Silly workplace acronyms

The language in my workplace is rampant with acronyms. We even have acronyms that contain acronyms. We go out of our way to abbreviate ourselves. It doesn't matter what I do or even what the acronym referenced below means. It just plain cracks me up.

As part of my training, I have to go through the BIP program. There is a long BIP and a short BIP. I have been recommended for the short BIP, which is great, because the short BIP is supposedly far less painful.

I don't think anyone in my workplace has ever visited PA Dutch country, where I spent a lot of time as a kid. There, bip, bippy, and bipper are slang terms for a certain part of the male anatomy. Re-read that last paragraph.

The company I work for is hooked on TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms). We have TLAs for everything. The best one is the RIM or Radio Interface Module. I laugh my butt off every time a tech comes by and says something like, 'Im having radio problems, would you poll my RIM?' Sure.... but I dont see what that has to do with your radio.

from the FNG to the HMFIC, its part of our daily language.

Acronymization seems to be the direction of corporate America these days. We don't have time to speak in full words any more.

WTF is ur problem with acronyms?


Personally, I have FAR more dislike for "text speak" than work-related acronyms. At least a few acronyms are good for a chuckle now and again. Text-speak is just annoying, period. I'm sure a great many 7th grade English teachers are spinning in their graves as their 40-something year old former students are tapping away at their keyboards.

Yeah, I guess I'm in full geezer-mode this morning...Damn kids!

"Text-Speak" is teh suck. and stupid.

ASAP means I'm going to file this on the back burner, we have EML, TPS, VESDA, HALO and some other ghey terms.

Computer tech here.....


PEBKAC error, Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

ID10T (pronounced " I DEE TEN TEE" <--- idiot just spelled so the idiots cannot tell

FNG F**in New Guy

CHAOS Chief Has Arrived On Scene

SNAFU Situation Normal, All F*ed Up

And now some of my favorite computer acronyms

PCMCIA - those card slots on most laptops. Personal Computer Memory Card Interface Association? People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms

TWAIN - scanner and camera standards, Technology Without An Interesting Name <-- not kidding, look it up.

Jilaman said:

Computer tech here.....


TWAIN - scanner and camera standards, Technology Without An Interesting Name <-- not kidding, look it up.

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Dont forgot this bright one...

RAID - Random Array of Inexpensve Disks

But of course homebrewing is not without its host of acronyms...

HERMS
RIMS
PID - [Does anyone really know what this means]
OG
FG
SG
ABV
RDWHAHB

Ills stop or we could go on all day.

Its not just corporate america or that we are too busy to speak fully....its ubiquitous.

You forgot SWMBO.......

I don't even want to tell you all of the acronyms we use at work. Seriously it is bad, so bad to the point that when I first started, it was like learning a new language. Even the meetings have names based on acronyms.

F*ck, that reminds me, I completely forgot to fill out those damn TPS reports. BRB.

I work in a hospital, and medical abbreviations are commonplace of course. But, people TALK in these abbreviations, when the abbreviations are actually longer to say outloud. That's when I just have to laugh- hey, the point of abbreviations is to save time!

Evan! said:

F*ck, that reminds me, I completely forgot to fill out those damn TPS reports. BRB.

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Didn't you get that memo? I'll send you a copy.

Bedlam said:

Yeah, I guess I'm in full geezer-mode this morning...Damn kids!

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Hey! Get off this guy's lawn!:rockin:

Evan! said:

F*ck, that reminds me, I completely forgot to fill out those damn TPS reports. BRB.

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haha. don't forget the new cover page!

I deal with a lot of government contracts in my line of work. At my last job we were contractually obligated to perform Field Acceptance Readiness Tests... FARTs... for each system we shipped.

We had a bookshelf in one lab covered with binders labeled "System 1 FARTs", "System 2 FARTs", etc...

YooperBrew said:

I work in a hospital, and medical abbreviations are commonplace of course.

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I too work in healthcare and a large project we did a while back selecting a Physician or Practitioner Management System. Yes..PMS.

