- Pick & Scroll News
- Posts
- 🗞️ Corporate jargon
🗞️ Corporate jargon
Researchers from Cornell University have developed what they call "the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale," a tool designed to measure how impressed people are by business school-style jargon that sounds strategic but says very little.
Pick & Scroll News
March 25, 2026
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here
|  |
Good morning. Researchers from Cornell University have developed what they call "the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale," a tool designed to measure how impressed people are by business school-style jargon that sounds strategic but says very little.
The findings suggest that employees who rate this sort of language as insightful are more likely to struggle with analytical thinking, cognitive reflection and workplace decision-making.
We'll let you circle back offline once you've done a deep dive and synergised the above.
All the headlines and more below...
GROCERY PRICES ARE ABOUT TO GET WORSE
The cost of living conversation has been about bills and interest rates for two years. Pretty soon it’ll be time to start hoarding fruit and veggies like we do toilet paper and now fuel.
Rising diesel and freight costs will push grocery prices up within weeks, starting with dairy, then fresh produce, then meat. As of March 17, Australia had 30 days of diesel reserves. Fertiliser prices have roughly doubled since late February, with urea blowing past highs last seen at the start of the Ukraine war.
40% of Australia's farmers may not be able to plant at all.
Farmers are now being told that their fertiliser supply simply won't be there. With 98% of fresh vegetables consumed in Australia grown domestically, any meaningful drop in planting flows straight through to availability. It seems that the window between a fuel disruption overseas and empty shelves here turns out to be a lot shorter than most people assumed.
AUSTRALIAN NEWS
Australia's diesel standards will be lowered for 6 months as hundreds of petrol stations run out of certain fuels LINK
Australia and the European Union have signed a $10B free trade agreement, as meat exporters criticised limited access, while 98% of Australian exports will enter the EU duty-free. LINK
APRA has found the number of Australian homes without adequate insurance could rise to 1 million by 2050 as annual climate-related losses exceed $16B. LINK
Australian consumer confidence has dropped to its lowest level since 1973 as the latest ANZ-Roy Morgan survey fell 7.9% amid surging petrol prices and inflation expectations. LINK
The Fair Work Commission has introduced strict new requirements for using generative AI in claims as a 70% rise in workload over three years is driven by AI-assisted litigation. LINK
You wouldn't accept a job without Googling the company. So why accept a salary without benchmarking it?
Salary Vault is our community-driven tool built on real, anonymous salary data from Australian professionals. Consulting, banking, law, tech - all live. Submit yours and see how you stack up.
YOUR EASTER EGGS ARE SMALLER, MORE EXPENSIVE AND NO YOU DIDN’T IMAGINE IT
Cadbury is selling 20 hollow eggs in its large box this year for $18. In 2024, that same box held 24 eggs for $12.50. That's almost 73% more per 100g in two years. Its newer chocolate range, including the wildly popular Biscoff range weigh 170g instead of the standard 180g. Nestlé has done the same with KitKats and Rolos. Even Aldi has trimmed its hot cross buns by 20g a pack.
The manufacturers are blaming cocoa prices, which tripled between 2023 and 2025 and the usual increases across supply chains. But shrinkflation works precisely because it's designed not to be noticed. The packet looks the same. The price holds or creeps up. The product inside quietly shrinks. The ACCC recommended last year that supermarkets be required to flag when package sizes change. The government agreed. Legislation hasn't made it to parliament.
France already does it. Australia keeps saying it will. In the meantime, the glass and a half in every block keeps getting a little more metaphorical.
COMPANY NEWS
Qantas cuts Jetstar services to New Zealand as fuel costs soar due to global supply chain. LINK
Telstra has raised prices for most mobile plans by up to 17% in the past year as new increases taking effect 5 May will affect up to 8.9 million customers. LINK
Lendlease has been removed from the S&P/ASX 100 Index after a 30% share price slump, ending its status as a top Australian corporate giant. LINK
Qantas has launched a new "flight reward finder" website tool that allows frequent flyers to search reward seats by region, cabin type and travel dates in seconds. LINK
Myer has reported a 32.8% jump in statutory net profit to $40.3M for H1 FY26 as the Apparel Brands acquisition lifted total sales 24.5% to $2.29B. LINK
Reece has announced a 36% increase in plastic pipe prices as Iran's war disrupts oil and resin shipments while timber and steel suppliers are also raising building material costs. LINK
Oracle has launched an AI customer excellence centre in Sydney as it expands next-gen AI database services to AWS in ANZ and boosts cloud training offerings. LINK
Downer EDI has signed a 5-year integrated facilities management contract with Stockland worth $500M, covering properties in NSW, VIC, QLD and WA. LINK
Santos has temporarily halted shipments from its Darwin gas-export terminal as it replaces essential equipment, disrupting exports from the $6B Barossa gas field. LINK
Amazon has said its AWS region in Bahrain has been disrupted due to drone activity amid Middle East conflict, while it helps customers migrate to alternate regions. LINK
About 53% of Australian employees are now comfortable sharing their salary with coworkers. That number was closer to 20% just five years ago. The transparency shift is real, but most people still have no idea whether they're being paid fairly for their role, their industry, or their city.
That's why we built Salary Vault. It's our community-driven benchmarking tool, anonymous, AusCorp-specific and powered entirely by real salary data from people like you. Not scraped job ads. Not outdated reports. Real numbers from real corporates.
Submit yours. See where you sit. It takes 2 minutes.
ONE MORE SCROLL
Editor’s Pick: Banksy’s identity was finally revealed. What now?
Draft Pick: 19 year old Italian Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes F1 became the second youngest winner of an F1 race after his win at the Shanghai Grand Prix.
Odd Pick: Morocco handed AFCON win over Senegal two months after the match was played, with Senegal refusing to hand over trophy.
BRAINTEASER
You have 30 seconds only (no cheating), to answer the below. Your time starts now:
When Vince announced his engagement, his friends decided to buy him some celebratory balloons.
His Best man only bought the balloons to spell STAG LOCATION but Vince’s other friends insisted he go out and buy the additional balloons to spell CONGRATULATIONS.
What were the other three balloon letters he needed to buy for them to be able to display the word CONGRATULATIONS?
Answer below
OUR SOCIALS
 |