Burning Cold

I was in a meeting with our clients the other day. A pretty high profile financial meeting.

Each of the Solution Managers’s were in charge of giving updates on each of their projects – including a financial rundown. 

Our Portfolio Director was discussing our overall portfolio budget and how we are going through it rapidly and he used the term, “we’re burning hot”. 

That stopped me for a minute. I’ve heard it a lot lately – and it doesn’t exactly make the most sense to me. On top of that, in my humble opinion, it is incredibly redundant. 

So I IMed one of the Solution Managers in the meeting. The following is our actual conversation… (Note – name changed to protect the innocent)

Brittney: Isn't the term “burn hot” redundant?

Frederick: Umm, yeah and totally inaccurate. It's the new buzzword. The new propinquity.

Brittney: When you do your presentation, can you say you're burning cold? Which means you are on track. I'd give you a dollar.

 

Frederick: :) I bet I could squeeze that in free of charge

Brittney: You'd be my new favorite SM... hands down.

Frederick: I wasn't already?!?

Brittney: Oh.. uh... I meant my very very favorite.

Frederick: you've always been my new favorite PA. lol

Let me just say I had no expectation that Frederick would actually do this. 

 

BUT HE DID.

While describing their current spending trend, he threw out that they were “burning cold.” I about died.

Brittney: YES!!!!

I wanted to see people’s faces to gauge their reaction- but I was smiling/laughing too hard, I had to look away...

Frederick: Not a twitch. No response!

Brittney: I thought someone would ask for clarification or something!! Nice job though, I'm very impressed.

 

I couldn’t stop grinning the rest of the meeting. It was way too funny. The worst part is no one even blinked. They all acted like “burning cold” is a real business term. 

Oh, the ways to amuse yourself in business meetings!

Love,

Brittney