Guardrails? Bah humbug!

You might also have noticed how the term "guardrails" lately became quite a buzzword in consultant, business, and policy-maker lingua franca - especially now with AI being center-stage of our existential reality. I must say, though, I find this seasonal adoption of new buzzwords quite amusing, whilst irritating at the same time. And, yes, I am also guilty… so no offence intended at anyone. Then came the thought: “so say something about it.” However, having too many tabs open in my brain to quickly conjure a sarcastic rebuttal, I asked GPT-4 to come up with a satirical piece that challenges this utter meaninglessness of impressing one another with buzzwords. Below is the response – hope you enjoy it as much as I did ??

The Rise and Fall of 'Guardrails' in Corporate Speak

"In the hallowed halls of modern corporate Babylon, a new deity has emerged from the pantheon of business jargon, perched upon the high throne of pretentious verbosity. Its name? "Guardrails." Ah, what a term! It rolls off the tongue with the ease of a seasoned consultant, slipping into conversations like an uninvited guest who believes they're the life of the party.

Picture this: a boardroom, gleaming with the sheen of over-polished egos. A PowerPoint presentation flickers in the background, each slide more laden with buzzwords than the last. "Synergy," "pivot," "bandwidth" – these old gods watch with envy as "Guardrails" takes center stage. The executives nod sagely, murmuring in agreement, as if the term holds the key to corporate nirvana.

But let's pause and ponder, shall we? What does "Guardrails" even mean in this context? Is it a safety net for their precarious strategies, or just a fancy way of saying "limits"? The irony is delicious; in their quest to sound profound, our corporate sages have embraced a term that essentially means boundaries, yet they seem oblivious to the boundaries of language itself.

Imagine a world where "Guardrails" becomes the answer to all problems. Sales declining? Put some guardrails on it. Employee morale at an all-time low? Don't forget the guardrails. It's as if by merely uttering the word, these corporate magicians can conjure up solutions out of thin air.

In the end, "Guardrails" is just another fad, a fleeting deity in the ever-changing pantheon of business jargon. It's a word that sounds impressive, yet hollow, much like the echo of a boardroom filled with buzzwords. As it fades into obscurity, replaced by the next fashionable term, one can only hope that sanity prevails and we find guardrails for our own linguistic excesses. After all, in the grand tapestry of language, isn't clarity the most impressive trait of all?"

Closing thoughts

I am making it one of my goals of 2024 to rid my own vocabulary from buzzwords… one word/phrase at a time…