| O ho [n.] | Office wHOre.
Submitted by Matt F. |
| Office pretty [adj.] | A female coworker that is attractive only in comparison to others at the office. "After I ran into Helen at a restaurant, I realized she was just office pretty." |
| Offline [adj.] | Used in business meetings to mean later, in private. "Let's dialogue about these issues offline." |
| Old boys club [n.] | A tight network of longstanding business relationships. |
| On point [adj.] | A military term referring to the first and primary person involved in a given situation. "You're on point tomorrow with the Mexican clients." |
| On the carpet [adj.] | In trouble. "I called Johnson on the carpet the other day; he really tanked in that meeting with the client." |
| On the cheap [exp.] | To do something at a low cost. "No expense account for this trip. We're going to have to do it on the cheap." |
| On the map [adj.] | Well known. |
| On the take [exp.] | Accepting unethical money. |
| On your plate [exp.] | The work currently assigned to a given employee. |
| Onboarding [v.] | 1) The process of garnering support for a project.
2) Familiarizing a new hire, which often includes orientation, filling out tax forms, training, obtaining key cards, etc.
Submitted by Matthew H. and Jon. |
| One throat to choke [exp.] | Dealing with one large supplier for many items. Then if something goes wrong, there is only company to rage at. |
| One-man show [n.] | A business with a single proprietor. |
| One-two punch [n.] | A boxing term meaning two actions taken immediately after each other. |
| Open skies [adj.] | Universally available. |
| Operationalize [v.] | To do. Now was that so hard? |
| OPM [n.] | Other People's Money. You down with OPM? |
| Optics [n.] | How something appears. "I understand the optics of this situation, but despite how it looks, we have not acted inappropriately."
Submitted by Karen M. |
| Org chart [n.] | A graphical representation of an organization's hierarchy. "If there's only two people above me on the org chart, why do I have six telling me what to do?" |
| Organizational awareness [n.] | Familiarity with the things that are (or supposed to be) commonly known throughout an organization. "What do you mean you don't have our mission statement memorized?" |
| Organizational DNA [n.] | A cute analogy relating the four basic units of genetic code with the elements of successful management. Some call these "decision rights, information, motivators, and structure", others, "factual, conceptual, contextual, and individual," but both are guilty of repackaging established knowledge under a trendy new buzzword.
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| OT mail [n.] | OverTime-mail. The practice of sending your boss a superfluous email, to indirectly let him know how late you were working. |
| Out of the box [exp.] | Describes the abilities of a product immediately after purchase without any upgrades or integration. "What can this software do out of the box?"
Submitted by Matt F. |
| Out of the woodwork [exp.] | A surprise appearance. |
| Out-of-pocket [adj.] | Unreachable. "I'm boarding the plane, so I'll be out-of-pocket for a few hours."
Submitted by Jim. |
| Outside the box [exp.] | A creative solution that avoids a traditional or common approach. A little ironic as nothing makes you sound more 'in the box' than mindlessly repeating business jargon. |
| Ownership [n.] | An employee's realization that he is responsible for the success of a given endeavour. You may even convince him that it was his idea in the first place.
Submitted by Mrs. B. Trellis of North Wales. |
| Oxygen-move [n.] | The act of 'breathing new life' into a project or business. "Your team's productivity is down; we need an oxygen-move to keep things moving forward."
Submitted by Matt. |
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