back to article BOFH: It's Friday, it's time to RTFM

BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns "Just wanting to know if you've got the answers to the RFIs on our RFP – as we need them ASAP," the Boss says, practicing his acronyms. "The RFIs for the RFP?" the PFY says. "You never said you needed them PDQ. I emailed the vendor for clarification but they were either AFK or AWOL so I …

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        1. Irony Deficient

          an unsuspecting ‘carbon based lifeform’

          Surely an unsuspecting CaBaL?

        2. tezboyes

          Re: ACRONYM is NOT an acronym

          Yeah I, and I suspect many round here, have worked with various systems named that way.

          Also some with really poor names once you realise the acronym - DPS being one of the most bland I've had the mispleasure of.

          (Data Processing System)

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        Re: ACRONYM is NOT an acronym

        While it's not amusing, I think that was put in there as an attempt by whatever person got the task of assembling that list to include something slightly interesting or humorous. The over-acronymization of things somehow manages to make everything sound stupid or unpleasant.

        I worked at a company which was very dependent on acronyms without reason. They had at least three acronyms for "when will it be done": ETA, EDA, and ECD, though I wouldn't be surprised that they had more which I either didn't see or have managed to forget. But that wasn't enough, because they also had the acronyms EDD and DFAD ("expected date for date" and "date for a date", because they found saying "When will you know the timeline" too difficult as well. These were just some of the stupidest ones they had, but they had a list of several hundred acronyms on a wiki page just in case you wanted to bore yourself into a coma.

    1. Denarius

      Merkin Outsoucery company meetings were like this. Are they still infested by PHBs ?

      1. tezboyes

        Player Handbooks ?

    2. Jesthar

      Not only do they multipy, but they can turn on their masters too. I run a monthly report known as the MONARCH report (because it is the One Report To Rule Them All, and I couldn't get away with using MORDOR ;) ).

      I named the thing and it had a definite clever meaning, but after ten years even I can't remember what it stands for, only that the MON was short for 'Monthly.'

      Of course, it still pays dividends - when we needed some secondary reports, they naturally became known as the Prince of Wales report (PoW), and then the Duke of Cambridge (DoC)... We did draw the line at Princess Beatrice, though!

      1. el_oscuro
        Devil

        Here on the other side of the pond, I tried to name a new admin program "Application Security System", but got shot down by manglement. A few years later, me and a co-worker tried to form a new company called "BAMF Consulting", but that was shot down too.

        1. tezboyes

          City University of Newcastle upon Tyne

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Monarchy

        Prince Charlie is now C3PO - Charles the 3rd, Palace Occupant.

        1. tezboyes

          Re: Monarchy

          Damn, well done, I've been trying to get that to fit for a few days. Best I'd come up with was Prince Of.

  1. s. pam Silver badge
    FAIL

    I need some THC

    or LSD after that meaningless drivel Simon

    PS> our company has multiple wiki pages full of acronyms :(

    1. Tom 7

      Re: I need some THC

      At least on a wiki you have the option of clicking on the acronym to get to a page explaining it in detail.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I need some THC

        Assuming that whoever wrote the wiki in the first place implemented it and not just assumed that everybody knows what the acronym means,

        1. el_oscuro

          Re: I need some THC

          As someone who has occasionally attempted to use a page like that, I can guarantee that whatever page you need is 404. That is just the way things work.

      2. Alistair
        Windows

        Re: I need some THC

        We had a spreadsheet.

        It was searchable, and could be updated by the team.

        Something close to 1100 rows when I last updated it.

        Buried in there were some *very* NSFW acronyms. Nobody knew.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I need some THC

          "Buried in there were some *very* NSFW acronyms. Nobody knew."

          "Somebody" knew. I guarantee it.

        2. Blackwind

          Re: I need some THC

          We were coming up with 'new' acronyms for fun, and I was in a bit of a bad mood due to a major network vendor pushing their new video conferehce equipment - which was no better than what we currently had deployed - so I came up with an acronym for 'completely useless new technology', which is kinda funnier on this side of the Atlantic, just the way 'shag' isn't. (I recall shag carpet being a big thing in the 70s, I often wondered what Brits thought we were doing with it)

    2. Disk0

      Re: I need some THC

      Also, nobody stepped on the pressure plate that activates the pneumatic equipment lifter which arguaby could do with some fine tuning given that the initial impulse is enough to send a midsized telco rack into the drop ceiling. For reference, a midsize telco rack weighs about as much as the average boss after lunch.

    3. Jesthar

      Re: I need some THC

      We have one of those somewhere on our intranet - or used to, haven't seen it in a while... We are a specialist industry, so it kind of makes sense - we may as well be speaking Klingon sometimes as far as outsiders are concerned.

      I do recall one time we moved into a new building when the managers running the orientation session proudly decreed than this building was to be an 'acronym free zone', and we were to use the full and proper terms for everything from now on and correct anyone who forgot. I only remember this as I got corrected by one of them in the meeting for saying PPE rather than Personal Protective Equipment at some point.

      Reality, of course, mean the edict never survived us all leaving the room ;)

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm most concerned by the fact there was only one of them I had to work out the meaning of - the rest are all familiar :-(

  3. Anonymous Custard
    Headmaster

    Intelligence?

    They're obviously ex-employees of Intel.

    They're the only company I know of who have to have a (semi-official) dictionary for all the acronyms they insist on using, just so people coming in may have a vague chance of understanding a little.

    For example, they insist we (vendor contractors) used only the top level of the MLCP, whereas of course anyone else would just tell you to use the top floor of (multi-level) car park to put park your car...

