Gen Z can’t figure out how to talk to their millennial and Gen X bosses—and it’s becoming a workplace crisis

There was a time when learning how to "speak office" meant, quite literally, being in an office.

A clueless rookie could pick up how their boss wrote an email, when a coworker switched from a quick message to a more formal one, or what someone meant by "run it up the flagpole." But Gen Z entered a workforce where much of that learning can happen through a screen—and where language on either side of it isn't always translating.

Knowing how to "speak office" has never just been about understanding the words your coworkers use. Workplaces come with unwritten rules about how to formally address someone, what belongs in an email instead of a Slack message, and even how familiar you can be with someone you just met. Gen Z began learning those rules as the pandemic and remote work scrambled the ways they had traditionally picked them up, while social media and instant messaging brought different communication habits to work. And of course—AI, as the kids would say, has "entered the chat" as another way to learn too.

The apparent language divide between generations is more complicated than whether boomers know what "delulu" means. The words are changing, but so are some of the rules around how people communicate at work, and not everyone agrees on what sounds appropriate or professional anymore.

It seems so silly on paper. Gen Z has "delulu," "rizz," and "no cap." Older workers have "blue-sky thinking," or brainstorming without practical constraints; "move the needle"; and the particularly puzzling "boil the ocean," or taking on an impossibly large task. They're noticeable enough that someone has now built a translator for them.

Sunny Workplace, a nonprofit employee engagement platform, recently launched WorkGen Translation , an online tool that decodes slang, idioms, and workplace jargon across age groups.

This year, the company commissioned Censuswide to survey 2,004 U.S. workers on May 25 and 26, split evenly between Gen Z and boomers. Eighty percent of the 1,002 Gen Z respondents said generational differences in workplace language were a challenge, compared with 30% of the 1,002 boomers surveyed.

The confusion goes both ways. Among specifically boomer respondents, 76% said they had no idea what "delulu" meant, 66% said the same of "rizz" and 61% of "no cap." Gen Z respondents had their own trouble with corporate speech, with 22% said they knew exactly what it meant to "boil the ocean," while 25% said the same of "blue-sky thinking."

The misunderstanding that matters at work can be much more mundane. Betsy Sneller, an assistant professor of sociolinguistics at Michigan State University, pointed to something nearly every office worker uses: email.