We had weekly PMS Memos, PMS Meetings, PMS Status reports...and best of them all.... PMS Flow Cycle...I $hit you not. To document the 'flow' of patient data through the system from patient visit to billing cycle.

I work for the same "Company" as Yuri and I agree, we have far too many acronyms.

A few of the more common ones....

BOHICA= Bend over here it comes again
STS= so to speak
RAVE= rally after vomiting excessively

I like it when they make words out of the acronyms

CSRD = Sisserd
ACL = Akles

stupid stupid people

I just started a new project yesterday... Engine Alert Criteria.... EAC

Also when programs screw up around here they call them dumps... The EAC won't stop dumping.... How can I not laugh at that?

There are so many acronyms here there is a program so you can look up the acronyms, no joke.

This especially bad as a consultant where my average project length is 3 weeks... which means I do about 15-20 projects a year at different companies in just about every industry... when I go into a client they usually start throwing about industry specific acronyms. If I am not careful to hide my ignorance they are likely to say "WTF - doesn't this guy know what he is doing?".

You can't ask either until you have identified someone else who is also a consultant or former consultant you can trust not to blow your cover!

ZFrichtl said:

Field Acceptance Readiness Tests... FARTs...

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That's a good one! We have basically the same thing but without the R...FAT = Factory Acceptance Test.

It's not uncommon to hear "Dont forget about the PLC and HMI FAT test next week!" And yes, people put the word "test" after the acronym FAT. Basically saying "Factory Acceptance Test test"

Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department!

In our PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) and HMI (Human Machine Interface) programs we have some abbreviations like, SPERM = Status Permissive. That's my favorite "Hey Brian! That motor isn't running because it lost it's SPERM! Better check it out!"

No one beats the military:

CIGARS

Console Internally Generated and Refreshed Symbols

You still have no idea what it is, do you?

Hint: has to do with a UYA4.

david_42 said:

No one beats the military:

CIGARS

Console Internally Generated and Refreshed Symbols

You still have no idea what it is, do you?

Hint: has to do with a UYA4.

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i'm still confused.

My company has so many acronyms that we have an online dictionary for them.

Problem is, different people in different biz groups often create the same acronym for different things.

d_42's acronym is for a radar display. Probably a monochrome CRT monitor of some sort. Oops, just used another acronym!

Here's a quote from my blog, and this is actually on one of my hobbies...

Monochrome Mentality dot Com said:

When the ASU was announced, two other things happened. The GTK based 2007.02 line was obsoleted (or some might argue deprecated since it's now getting attention from the community) and the FSO Framework was announced. I'll focus on the framework, because it's where my complaints and burnout centered around.

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We've actually run out of combinations. KVM means "Keyboard, Video and Monitor" but also means "Kernel based Virtual Machine" and you're left with context to determine which it is.

Our cash register system is officially known as the "Point of Sale" system. It is justifiably reffered to as the "POS".

CIGARS - Yuri's probably right, but all I've got is a coffee mug.

A few years back, a guy I knew was talking about a trip to the Porsche dealership to buy what Porsche was calling a "Previously Obsessed-Over Porsche".

I immediately stopped him and told him he definitely did not want a car like that....

We have

3LC -3pm Line Check
CLC -Closing Line Check
CA -Asst manager
CT -Line Trainers

Most of ours are 2 letters for stations. We use alot of 3 number ones too

160's Line
170's Production
270 Asst manager
180's Trainers.

We clock in with these job codes everyday. Some of our guys that do alot of differents positions have 10 or so different job codes. I have managed to work 5 in one day. Alot of our stuff in the kitchen we just use letters for. G-VEG, M-CUPS R-CUPS. Everything is shortened even if there is no TLA for it.

Arneba28 said:

M-CUPS R-CUPS. Everything is shortened even if there is no TLA for it.

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I like your TNA...the D-CUPS and the DD-CUPS are nice. Never had M or R CUPS..Sounds great though!

SOB said:

I like your TNA...the D-CUPS and the DD-CUPS are nice. Never had M or R CUPS..Sounds great though!

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We used to have D-CUPS and P-CUPS but decided to call it something else, Not good to hear someone yelling that in a kitchen.