Recently, en route to NYC, I was navigating through Chicago’s Midway airport. When I came to the Security Check there was a discouragingly large crowd of people pushing towards the gates. As we moved forward a few steps we came to three signs -- each marking the entrance to a separate line.

Each sign had a label and a graphic. Each traveler had a choice.

The first sign, I forget the label: but the graphic was of multiple people, including children, with multiple bags, crowded rather lumpishly into the frame. The label said something along the lines of Unfamiliar Travelers, High Maintenance Travelers, or People You Never Want To Be Stuck Behind In Line. I was definitely not joining this group.

The second sign had a line drawing of a fit young man in his thirties or forties. He sported a shoulder bag and a trendy hair flip. His sign? Casual Travelers. I hesitated in front of it and noted a feeling of fleeting disturbance that this representation of casualty and ease was male.

And then… sign three. Expert Travelers. It featured a woman in a pencil skirt, obviously traveling like an expert. My disgruntlement vanished. The line it flanked seemed short and swift.

I paused.

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I love my dad. He's an original. And sometimes stubbornly so. For instance, when his originality is dried up and he's in a creative slump, he starts slinging language around like confetti, minting word-concoctions like wildwildwild, spoink, and metaNow.

What do they mean? Despite the fact that more often than not the new words are presented in some awesomely frightening font, such as showcard gothic, and are at least 70px high, no one actually knows. And more than one person has been burned by a quick defensive reaction when inquiring whether wildwildwild is actually a viable business plan. (Answer: of course!).

He loves PowerPoints and Word Documents, often writes without capital letters, and has a sixth sense for pronouncing words and names exactly... wrong. Syllables go where no syllables have gone before.

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I have become one of those people I never thought it was possible to become. I don't write in bubble script, put hearts over my i's, or buy Hallmark cards. I don't have a myspace page, read Garfield cartoons, or tweet. I don't even watch TV! Clearly, I am a bonafide bore :)

And yet... the smiley is becoming nearly as ubiquitous in my correspondence as the period. OK, it's not that bad (yet?), but I was re-reading an email I sent to a friend recently.

A male friend.

About programming.

It had 4 paragraphs: three of them ended with :)

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I recently worked for a client whose entire understanding of "Agile Development" seemed to be: I can add new features as long as I want, and you have to execute them without further compensation or time, because we're "agile". Being "agile" made him feel good, I think: it meant he was up on the latest practices and he got to dictate the process. Win-win, right?

This client was otherwise lovely and we forged a good working relationship, despite our different working assumptions. But it did make me aware of the inevitable life-cycle of meaning to husk.

You know, the one that turns a helpful process-management tool into a buzzword and then that buzzword into a bludgeon. Or that transmogrifies a moment of connection with the divine into a stucco mega-church, yelling via megaphone at the masses.

Remember the origin of your religion. Don't rigidly hold onto the shell.

[Cross-posted on devchix]

It goes something like this. A really good programmer, who obviously does not have a lazy cell in his or her brain (the body is another matter entirely!) declares, "I program because I'm too lazy to do the same thing again and again!".

Variations abound, all coming back to the idea that "laziness" == an aversion to repetition.

Really?

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