The Beautiful Art of Corporate Translation: When Tradies Meet the Big 4
The internet delivered something brilliant this week - a tradie wandering into a corporate discussion forum asking for translations of business jargon. What followed was comedy gold that had me laughing harder than I have in months. Someone managed to decode our entire corporate vocabulary with the precision of a surgeon and the wit of a stand-up comedian.
“What is a Big 4? Caravan park.” “What is a stakeholder? Complains, does nothing.” “What is a Gantt chart? Lies in rainbow.”
Every single definition hit like a perfectly aimed nail gun. The accuracy was surgical, the humor devastating. But what really got me thinking wasn’t just how funny these translations were - it was how they exposed the absurdity of the language we’ve all learned to speak fluently in corporate Australia.
I’ve been in IT for over two decades now, watching our industry evolve from simple problem-solving to this elaborate dance of buzzwords and frameworks. When did we start saying “circle back” instead of “I’ll get back to you”? When did every discussion become a “deep dive” and every simple task transform into a “deliverable”? The tradie’s question - “Tf do you lot actually do?” - cut straight to the heart of something many of us have been wondering ourselves.
The responses kept getting better. Someone perfectly captured the essence of corporate non-communication with: “Thanks for raising that, it’s definitely something on our radar. While we’re not in a position to provide a definitive stance just yet, it’s absolutely part of an ongoing conversation.” Reading that felt like looking in a mirror after years of unconsciously adopting the same linguistic patterns. We’ve all become unwitting participants in this elaborate game of saying nothing with maximum words.
What struck me most was the tradie’s genuine curiosity. Here’s someone who builds actual things, solves real problems, and creates value you can touch and see. They wanted to understand what we do behind our screens and in our meeting rooms. The honesty of that question deserves an honest answer, not corporate speak.
The truth is, a lot of us in the corporate world do valuable work - we solve complex problems, build systems that make life easier, and connect people across vast distances. We manage risks, coordinate resources, and help organizations adapt to changing conditions. But somewhere along the way, we’ve wrapped all of this in layers of jargon that make it sound more mysterious and important than it often is.
I work in DevOps, which basically means I help software teams deploy their code reliably without everything catching fire. My day involves genuine problem-solving, just like a tradie fixing a broken pipe. The difference is, I’ve learned to describe my work in terms of “continuous integration pipelines” and “infrastructure orchestration.” The tradie would probably just say they “fixed the thing so water flows properly.”
The whole exchange reminded me why I prefer podcasts over music during my commute these days - there’s something refreshing about direct, honest communication. No corporate wrapper, no buzzword seasoning, just people talking about ideas and problems in plain language.
Maybe there’s something we can learn from this tradie’s directness. What if we tried explaining our work like we’re talking to someone who builds houses or fixes cars? What if we measured our success not in KPIs and deliverables, but in actual outcomes that matter to real people?
The comments thread turned into a beautiful parody of corporate speak, with people layering on increasingly ridiculous business jargon. “Let’s take it offline and look at it holistically” led to “Can we iterate on this async?” The whole thing became a masterclass in how we’ve trained ourselves to communicate in code.
But here’s what gives me hope - the fact that we can laugh at ourselves like this suggests we haven’t completely lost our way. Deep down, we know when we’re talking nonsense. We recognize the absurdity even as we participate in it. That self-awareness is the first step toward something better.
The tradie’s question deserves a proper answer: We solve problems, just like you do. We help organizations work more efficiently, build tools that make people’s lives easier, and try to prevent digital disasters before they happen. The difference is, we’ve somehow convinced ourselves and others that wrapping simple concepts in complex language makes us more professional.
Maybe it’s time to take a page from the trades - clear communication, practical solutions, and pride in work that actually functions. After all, whether you’re laying bricks or laying code, the goal is the same: build something that works, build it well, and explain it in terms your customer can understand.
The internet’s capacity to cut through pretense with humor never fails to amaze me. This tradie inadvertently started one of the best conversations about corporate culture I’ve seen in years. Sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to help us see just how far we’ve drifted from plain speaking.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to circle back with my stakeholders about optimizing our low-hanging fruit. Or as the tradie might say: I’ve got to call some people about doing the easy stuff first.