The Pessimist's guide to Engineer-talk -------------------------------------- What they say What they mean ------------- -------------- "That's interesting" - Shit! I've never seen anything remotely like that before. "We'll just run diagnostics" - I wonder if that'll give us a clue. "So we've eliminated XXX" - It's probably XXX, but it's bloody hard to get at. "I've just powered it down" - I tripped over that bloody power cord again "Ok, that's good" - What the hell was that noise?!? "We've noticed some failure evidence" - Something's burning... "If you'll just..." - I don't want to be the one to blame when it crashes "Yes, you'd expect to see that..." - Hell, that's stuffed as well! "We'll just fit a revision" - We'll put the same version in from a different tape. NEW........................Different colors from previous version. ALL NEW....................Software is not compatible with previous version. EXCLUSIVE..................We're the only one who has the documentation. UNMATCHED..................Almost as good as the competition. DESIGN SIMPLICITY..........Developed on a shoe string budget. FOOLPROOF OPERATION........All parameters are hard coded. ADVANCED DESIGN............Upper management doesn't understand it. IT'S HERE AT LAST..........Released a 26 week project in 48 weeks. FIELD TESTED...............Manufacturing doesn't have a test system. HIGH ACCURACY..............All the directories compare. YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT.......Finally got one to work. UNPRECEDENTED PERFORMANCE..Nothing ever ran this slow before. REVOLUTIONARY..............Disk drives go round and round. BREAKTHROUGH...............It finally booted on the first try. FUTURISTIC.................It will only run on a next generation supercomputer. NO MAINTENANCE.............Impossible to fix. PERFORMANCE PROVEN.........Works through Beta test. MEETS QUALITY STANDARDS....It compiles without errors. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED....We'll send you another pack if it fails for any reason. STOCK ITEM.................We shipped it once before and can do it again. "It has long been known that" I haven't bothered to look up the original source. "Of great theoretical and practical Interesting to me. improtance" "Three of the samples were chosen for The results of the others didn't detailed study" make sense and were ignored. "While it has not been possible to The experiment didn't work out, provide definite answers to these but I figured I could get questions" publicity out of it. "Accidently strained during mounting" Accidently dropped on the floor. "Handled with extreme care" Not dropped on the floor. "Typical results are shown" The best results are shown. "Presumably at longer times..." I didn't take the time to find out. "These results will be reported at I might get around to this sometime. a later date" "The most reliable values are those He was a student of mine. of Jones" "It is believed that..." I think. "It is generally believed that..." A couple of other guys think so too. "It might be argued that..." I have such a good answer for this objection that I shall now raise it. "It is clear that much additional I didn't understand it. work will be required before a complete understanding..." "Correct within an order of magnitude" Wrong. "It is to be hoped that this work will This paper is not very good, but stimulate further work in this field" neither are any of the others on this miserable subject. "Thanks are due to Jon Blotz for Blotz did the work and Smith assistance with the experiment and to explained what it meant to me. Sam Smith for valuable discussions" "It is intuitively obvious to the most Don't ask me to explain it because casual observer that ..." I don't understand it either. WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE! -or- What that familiar phrase really means "IT IS IN PROCES" - So wrapped in red tape that the situation is almost hopeless. "WE WILL LOOK INTO IT" - By the time the wheel make a full turn, we assume you will have forgotten about it. "WILL ADVISE YOU IN DUE COURSE" - If we figure it out, we'll let you know. "WE ARE AWARE OF IT" - We had hoped that the fool who started it would have forgotten about it by this time. "IT'S UNDER CONSIDERATION" - Never heard of it. "WE ARE MAKING A SURVEY" - We need more time to think of an answer. "LET'S GET TOGETHER ON THIS" - I'm assuming you're as confused as I am. "PLEASE NOTE AND INITIAL" - Let's spread the responsibility for this. "GIVE US THE BENEFIT OF YOUR PRESENT THINKING" - We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we have already decided to do. "GIVE US YOUR INTERPRETATION" - Your warped opinion will be pitted against your adversary's good sense. "SEE ME" or "LET'S DISCUSS" - Come down to my office, I'm lonesome.