Nerd Pride Radio

Whoever thought cross disciplinary meetings involving management was a good idea should be crushed to death under the boulder of Sisyphus or drowned in the wine that Tantalus had to stand it.

I have wasted scores of hours over my IT tenure listening to these things. All they do is make me angry.

But you have to .

Oh - it's good that that was Weird Al.

Also, when those words show up in meetings, we should be allowed to shoot the speaker with BB guns.

Obviously you need to reach out from your silo more often.

I didn't have a proper emoticon, so this is basically me sitting there in the meeting:

Yep - whichever asshole thought it was okay to use silo to refer to anything aside from missiles or grains should have been kicked to death by Terry Crews wearing stiletto heels.

But see, they're separate AND phallic. And nothing else in this world could better convey the idea of separate things needing to be combined. Just think about how awesome it would be if you could get your silos all brought together such that their contents began mixing!

Reaching out kills me even more though. Like calling the hotline or admitting you finally need help with your problem. When people thank me for reaching out to them because I sent them a routine work email I seriously mark them 10% stupider in my mind.

The other term that makes me want to slap the taste out of people is when they intend to 'take offline' a point of business during a meeting.

You aren't online, assbags. You're talking to each other face to face. You are going to 'table' the point of business.

My personal hated terms from my work: rigorous; drill down; and evidence-based.

Drill down is fucking stupid. You don't have a drill. You have a mouse. You're navigating menus. Just say that.

Oh goodness, nobody has ever tried to take it offline in a meeting with me. I would just be sitting there agape.

Another annoyance is data driven. No, data is not doing the driving. You and your deliberative judgment are at the wheel, ONE HOPES. Data merely informs. It just sits there. It doesn't even have the strength to interpret itself, much less drive. Probably the people at your office are drilling down so they can be data driven. To escape the silo.

In most cases, it is personal judgment doing the driving, and data is there for later justification.

I've begun to ask the speakers (trainers, as if we are dogs?) who come to staff development whether they can explain what they just said in "non Orwellian language," and apart from the amusement value because most (sigh) of my colleagues get it, I also think it's the reason they're asking me if I plan to retire soon.

Mu hahahahahaha! Make them fix their culture so it works for you!