Acronymania

No, my workplace isn’t exactly full of IM jargon, but as the readable portion of the cartoon above notes, it is getting “acronymious.”

You probably know what an ISBN is, but you may not know what it stands for.

In case you are wondering, it’s International Standard Book Number.

In my first week of work I had an RTP meeting. I quickly learned that this meant “release to production,” and basically it was the first of several status meetings on the progression of making the textbook.

I furiously took notes when I was given the BBD and asked to get the CIP data and make copies of the MS that had AC and marks like tr, lc, or wf on it.

Translation: I was given the estimated book bound date. My co-workers wanted me to order the Cataloging in Publication data for the Library of Congress and make copies of the manuscript with author comments and proofreader’s marks.

I used to think that nothing was as irritating as being required to come up with the work login password that must require a capital letter, number, symbol, must be at least 13 digits long, and cannot be anything close to any of your last five passwords.

How are we supposed to remember all of this without writing it down?

And if I have to write it down doesn’t that take away from the confidentiality element of a password when this secret is written on a stick-on note attached to my computer.

I spent an entire week creating a binder for new-hires that includes a glossary of terms that are abbreviated or given an acronym, so no one would have to go through the guessing game of what these things mean like I did.