EOD, OOO, KPI: These are the most confusing workplace acronyms right now

If you’ve ever received an email from your boss stating that she will be OOO tomorrow and needs your report by EOD, so TIA, and you don’t have a clue what any of those acronyms mean, don’t beat yourself up too much. A new report from Adobe Acrobat has found that a surprisingly high amount of Americans don’t understand even the most common workplace acronyms.

Here are the most unknown workplace acronyms, according to the study (the % is the percentage of workers who don’t know what the acronym stands for):

• RTW (return to work): 81%
• KPI (key performance indicator): 78%
• EEO (equal employment opportunity): 76%
• DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion): 76%
• TIA (thanks in advance): 75%
• OOO (out of office): 74%
• 2FA (two-factor authentication): 67%
• EOW (end of week): 61%
• EOD (end of day): 54%
• TLDR (too long, didn’t read): 49%

However, despite a number of the most common acronyms being a mystery to most Americans, 56% of those surveyed admitted that they only sometimes look up what the three letters mean.

When it comes to generational divides in the workplace, Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, and baby boomers admit to being mystified by different acronyms the most.

• Gen Z: The most unknown are EEO (96% don’t know what it means), RTW (88%), TIA (88%), KPI (84%), and DEI (81%).
• Millennials: The most unknown are RTW (80%), EEO (78%), KPI (78%), TIA (75%), and DEI (73%).
• Gen X: The most unknown are KPI (78%), RTW (77%), OOO (77%), DEI (76%), EEO (68%).
• Baby boomers: The most unknown are 2FA (94%), RTW (86%), OOO (85%), DEI (83%), and TLDR (80%).

One final finding: Likely much to the ire of the study’s authors, over 30% of Gen Z and 20% of all tech workers don’t know what “PDF” stands for. Many incorrectly said they believed it stood for “Printable Document File.” But the 30-year-old acronym actually stands for “Portable Document Format.”

To arrive at its findings, Adobe Acrobat surveyed 1,034 employed Americans.