The transformer hums at a frequency that vibrates through my teeth, a low-voltage moan that usually means I’ve got about 18 minutes before the whole circuit decides to pack it in and leave me in the dark. I’m balanced on a ladder that’s seen 28 years of service, my fingers stained with the specific kind of grime that only comes from handling vintage argon tubes and the shattered dreams of storefront owners. My phone buzzes in my pocket-a frantic, rhythmic twitch. I wipe my hands on a rag that’s more grease than cotton and pull it out. The subject line is a linguistic car crash: ‘Actionable Insights for Leveraging Synergistic Paradigms.’

I stare at it. I’m a neon technician. I fix things that glow. But this email, sent from a regional manager I’ve met exactly 8 times, feels like it was written by an algorithm that was fed a diet of shredded business textbooks and then kicked down a flight of stairs. It says we need to ‘circle back to operationalize key learnings from the previous fiscal quarter to ensure we are driving value-add initiatives.’ I have no idea if I’m being congratulated for not blowing up the shop or if I’m about to be put on a performance plan that involves 48 hours of mandatory sensitivity training. It’s a wall of words designed specifically to prevent any actual information from leaking out into the real world.

The Violence Against Nouns

This is the state of the modern workplace. We’ve traded the sharp, biting clarity of a well-placed noun for a slurry of ‘deliverables’ and ‘touchpoints.’ There is a specific kind of violence we do to the English language when we turn nouns into verbs. We ‘impact’ things instead of affecting them. We ‘transition’ instead of moving. We ‘architect’ solutions instead of building them.

The Fear of Being Ordinary

I’m not saying I’m a saint. I’ve caught myself doing it too. Last week, I told a guy I could ‘prioritize his aesthetic requirements’ instead of just saying ‘I’ll fix the blue sign first.’ I felt the words come out of my mouth like a oily slick. I did it because I was afraid he wouldn’t pay the $888 invoice if I didn’t sound like I had an MBA in neon-ology. We use this language to mask our own fears of being ordinary.

The Cost of Obfuscation

The deeper problem is that this linguistic decay reflects a culture that has become terrified of the truth. Truth is often simple, and simple is hard to hide behind. I look at the neon signs I build-8-foot-tall letters of glowing glass-and I realize that if they were as confusing as our emails, no one would ever find the diner or the dive bar. Neon works because it’s a signal. Corporate writing is the opposite; it’s noise.

This is what jargon does; it kills the thing it tries to describe. It’s like trying to describe a first kiss as a ‘bilateral exchange of mucosal membranes for the purpose of biological signaling.’ It’s technically true, but you’ve missed the entire point of being alive.

The Binary Outcome

I’ve been on this ladder for 38 minutes now, lost in my own head about the state of the world while the argon tube sits there, cold and dead. The glass doesn’t care about my ‘key performance indicators.’ It only cares about the vacuum and the gas and the current. If I don’t get the seal right, it won’t glow. It’s a binary outcome. It’s the most honest thing I have in my life.

The Exit Strategy

You might see their brain short-circuit for a few seconds. But eventually, they’ll have to use real words. And in that moment, for the first time in years, you might actually have a conversation. Or you’ll just get fired, which, in this economy, might be the ultimate ‘exit strategy’ anyway.