Carla Millington was ready to make the big move from Internal Tracking Clerk to Internal Tracking Coordinator. When she aced the third interview, she thought she was home free.
But suddenly, everything stopped — no calls, no emails. Sadly, Carla knew why.
“Awhile ago I was in a meeting and things got heated,” she says. “I accidentally said, ‘Don’t blow the panic whistle!’ Of course, I meant ‘Don’t push the panic button!’ But before I could correct myself everybody started laughing. Everybody except one guy…”
And that’s all it took.
That afternoon she found her name on the National Business Cliche Offenders List.
Neil Pattison of the American Hiring Institute, which maintains the list, explains that employers depend on it to weed out potential abusers. “Employers can’t risk hiring people who don’t know them,” he says. “If they don’t know their cliches, what else don’t they know?”
In Ms. Millington’s case, she was likely reported by the guy who didn’t laugh – probably trying to get off the list himself, as the Hiring Institute reduces time for those who “name names.” Indeed, increased competition in the business world has meant more vigilant reporting of offenders – one of the reasons the list has grown by ten percent each of the past three years.
Ms. Millington hopes to get off the list in six months. She’s paying close attention in meetings in hopes of hearing an offense she can report, and spending hours a week studying and practicing proper cliche usage. If her career’s ever going to get back on track, she says, she can’t risk another blunder.
“They really have you between a wall and hard place,” she says.
