Corporate Dictionary

As heat waves spread across the US, summer interns crowd into cubicles at their respective places of work. I’ll admit to being one of those “enthusiastic for the corporate world” interns. I have only been working for three weeks at my new company and have already learned so much about business, marketing and public relations. As I started my internship, I realized that I needed to adopt my corporate culture’s language. Once I learned the basic corporate words and acronyms, e-mails and conversations were much easier to understand. Here are a couple words and acronyms I have learned that may be helpful to you in the workplace:

BRIC- Brazil, Russia, India, China. By 2050, these countries are reported to have the world’s strongest and wealthiest economies.

EOD- End of day.

Siloed- Different divisions of the company may work sufficiently or independently of each other. If divisions are siloed, there maybe little collaborative work between them.

COB-Close of business. 5 p.m.!

ETA- Estimated time of arrival.

Reach out- Contacting a certain person. This includes any communication – e-mail, phone or stopping the person in the hallway.

There are plenty more words used in the corporate world, but these are just a few basics. So, make sure you finish your report by EOD so it can have an ETA by COB tomorrow!

-Carla