'Technobabble' - A Jovial Insight into the World of Acronyms by Steve Laidler, Celerity Limited

'Technobabble' - A Jovial Insight into the World of Acronyms Posted on: 27/06/13 When I naively entered into the profession of IT about one hundred and fifty ice-ages ago, I was overwhelmed by almost everything. The knowledge that my much older and wiser colleagues possessed; a knowledge that they could call forth at will without consulting Yahoo or trawling the IBM website looking for that one line that solved the ‘most urgent problem that has ever existed’. Where the last three screws of that server could possibly go? Because it looks just like it should in the instructions? Why that light is green there? and yet, red over there? And what does a flashing ‘888’ mean on that little window? However, the most confusing aspect of my new life as a junior IT consultant was the acronyms. There were more acronyms than I could even begin to comprehend. I had no idea that one job could have that many acronyms. I was drowning in buzz words. As I attempted to absorb information I would need for my duties, the sometimes seemingly random letters and numbers would appear and obfuscate the rest of the sentence. In my desperation to learn the abbreviation I began documenting them in my ‘book of knowledge’. A journal of important commands and stuff to remember, alphabetically organised. I began writing them down and annotating them as to their meanings. This was clearly a stupid idea. I quickly realised that the world would run out of paper before I would run out of IBM acronyms. After months of stock piling combinations of alphabetic and alpha-numeric phrases in my head, I decided that there was only one thing for it, I gave up! One man could not hold that many acronyms in his brain.

I recently found that book of knowledge. It had acronyms in it that I now know, being much older and so people keep telling me wiser, that I will never need. Why then did my younger self attempt to cram them all into his head? Did he think that he would need them? Possibly. Would they help him in his daily work? Undoubtedly. Would they impress the ladies? No. Maybe he was hoping that they would make him sound particularly clever and gave more substance to conversations? Then I realised I had not looked at that ‘book of knowledge’ for over 10 years. Some of it must have actually stuck with me. Thankfully, no one else will need to attempt superhuman feats of memory recall as I have discovered that IBM has on its website, a glossary of technical terms, acronyms and all things generally computer related, and alphabetically organised. Hey, that was my idea! Steve Laidler - Technical Consultant - Celerity Limited Contact - See more at: http://www.celerity-uk.com/news/196/technobabble-a-jovial-insight-into-the-world-of-acronyms#sthash.fZpzgI96.dpuf