BUSINESSES love trotting out spurious bullshit on their websites. Which statements are embraced by all companies trying to convince us they aren’t evil?
We care about your privacy
A lovely, heartfelt sentiment that would make you feel reassured if it wasn’t immediately followed by an aggressively invasive cookies policy in which you sign away every scrap of your personal data along with your first born child.
Cancel your subscription whenever you like
How, exactly? By visiting the office in person and solving a fiendish riddle? Pulling a sword from a stone? Instead, you click on every possible link on the website before giving up and suffering the monthly subscription until the company goes bust or you die of old age. Whichever happens first.
‘We’re the market leader in…’
Hard to prove or disprove, and always followed by precisely zero data to support the statement. Plus every single company in the industry is claiming the same thing, which makes you increasingly suspicious that they’re all talking bollocks.
We are targeting net zero
What this actually means is that the staff are forced to print important work documents out at home because they work in a ‘paperless’ office, and the company hasn’t yet admitted that the CEO has a private plane.
We have a relaxed, informal culture
A company that says this means they have a relaxed, informal culture up to the point where an employee is ten minutes late because the bus broke down and their line manager suddenly wants to have a serious talk about their commitment to their role.
Our mission is to change the world
Usually accompanied by earnest statements about disrupting the industry and revolutionising the system, while ignoring the fact that they sell car parts in a warehouse off the Banbury bypass and it isn’t necessary for them to pretend to have aspirations beyond making a profit.