Excuse Me ... I Desperately Need to Drain My Slide ...

In honor of today being almost, but not quite, Friday, girl2 and I want to share some of our favorite consultant-isms with you. Note the perverse need to equate the most mundane events with sexual acts or bodily functions. And, yes, we've actually heard all of these around the office.

• Drain the slide. To talk through a PowerPoint slide in exhaustive detail. Commonly used when time is running short during a presentation or used as a cover when one wants to page quickly past something he or she does not understand. You all know how to read, so I'm not going to drain the slide.
• Heavy lifting. The difficult portion or majority of the work. I'm going to have to do the heavy lifting on this - I know Mary can really only handle stapling the deliverable!
• Sanity check. A read-through or doublecheck of something that was probably written at the last minute. Jen, could you take a look at this white paper? I really need a sanity check on some of these ideas.
• Big hat, no cattle. A person who has authority on paper, but no assets, such as staff or budget. Don't bother meeting with Tom - he's just big hat, no cattle.
• Blowin' and goin'. Taking off without a care in the world. Well, looks like it's Friday afternoon, so I'm blowin' and goin'!
• Up in every orifice. Repeatedly questioning or bothering. John is up in every orifice of mine about the budget.