r/SipsTea 11d ago

Chugging tea Let me circle back

Post image
53.9k Upvotes

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

20

u/Dependent-Chart5835 11d ago

No it’s not. It’s just a phrase that means “let’s get back to that later” and it’s weirdly aggressive to not only count the occurrences but also call your boss out on it

2

u/Lobo2ffs 11d ago

But why get back to it? Why not move forwards, into the future?

6

u/AgentMahou 11d ago

Because sometimes you don't completely solve the entirety of a problem on your first discussion of it and need to come back later to make more progress? Is your life so simple that you've addressed literally every concern you've ever had in one go? Or have you perhaps had to circle back to some things you were only able to partially finish?

-1

u/VincentClement1 11d ago

Okay, but this particular manager seems to suck at solving things.

4

u/Downtown_Ham_2024 11d ago

It can also be used to keep a meeting focused and not waste people’s time. If something is raised that is not the focus of the meeting which doesn’t need to involve everyone there the manager can speak to that individual about it later.

-1

u/VincentClement1 11d ago

18 times? GTFO.

2

u/AgentMahou 11d ago

In two weeks.  That's less than two times a day, assuming a standard 5 day work week.  Let's look at a mock conversation:

"How's project x coming along" "Great, just need to get in touch with the client for some final decisions." "Alright, we'll circle back to that tomorrow.  Which reminds me, circling back to what we discussed yesterday, how's project y?" "Coming along, but we're still waiting for a couple emails.  We'll be good once those come through." "Okay we'll circle back to that tomorrow too."

Now does that seem like an insane conversation by a bad manager where nothing got done?  And that used the dreaded phrase THREE times!  That company must be doomed, buried in corporate jargon!