At We Are Teachers, we like to think we have you covered for every possible season of teaching. Student teaching. Your first year. Leveling up to present at a conference. What to do if you decide to switch schools. What to do if you decide to leave teaching for a different career. What to do If you decide to stay and retire a teacher. But there’s one common struggle we realized we’d left untouched until recently, and that’s this: the hilarious struggle former teachers have learning corporate lingo.
What is corporate lingo?
Every profession has its own lingo, or the vocabulary used by a particular group of people. Think of all the acronyms and terms teachers throw around with one another. Benchmarks. Heterogenous. Jigsaw. Synthesis. You get the picture.
The corporate world, similarly, has their own jargon to refer to actions, processes, and systems. See how @itsbrittanydavila, a former teacher, is learning the ropes:
What we love about this corporate lingo TikTok:
- Her notebook. So on-brand for a former teacher. And honestly, it could be filled at this point.
- That she continues to be unsure of these words’ meaning. “I’m just learning as I go.”
- Her “use in a sentence” examples, as if she is still trying to teach herself. “Ping means alert. Just ping me.”
- “You just gotta massage it.”
- She’s a lifelong student. “I’m just out here learning, you guys.”
- The utter seriousness of this whole thing. Her deadpan delivery adds to the brilliance!
What others are saying:
Results are in: Everyone loves it. The general public loves it.
Former teachers love it.
Other corporate girlies love it.
Even Microsoft 365 loves it!
Clearly, @itsbrittanydavila is onto something here: Learning corporate lingo in the private sector is akin to learning another language. Sometimes when you’re learning, you just have to nod and smile—then make a note to yourself to look it up later.