No Business Partner

When it’s not all in a word.

I suffered a soul destroying series of transactions with South Africa’s Cape Town municipality recently.

It’s perfectly acceptable in their world for someone to sit on something for almost a year, and then spank you with exorbitant interest on rates as a result. Disgraceful.

Then, when I paid, and my transaction clearly went through from my coffers, they lose the money and blame me. As bad as it can get.

Did anyone care? Not a chance. Even worse, when referring to me, rather than use terms like ‘rate-payer’, I was constantly called a “Business Partner”.

When I challenged this, I was told that was what they must call every ‘customer’.

I pointed out that how I was being treated was as far removed from being a business partner as you could get. They still didn’t care.

A classic example of a cultural disconnect.

This kind of vacuous corporate doublespeak is suicidal in the real world. I hope you don’t have anything similar strangling your efforts in your field.

Time for an overall jargon audit…?