Innocuous things that make you irrationally angry (a list thread)

hey mr. 40 something businessman who flashed his lights 7 times at me to make a right turn on red, did you happen to see the illuminated "No Turn on Red" sign? just for that I'm going to have sex with one of your relatives

*zips up*

Looks like Russell Brand's b just expired.

Fuckwits in meetings saying "Can I just talk to that point?"

No, you can talk ABOUT it, or, preferably, fuck off and die.

Oh thats a new one. Ughhh.

also 'go-live' as a noun or adjective

ugh god Mr Veg drops uber-tech-corporate speak on me every now and again...talk about grammatical child abuse. It makes me cry.

you need to reach out to him for a blue-sky session imo

what makes me irrationally angry is understanding what these should-be-meaningless phrases mean

'Going forward' doesn't mean anything in any context ever, so that's easy. Everything else means 'I am a wanker'.

Any time someone uses the phrase "software architecture" or someone being an "architect" when they mean "software architect" my actual-architect friend goes nuts.

I told him we like to use "architect" as a verb all the time and he sputtered so hard I thought he was going to bite his tongue off.

System architecture is fair enough because it's the architecture of a system. That makes perfect sense and the application of the term is sound. IT uses loads of words as metaphors for other things anyway, e.g. a window is no longer just a thing you can jump through to effect an untimely death.

'Architect' as a verb is illegal and deserving of capital punishment, though.

'Going forward' doesn't mean anything in any context ever, so that's easy.

I've thought a lot about this, and I think "going forward" is a useful synonym for "from now on." "From now on" can sound like a demand or like there is an ultimatum in there somewhere, whereas "going forward" is gentler.

It's not used that way though, it's always jammed into sentences that express 'from now on' perfectly well on their own, i.e. in the phrase 'we will be implementing a strategy going forward' the word 'will' does the job all by itself. If you have a crack at 'this is our strategy going forward', you could just as well say 'this will be our strategy'.

or, of course, 'this is our strategy from now on'

Actually saying "going forward" makes it clear that it will not apply to retroactive cases. That's obviously not applicable in many situations, but it works when needed.

It doesn't need to exist, and in 99.94% of sentences it's completely redundant. I'm sure 'pop it in your think tank and see if it does the doggy paddle' works when needed too.

Did you just invent that one? It's pretty great.

Got it off Drop the Dead Donkey iirc.

people who put Bon Jovi's "Livin on a Prayer" on their FB profile and comment "remember this one", AS IF I HAVEN'T HEARD IT MULTIPLE TIMES A WEEK FOR THE LAST TEN YEARS

What, do you live in a ROLLER RINK?

A. karaoke nights
B. half my friends like Bon Jovi. I still maintain he ruined rock music

c) it's his ring tone

(joeks!! please don't sex my relatives)

Any time someone uses the phrase "software architecture" or someone being an "architect" when they mean "software architect" my actual-architect friend goes nuts.

I read a novel by a programmer recently which said most programmers like to think of themselves as architects, whereas sadly all they actually get to do is the plumbing

Tangentially related to Bon Jovi: ads/TV shows/whatevers which use music based on its title, with no regard for the actual words...

Some examples:

1 my wife works for the local ambulance authority, and they had new uniforms introduced. The corporate video used Scorpions' 'Winds of CHange', with appropriate mentions of Gorky Park and other Cold War era references

2 local Adelaide radio station which promoted itself using the Whitlams song (You've got to) Love this City, despite the fact that said song is explicitly about Sydney, and even more particularly about Sydney being a great big whore for the Olympics

Lust for Life being used on a cruise ship ad was my favorite example

I once saw an ad that was for something like outdoor patio covers or some crap that, bafflingly, used "Sex Machine" by james brown for the company's theme music. but they changed the words to "stay on the scene/like a lovin' machine".

Who was it that used "Born In The USA" in their commercials, Reagan? Bush I?

Reagan I think.

People who talk about retirement ALL THE TIME and never fucking retire.

"stay on the scene/like a lovin' machine".

That is in there, if only once.

I thought of something to add to this thread yesterday, but apparently the offending occasion was so innocuous that I have now forgotten what it was.

as a long time black keys fan, i get annoyed that they are being used for a Kay or Zales jewelery commercial.

similar to Lynryd Skynryd upthread:

"Aphex Twin? Oh I love them!"

Apparently not enough..

Any time someone uses the phrase "software architecture" or someone being an "architect" when they mean "software architect" my actual-architect friend goes nuts.

There's a good reason why your friend goes nuts. We get it drilled into our heads over and over again in architecture school that it is ILLEGAL to call yourself an architect if you aren't licensed as such and there are actual people that go around looking for false uses of the term and slap them with HUGE lawsuits. So its frustrating for us to act under these strict usage guidelines, constantly being told that being called an "architect" is a high honor (lol) that you have to "earn", but then see other industries adopting it as some sort of catch-all term. More concretely, it makes it hell to search for real "architect" jobs online.

Oh, I most definitely agree. I've been around this particular friend as he has taken all his exams to become certified, so I know what a pain in the ass it is. We could probably go on about the use/misuse of that term for a thread and what a racket the entire business is!

What's funny is that my friend left the firm he was at and works in-house at a subcontractor now, and now complains about incompetent architects.

http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/14800000/Mike-Brady-the-brady-bunch-14805835-720-480.jpg

Don't you dare call him an incompetent architect!

That is actually my friend!

"My friend, the incompetent architect"

he was the greatest architect of all time.

And here I dreamt I was an architect...

Love songs.

I completely get the real-architect certification thing (my father is one, he has the education, authority with the federal governing body etc etc and he HATES people who are not correctly certified using the term), but the fact remains that 'software architect' and 'systems architect' are real and recognised terms now. It's yet another shitty and unoriginal thing about the IT industry that doesn't need to exist but there you go.

A few years ago the company I was with made us all call ourselves 'support engineers'. I refused.

oh I would too

\m/

makes it sound like you manufacture bras or trusses or something, lol

but the fact remains that 'software architect' and 'systems architect' are real and recognised terms now. It's yet another shitty and unoriginal thing about the IT industry that doesn't need to exist but there you go.

Yeah, I get it, just don't like it. As I hinted at before, the biggest frustration with this was when I was unemployed and sifting through job sites and realizing that zero of the 4,321 hits I got for "architect" had anything to do with the designing of buildings.

Oh, I don't like it either. Sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.

Well, there's your problem, no one is actually hiring real architects!