(Bullet-Point Me Something is an annoying business term and is just one of the 212 Most Annoying Business Phrases Managers Effuse, Confuse, and Overuse detailed in the hilarious must-have guide for every workplace: The 30,000-Pound Gorilla in the Room. Available right now on Amazon.)

Bullet-Point Me Something

This annoying phrase is gaining popularity with managers suffering from self-inflicted attention deficit disorders.

Screen addiction is real and pervasive; and with so many managers constantly checking their smartphones – playing games, checking scores, tallying their social media likes – they find they cannot concentrate on anything long enough to be bothered to read actual paragraphs. (That’s one of the reasons this book and one of Steve’s other books, Sh*t Sandwich, employ short chapters and cartoons to get the points across to today’s audience.)

Many of today’s managers, unfortunately, find they can only handle quick bullet points – usually presented in an outline – regardless of how important or in-depth your analysis of a subject should be.

They can’t even bother to read the Cliff Notes; they just want the bullet points. Of course, this means you’re required to take any great idea and extract only the “relevant” themes and present these in simple, easy-to-read, quick blurbs when you manager insists you bullet-point me something.

Short of curing your manager of her screen addiction, you’re left with explaining War and Peace as a “big book about Russia in the early 1800s.”

Of course, for most distracted managers, this synopsis is still likely too long for someone wanting you to just bullet-point me something.

Analysis aside, we, like many of you, find bullet-point me something simply annoying. Especially when what the requestor really wants is a brief analysis.

Replacement phrases: Brief me; Give me a brief analysis

See also: Ballpark

…

The 30,000-Pound Gorilla in the Room is available on Amazon