Ex Spec Tation

[ed. Ex Pec Tation - a search before the article revealed nothing useful. A query after this article posted revealed the article as number 1. http://www.bing.com/search?q=ex+spec+tation You see, you can make up new words and get better results. Ex pec tation or ex spec tation. Who would have expected that?]

I was reminded the other day of a joke / definition of an ex-pert. People around here will sometimes call me a Search SEO expert. Almost as good as the well known scam, the fat burning furnace scam. And it makes me giggle. Well, not like a school girl or anything, but kind of a snicker anyway. On the inside. Kind of like, I am laughing on the inside. If you know what I mean.

In case you have never heard it, it goes something like this. We all know what an ex is. A has bean. Like ex-wife, ex-con or ex-accountant, etc. A has bean. And we all know what a spurt is as in, "the engine's oil hose spurt oil out of a leak under pressure." A small or large drip even.

So if you put the two concepts together, the next thing you know, is that people are calling me a "has been drip under pressure." There you have it. Clear as mud. Or also, as in, when a politician speaks.

And it got me thinking the other day as I listened in on some manager bean counter types the other day. Where does the word expectation come from? We are always talking about it. If you have ever worked on a project managed by anyone, who sometimes, pretends to be in charge, you will have wondered the same thing. It is a word that is so misused and abused, not unlike other MBA speak words that brainwash the pure, innocent, and unsuspecting MBA graduates. You know them. Fur shure, like, you know you would understand if I had instead said something like, "the new synergies created by this dynamic, forward thinking, leadership team of bright, unsuccessful bean counters, will create a cohesive and non-coherent strategy, of ground breaking, worldwide, and renouned teams filled with work life balance and marketing cohesivenessnessness garbage the world has never before or here to fore or yet to has been have seen...."

Sigh.

Anyway, BID. After about the 2^32 times of hearing the word expectation in just the first five minutes of the first meeting of the day, I decided that I didn't really know the real meaning of the word expectation. As it is with most of these things, "THEY" usually mean the opposite of what "they" are really saying. It is kind of like an unwritten rule you learn in MBA schools like Harvard or Yale. You know what I mean. Kind of like when the Rocky Flats Site in Colorado, after many, a many, o many crazies tried to end their ex-istence, by sending a thousand attorneys (and their renowned, forward thinking, leadership, law "suit" briefcase toting and associated progressive wingnuts after them).... Anyway, they renamed "the site", after many years of wrangling to the "Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site". Or RFETS for short (how do you pronounce that anyway? Raae-fet-s? Kind of like, Boba Fet's, but probably a lot more dangerous than that cynical, psycho crazy killing machine of a man of Star Wars fame.

So it got me thinking. What does expectation really mean? Well, as is the practice here at Inoun-dumb, we are going to explain it in very simple terms. Terms that probably even a bean counter (or two, combined), might even be able to understand.

Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, ex means "has bean."And as engineers, we all know that a spec is a document that describes the world, or a very itty bitty part of it, in extreme detail, that nobody actually builds to, pays for, but in the end, ex-spec-ts you to accomplish on half the time, and with half the budget. And of course asking you via IM, email, and the random cell phone call at 2:00am, "are you done yet?"

So where am I, the not so great, Inoun going with all of this?

I have no idea. Hm.

That leaves me with the last part of the word. Tation. As in ci-tation (a ticket for those of you in business or law school.) This one took me a while to figure out. It is a very rare, earth metal, not unlike the ones found buried at rocky flats somewhere, very dangerous, that can not be used or understood by the average bean counter, MBA or project manager. And not in that order. It is a little tricky to understand. And since this blog entry has already gone on way too long for any "sane" (think opposite of) the above folks here to a fore mentioned unmentionable individuals and their attention spans to be able to grasp, and since we have already lost all of them to more synergy and forward thinking endeavours, I am going to speak to those few of you who are left. The engineers.

Tation comes from (and I am completely making this up, although the facts are pretty close) the Greek speaking Assyrian who wrote transl-ations of various parts of the gospels and for all intents and purposes, over time, the texts have changed, been "updated", by creative marketing, project managing, bean counting, scholars, and attorneys of the day, to make them so useless, and utterly absurd works that are now, quite possibly equivalent to complete works of fiction. If you don't believe me, go look it up.

And so it is with ex-spec-tations as well. They are "has-been" specs, as in Ex-Specs that were never followed, managed, or paid for. And they are now complete, and utter works of fiction.

Get over it. Start over. And tell the customer. Because the sooner we do, the sooner we can get started on the real project, get it finished and under budget. But until then, until we are honest, we will be, "managing, synergistic, rigorous, forward thinking, diputs, and of course fictional expectations."