{"id":360,"date":"2003-10-11T16:05:00","date_gmt":"2003-10-11T16:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=360"},"modified":"2018-08-03T14:46:01","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T19:46:01","slug":"360","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2003\/10\/11\/360\/","title":{"rendered":"Buzzword of the Day: Sanity Check<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I am minding my company’s business (since I was on the clock, by terms of the employee licensing agreement I signed when I started, any business conducted on company property is company business, so you won’t catch me selling on eBay things and adding to the company’s revenue stream, werd), when I heard the most blatant buzzword since a couple of jobs ago when I heard a project manager say face time<\/i><\/b> without a smirk on his face. This time, it was a project manager, too, who probably heard the phrase in a project management seminar or took it from a project management magazine, where it was nestled in between the ads for project management software.<\/p>\n

This buzzword:<\/p>\n

Sanity check<\/h3>\n

The context: “We’ll perform a sanity check.”<\/b> I think he meant evaluate the position of the project vis-à-vis<\/i> (Author’s note: This use of the italicized French term does not represent a “buzzword”; instead, it’s pretension. Please note and appreciate the difference. Thank you.) contractual obligations and customer considerations. However, because it’s the first time I ever heard of a “sanity check,” I can only guess this is what he meant.<\/p>\n

From whence did this asylum-escapee of a buzzword originate? Never mind, perhaps the bedlam of the information technology field needs buzzwords and common cues from the world of psychology. <\/p>\n

You want a sanity check? Here’s a schnucking sanity check:<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

Now, take a look at this, tell me what you see, and I can diagnose your particular sickness. What is it you see in this picture?<\/p>\n

    I see a leading enterprise-caliber best-in-class solution for….<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
      Obviously, you’re delusional, and you work in sales or marketing.<\/ul>\n

      I’m not sure; let me call a meeting to discuss with others what I might see.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

        Welcome to project management. Worst part is that after the meeting, you’ll still be unclear about what you see.<\/ul>\n

        Whoa, that’s a cool new technology\/specification that’s not mature yet! We should tear down the complete infrastructure and rebuild all applications and server components to use this new design<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

          You’re a developer, and heaven help us all, but an influential or lead developer. Here we go again.<\/ul>\n

          I see a series of lines and arcs that I can understand and describe in elaborate detail.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

            You’re apparently in documentation. Don’t bother trying to describe the picture for me. By the time you’re three-fourths of the way through your description, one of those lead developers described above will shake up the Etch-a-Sketch and you’ll have to start over.<\/ul>\n

            It’s a damn mess. A boondoggle. What am I supposed to do with that? There’s nothing about that that even <\/i>resembles a picture. Tell me you’re not shipping that out in a frame, for crying out loud.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

              Welcome to Quality Assurance. Now please be quiet, we’ve heard enough from you.<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n

              You know the worst part about “sanity check”? Not only is it a buzzword, but it’s an inappropriate buzzword because it assumes there’s some sanity to check.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              So I am minding my company’s business (since I was on the clock, by terms of the employee licensing agreement I signed when I started, any business conducted on company property is company business, so you won’t catch me selling on eBay things and adding to the company’s revenue stream, werd), when I heard the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21921,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions\/21921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}