Glossary of tech phrases
If you came here from Hacker News...
Then I've learned that I need to explicitly spell out in the beginning of the post that this article is partly facetious.
| Phrase said under stress | Real meaning |
|---|---|
| Thanks for the feedback. | Fuck you. |
| Thanks for the feedback! (with an explanation point) | Die in a slow-moving, low-temperature and ultimately avoidable fire. |
| That's interesting. | You are unburdened by talent. |
| Could you please file an issue? | Swim into a boat motor. Face-first, but get your arms in there, too. |
| Like I said... | Clean the shit out of your ears. |
| Let's table this for the time being. We've got N minutes left and a lot of agenda items remaining. | I'm sick of hearing your voice. Shut the fuck up. Your time management is even worse than your hygiene. |
| How about we do this... | I'm tired of waiting for you to get it, so now I'm going to distract you with a false compromise. |
| Sounds good | I have zero faith in your ability to deliver. None. So I'm passive agressively pointing to the fact that it only sounds good, because it's never going to be. |
| Let me know if I can do anything to help | This is completely on you and I don't want to hear about it again. |
| Let's take some action items. | I can't understand the power dynamics on this Zoom call yet but I'm incapable of contributing to the problems we're discussing here |
| <Name>, can you take an action item? | I'm a Muppet missing the adult hand that goes up my ass and tells me what to say. I can tell you're all starting to catch on, so in my low-grade panic I'm going to try to distract all of you while I continue to wait around around for the adult to show up... |
| NIT: I prefer a more <vague adjective> coding style... | I'm finally secure enough in this institution to enforce my father-shaped emotional void upon you and our codebase. I never learned to wash my ass properly. |
| Great idea, <executive above me>! | You could have kept my entire salary plus benefits and skipped hiring me with no impact whatsoever on final outcomes or team strength. |
| Great idea, <individual contributor below me>! | Your idea is now my idea. I'm going to start pitching it as my original work starting in my next meeting beginning in 10 minutes. |
| Happy to help! | I'm updating my resume. |
| I'll take a look | Let me Google that for you, you incompetent ninny. I'm also positive you got a larger equity grant than I did. |
| You're one of our top performers | We're underpaying you. |