    1. Andrew Yeomans

      IBM Jargon dictionary

      See https://comlay.net/ibmjarg.pdf

      1. FeRDNYC

        Re: IBM Jargon dictionary

        I'm rather disappointed that the (SIXTY-FIVE PAGE!!!) IBM dictionary even contains a facetious — and different from Horst's version — example expansion of ACRONYM ("A Convenient Reduction Of Nomenclature, Yielding Mnemonic Syllables"), but it doesn't define or acknowledge "backronym".

        Oxford Dictionaries "traced the word backronym to a 1983 letter from Meredith G Williams in 'The Washington Post'" (according to The Independent), so it'd almost definitely been making the rounds by 1990.

    2. Ol'Peculier

      Re: Intelligence?

      Spend 5 minutes digging around the AWS menus and your head will be hurting...

    3. Joe W Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Intelligence?

      Intel has an acronym-dictionary? Well... so do we...

      Yes. I know.

      ----> need that

    4. oiseau
      Facepalm

      Re: Intelligence?

      Intelligence?

      No.

      It is not intelligence.

      It is being an illiterate DH with dried birdshit for brains.

      And maybe not even that, maybe just a vacuum.

      O.

      1. Patched Out

        Re: Intelligence?

        DH. Designated Hitter? Dunder Head?

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Intelligence?

          It's an abbreviation. The full version is RH.

          1. Will Godfrey Silver badge

            Re: Intelligence?

            I thought it was RC

        2. oiseau
          Facepalm

          Re: Intelligence?

          DH. Designated Hitter? Dunder Head?

          Hmm ..

          No.

          DH => dickhead => knobhead

          Also: testa-di-cazzo in Italian; con in French

          O.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Intelligence?

            Although con in French, technically, refers to female genitalia.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Intelligence?

      Our R&D people used to run an acronym database on a spare area of one of their servers that got discovered by those outside of R&D and grew so popular that it eventually got rebuilt as a wiki that allowed anybody in the company to explain terms as well as acronyms.

      Unfortunately the bean counters got wind of it and as it had no owners, business case, costings, ISO compliance documentation, etc, it had to be removed from the company intranet.

      And manglement still insist on sending out missives referring to KPIs, CoEs and the latest EBITDA, expecting us mere plebs to understand

    6. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: Intelligence?

      Intel's not the only one. One large company that my employer does work for has a whole dictionary of acronyms. Including it's own definition of long since established things like EXE or PDF.

      1. Anonymous Custard
        Pint

        Re: Intelligence?

        The problem is in Intel it's almost become a language all of its own.

        Reading Simon's article was just like reading a transcript of far too many meetings I've been in with them over the years. The only difference is Simon is quite funny with it...

        I need a few of these now to clear the mental palette of that thought ----->

      2. ElReg!comments!Pierre

        Re: Intelligence?

        In Unix systems of old there was an app for that : "wtf". On some *nix systems it is still installed by default although it tends to be more like a personnal dic than a shared one. Shared definitions these days seem to be "shared" on platforms such as Sharepoint because they have the uncontestable advantage of not being searchable in any meaningful way which allows every branch (and in many cases, every team) in the same organisation to have different definition for the same term / acronym. Sometimes several per team. We live in a wonderful world.

      3. tezboyes

        Re: Intelligence?

        Is EXE an acronym?

    7. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Intelligence?

      "They're obviously ex-employees of Intel."

      Or NASA. :-)

    8. Dafyd Colquhoun

      Re: Intelligence?

      Boeing has so many acronyms (and multiple definitions for the same acronym) that there is a dedicated internal website: TermBank.

  4. Julian 8 Silver badge

    ameol

    need my acronym plugin from Ameol

  5. John Riddoch

    Oh, dear...

    I found that far too readable... Obviously been at this game far too long!

    1. Persona Silver badge

      Re: Oh, dear...

      Yeah. I read it top to bottom without even a smile. First time I've don't that with a BOFH episode. Twice in the past I've needed a new keyboard.

  6. UCAP Silver badge

    This brought back nightmare memories ...

    ... of certain meetings that involved a considerable military presence. I quickly discovered that the different service branches love to outdo each other constructing the most obscure and gut-wrenchingly difficult TLAs and ETLAs, creating new ones PDQ when required. Definitely OTT and a complete PITA.

    1. Shooter

      Re: This brought back nightmare memories ...

      I remember reading about a young officer at his first posting who had written a report chock full of TLAs.

      His superior promptly returned it to his desk with the letters "UNA" scrawled across every page.

      Perplexed, the young officer asked what UNA stood for.

      "Use No Abbreviations", came the reply!

  7. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Happy

    "Acronym vertigo"

    Nice phrase

    I must say I was half expecting the SEP field from the HHGTTG to make an appearance

  8. chivo243 Silver badge
    Boffin

    So...

    The BOFH and The PFY are TCB and listening to BTO?

    Thank ya Darlin' Thank ya very much!

    Extra points for knowing the TCB reference to the KORR

    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

      Re: So...

      You ain't seen nothing yet!

      B.b.baby you just ain't seen nothing yet

  9. GlenP Silver badge

    RDD & PDD

    We had considerable confusion over whether RDD and PDD were EXW or DAP.

    Don't think it was ever resolved.

  10. juice

    LOL

    Is it time to go old school and bring the roflcopter back?

    (Also: do [pre] tags work here? Time to find out...)

    ROFL:ROFL:ROFL:ROFL

    _^___

    L __/ [] \

    LOL===__ \

    L \________]

    I I

    --------/

    1. Swarthy

      Re: LOL

      Sadly, the pre tag let you down. Just as well, or I'd be tempted to post "Killroy" a lot, and who knows what other ascii art would flood these forums.

  11. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    What does IKEA stand for? Never seen that one...

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