In office parlance, to "ping" means to e-mail, text or otherwise get in touch with someone. According to Jeff Logan, director of marketing at Dexas International in Coppell, Texas, an offer to "ping you back" is actually a passive-aggressive way to get rid of you.
"I'm pretty certain if someone offers to ping you back, they are not looking for a voice-to-voice conversation, but a text or an e-mail that is more easily avoidable," he said.
Other unpopular terms for "contact" include "reaching out" and "putting out feelers."
All workers have terms that especially bother them. Heddi Cundle, founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based travel gift card company MyTab, has such a term that she loathes —"go big or go home." She hates it so much, in fact, that her employees are forbidden to use it, and she keeps a snappy retort on hand for anyone unfortunate enough to utter it within earshot.
"I tell them to cough up funding so we can go big," she said. "If they balk at this, I usually tell them to go home."
