an economist for EDF, a French corporation. She is also a practicing psychoanalyst and the author of nine books. She lives in France.