People forget that the terminology is literally just a shorthand for a metaphor that made sense to someone once.
Due to historical circumstances it’s made of a blend of US military jargon, Japanese auto manufacturing, IT terminology, and terminology from a hodge podge of filler humanities degrees people got because of degree requirements.
It sounds weird because the history is weird, but it’s still words people liked and found useful.
If someone said this to me I would at least expect them to get back to me in a reasonable amount of time, and that sounds like a clear enough next step.
And like most things in my fridge it’ll get thrown out in a week or so, when it inevitably goes off due to non-use. For some reason I feel much happier about throwing away food after it’s been mildly chilled for 14 days.
Yeah, the idea fridge is where you put an idea you don’t want right now but you feel guilty about throwing it out right away. So you let it sit in there until it has undeniably gone bad and you have to throw it out, but it’s not your fault because you were totally going to take it back out but you couldn’t have predicted that it would spoil. Oh well, can’t do anything about that.
Maybe we can also have an “Idea Gym” - you’ll constantly pay for the idea of using it in the future. You don’t cancel the idea gym membership because you feel bad about losing access to the idea, even though the chances of ever taking up the idea are very slim.
Na this is real. Even office language is fluid and coworkers love improvising all turns of phrase. Besides, just because the author isn’t intending to convey information through something doesn’t mean that there is no meaning to derive. Relenting to the idea there is no meaning without at least trying to find one is just a practice in being ignorant. Language is abstract and subjective and when you think you’re being random you can accidentally reveal more than you might think. Either way it’s at least fun to guess what these coworkers came away thinking these phrases mean
Tbh I like the principle of an idea fridge.
It can be easily understood as something that is paused, and only paused, for a short period of time but then continued.
The rest I don’t quite see the usefulness.
People forget that the terminology is literally just a shorthand for a metaphor that made sense to someone once.
Due to historical circumstances it’s made of a blend of US military jargon, Japanese auto manufacturing, IT terminology, and terminology from a hodge podge of filler humanities degrees people got because of degree requirements.
It sounds weird because the history is weird, but it’s still words people liked and found useful.
I’d use some of them just because they’re funny.
When you triangle back to something, you return to it after 3 sharp turns instead of gradually coasting around like a circle. Its more efficient.
If someone said this to me I would at least expect them to get back to me in a reasonable amount of time, and that sounds like a clear enough next step.
To me “idea freezer” just reads as someone trying to find the phrase “icebox” as it is already commonly used concept in project management tools.
Idea fridge is like “table that for now” but more long term.
Unlike “put a pin in it” we dont have to look at it for the time being.
And like most things in my fridge it’ll get thrown out in a week or so, when it inevitably goes off due to non-use. For some reason I feel much happier about throwing away food after it’s been mildly chilled for 14 days.
Yeah, the idea fridge is where you put an idea you don’t want right now but you feel guilty about throwing it out right away. So you let it sit in there until it has undeniably gone bad and you have to throw it out, but it’s not your fault because you were totally going to take it back out but you couldn’t have predicted that it would spoil. Oh well, can’t do anything about that.
Maybe we can also have an “Idea Gym” - you’ll constantly pay for the idea of using it in the future. You don’t cancel the idea gym membership because you feel bad about losing access to the idea, even though the chances of ever taking up the idea are very slim.
So technical debt?
I see you’ve seen our Jira boards. Please don’t look too closely at the dates on those tickets.
The operations team closed all open merge requests older than 2 years at my firm recently.
I got notices for tasks I had started going back to 2018.
it’s explicitly said this all was made up you’re just guessing meaning where there’s none
Na this is real. Even office language is fluid and coworkers love improvising all turns of phrase. Besides, just because the author isn’t intending to convey information through something doesn’t mean that there is no meaning to derive. Relenting to the idea there is no meaning without at least trying to find one is just a practice in being ignorant. Language is abstract and subjective and when you think you’re being random you can accidentally reveal more than you might think. Either way it’s at least fun to guess what these coworkers came away thinking these phrases mean
Yes, and it’s fun
This is how language is acquired.
Movies, paintings, poems and music are all made up as well so people have just been guessing meaning where there is none