Essential Vocabulary Additions for the Pharmaecutical Workplace

Belly Buttons - Most advertisers count eyeballs. The insurance/managed care industry counts belly buttons. "This policy change affects 3 million belly buttons."

Hairball - Any tangled mess. Frequently refers to an organization's ridiculously complicated maze of rules and regulations. "No, I can't help unless you email me your 27-digit FTP74 number, obtainable via a multi-step process which few know and even fewer actually agree upon."

Budget Rubble / Budget Dust - Cash which is lost if not spent by "EOY" (End Of Year). Results in frantic activity right around the holidays-- exactly when you want to use up your vacation days, a calamitous coincidence exacerbated by Sarbanes-Oxley. See below for further explanation.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Quiz Show - Fun, although time-consuming segment where a vendor determines how much money a brand team has to "budget flush" by "EOY" without actually asking directly. Generally consists of a little game in the ilk of 20-Questions. It goes something like this:

Vendor: "So, let's just say we only ship to 2,000 doc offices instead of 3,000. That'll bring your cost down 25%."

Marketing Manager: "You're getting warmer."

The Sarbanes-Oxley Hotseat - Where a vendor sits while a marketing manager third-degrees a timeline. For example:

Marketing Manager: "So you are 100% certain that you will ship by the first week of the new year. I mean, for reals."

Vendor: "The majority of what we consider chargable expenses will be accrued on or prior to the specified deadline, yes. Fo' shizzy."

New! Levelset - I have no idea what this means but it keeps working its way into meetings. As in, "Let's get the project team together to levelset."

Compulsory lexeme in the corridors of power:
Recommendations for Review: Traction, On the Radar, To resonate, To have legs, Robust, PDFing, Deep dive, Deck (ie PPT Deck), Mission critical, Heavy lifting, face time, Metrics, Value proposition, BHAG, Action items.