Learn English – Word for doing things overly complicated in order to disguise simplicity

single-word-requests

Steven is solely responsible for maintaining the machines at the factory. Fixing problems with these machines is not trivial, but should be relatively quickly understood by most people with adequate experience after some effort.

Steven is concerned about his replaceability at the company and is over time building up many complex processes and rules for maintaining the machines. He still manages to do the work quite efficiently, but doesn't hesitate to let his colleagues know how difficult the machines are to maintain and that they are lucky to have him there.

Anyone else trying to follow Stevens guidlines for maintaining the machines when he is on vacation is overwhelmed by the apparent complexity of taking care of the machines, so they are all glad when he is back.

Steven is afraid of his job so he […].

[…] is unfortunately common in profession X.

That manager is all about hand-waving and […].

Any suggestions?

Best Answer

This is (intentional) obfuscation. Interestingly, the Wikipedia article (quoted below) also mentions medical profession in the context of your second example.

Steven is afraid of losing his job so he obfuscates it.
Obfuscation is unfortunately common in profession X.

ODO:

obfuscation
NOUN [mass noun]
The action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.

‘The effect of his work is not to explain anything, but rather to dramatize the purposeful obfuscation of information.’

Wikipedia:

Obfuscation is the obscuring of the intended meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language.

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