Tues, Nov 7th - the plot thickens

Urgent, urgent

You know that urgent priority 1 piece of work that I got dragged into yesterday (where priority 1 means that the whole system is down and no-one can do any work whatsoever)?? Well, it's been going since June (or maybe even Jan). Oh, and the document that I updated which was in the "final" folder was an old version. It wasn't final. No, no. The correct version (1.1a) was elsewhere in another team's folder. I knew who had it because Toxic staff have a "3rd eye" fitted as part of initiation contract.

Is it me?



Privacy



Jargon

Okay, now you will already know and accept that IT takes the biscuit when it comes to jargon and acronyms. Well, Toxic takes things to a whole new low. Here's a little snippet for you:

"As an endeavour to quell the duplication of effort and raise awareness of re-useable works, both the Common Wheeled Barrow* (CWB) and the Potato Mashing Licker* (PML) for Thingyummy has been added to the Thingummy Support Site. [ed: note capitals]

Each month, both the CWB and PML registers will be updated to show what is available within the latest release. When a published module is updated, it will automatically be reassigned to the latest release.

In addition, a planning section has been added to the Module Release Register to allow users of the site to request new modules. This further enables the CWB Governance board (CGB) to assess what is required, when and who is available or working on a given module.

This new feature, re-enforces the essence of collaborative working."

Hard to read? About as meaningful as a bag of nails in a bakery? Yep, me too and I work here. Now, I don't care about what it means. I merely want to draw your attention to the supreme use of acronyms - the CGB. Can you spot their genius. Yes folks, they have made a new acronym from another one...unless it is a deliberate mistake? Is it CWBGB or CGB? You tell me, 'cos I've given up.


That's not milk!!!

I like tea. I like it so much I drink it every day about 4 or 5 times. At Toxic they provide coffee and tea making facilities. For tea you can either get it from the machine or make your own. Now as the former tastes like muddy rainwater, I prefer the manual method.

I have been bemused for some time at the tiny little pots of catering "milk" they provide. I have mused to myself that it is lactated from a farm of employees (male and female) and squirted into these little pots, rather akin to the ways ants milk aphids.

This morning, in a pique of curiousity I looked at the list of ingredients. I am not happy, not happy at all. The product, made by "Country Dale" is marked "use in place of milk" which says it all really. The ingredients are:

skimmed milk
water
hydrogenated oil
glucose syrup
caseinate
E471
E481
E435
E340
E331
E160a

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!