Tech·65·Added 2026-08-26

Drinking from a firehose

The traditional corporate method of onboarding a new starter by burying them under five years of unindexed documentation and wishing them luck.

What they actually mean

"Our handovers are non-existent."

Heard in the wild

"Your first week will feel a bit like drinking from a firehose, but you'll soon get the hang of it."

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Bikeshedding

The therapeutic practice of spending three hours debating a completely trivial detail to avoid addressing the fact that the core system does not actually function.

"Let's not get caught bikeshedding the hex code for the cancel button while the main database is actively melting down."

Translation

"I do not understand the underlying software architecture, but I do have very strong feelings about pastel shades."

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User story

An optimistic, single-sentence fairy tale about how an imaginary person intends to use a software feature, written to avoid having to produce actual technical specifications.

"I've drafted the user stories for the new dashboard, so we are ready to build."

Translation

I have summarized three months of complex engineering work into 'As a user, I want a button'.

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To architect

To design a software system with such magnificent complexity that its eventual failure can be blamed entirely on the laws of physics.

"If we architect this cloud infrastructure correctly, it should require an entire team of certified engineers just to keep the landing page online."

Translation

To overcomplicate a simple task to ensure permanent job security.

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