Talk corporate like Gen Z: Your guide to Gen Z office jargon

Corporate jargon has always had a language of its own. “Circle back”, “touch base”, “move the needle” and “take this offline” have long filled meeting rooms and inboxes, often saying something fairly simple in the most roundabout way possible.

Now, a different kind of workplace vocabulary is taking shape. As Gen Z becomes more established in the workforce, the language of TikTok, group chats and internet culture is slipping into conversations about careers, burnout and office life. The result is a new set of terms that can describe everything from doing exactly what you’re paid for to quietly preparing your exit strategy.

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Traditional corporate speak has never been universally loved. Research from LinkedIn and Duolingo found that almost half of workers surveyed would get rid of workplace jargon if they could, while phrases such as “blue-sky thinking” and “low-hanging fruit” ranked among the most confusing or irritating. More recent research has also found a noticeable generational language gap at work, with younger employees reporting difficulty understanding some of the corporate expressions favoured by older colleagues.

Gen Zers have created their own corporate jargon. The difference is that much of it speaks directly to the realities of modern work: burnout, boundaries, hybrid offices, job insecurity and the growing feeling that your career shouldn’t necessarily consume your entire life.

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Most of these phrases are unlikely to appear in a formal email to your boss, but spend enough time chatting to younger colleagues and you’re bound to hear a few.

Here’s your guide on how to talk corporate like Gen Z.

Quiet quitting

Despite the dramatic name, quiet quitting doesn’t actually involve quitting. It refers to doing the job you were hired to do without automatically taking on extra responsibilities, unpaid overtime or the expectation that you should constantly go above and beyond. The main point is to draw a clear boundary between your job and the rest of your life.

Research into the phenomenon similarly describes quiet quitting as sticking to contracted responsibilities while withdrawing the extra, discretionary effort that often sits outside them.

Bare minimum Monday

For anyone whose Sunday evening tends to be overshadowed by thoughts of Monday morning, Bare minimum Monday proposes a gentler start to the week. The idea is to prioritise only the most necessary tasks on a Monday rather than trying to launch into the week at full speed. Think answering what needs answering, tackling urgent work and allowing yourself to ease into everything else.

The phrase grew out of conversations around burnout, hustle culture and the dreaded Sunday scaries.

Boreout

Burnout gets most of the attention, but being chronically under-stimulated at work can be draining too. Boreout is the feeling of becoming disengaged, apathetic or restless because your work is repetitive, unchallenging or simply no longer interesting to you. You might technically have less to do, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re thriving.

Coffee badging

Hybrid work has given us many things, including coffee badging. It describes showing up at the office long enough to make your presence known, grab a coffee, chat to a few colleagues and satisfy the in-office requirement before heading home to finish the workday remotely.

In other words: badge swiped, face seen, job done.

Snail girl

Consider the snail girl the opposite of the girlboss. Where the girlboss era celebrated hustling, climbing the ladder and turning every hobby into a potential side business, the snail-girl philosophy puts a slower, more sustainable life first. The career still matters; it just isn’t expected to become your entire personality. It’s less “rise and grind” and more “I would actually like to have a life outside Teams”.

Taskmasking

You know that person walking around the office at suspicious speed with a laptop tucked under one arm? They may be extremely busy. Or they may be taskmasking.

Taskmasking is the art of looking productive without necessarily being productive. It can mean repeatedly switching tabs when someone walks past, carrying something around the office with great purpose or otherwise creating the appearance of being hard at work while mentally checked out.

It is also sometimes jokingly described online as “LARPing your job”: performing the role of Very Busy Employee convincingly enough that nobody asks questions.

Acting your wage

Acting your wage follows a similar philosophy to quiet quitting: your effort should broadly reflect what you are being paid and what your role actually requires. It pushes back against the idea that employees should continually absorb extra responsibilities simply to prove their commitment. Want significantly more from someone? The thinking goes that compensation should probably be part of that conversation too.

Career cushioning

Career cushioning is essentially professional insurance. Instead of waiting until a restructure or awful performance review forces you to think about your next move, you quietly keep your options open while you’re still employed. That might mean refreshing your CV, keeping your LinkedIn profile updated, networking or occasionally checking what jobs are available. The goal isn’t necessarily to leave tomorrow, but to make sure that if something changes, you have a softer landing.

Locked in

Unlike many of the terms on this list, being “locked in” is less about disengaging from work and more about doing the exact opposite. If someone is locked in, they’re focused. Notifications are ignored, distractions have been removed and the task is getting done.

Deadline looming? Headphones on? Suddenly answering nobody on Teams? You're locked in.

Rage applying

Sometimes updating your CV is a carefully considered career decision. Other times, your manager says one irritating thing and 40 minutes later you’re on LinkedIn applying for jobs like your life depends on it. That is rage applying.

The term describes sending out a burst of applications after something at your current job leaves you frustrated, overlooked or simply fed up. It isn’t always the most strategic approach to job hunting, but in the moment, clicking “Easy Apply” can feel therapeutic.

Sunday scaries

It’s 4pm on Sunday. The weekend technically isn’t over, but your brain has already opened Monday’s inbox.

The Sunday scaries describe that familiar feeling of dread or uneasiness that can creep in towards the end of the weekend as thoughts of the work week begin to take over. It isn’t new, of course. We’ve just given the feeling a much better name.

As with all workplace communication, the real skill is knowing your audience. There’s corporate corporate, and then there’s the language you use in the group chat five seconds after the meeting ends. Gen Z just happens to be fluent in both.