What is your relationship with acronyms?
I work for the federal government. Therefore, acronyms are my life. We love to make acronyms for as many things as possible, and bonus points if the acronym spells out something somewhat related to what it is.
I’m very conscious of this when I’m writing or speaking, and always write out or say the acronym if the person/audience may not know what it is. I’ve been on the receiving end of emails full of so many acronyms I have no idea what I’m reading and waste ten minutes researching what things stand for. Annoying.
All that to say, yesterday I said to Steven “Josh was impressed I knew what ADS-B* stands for.” And Steven said “I’m impressed! I don’t know if I’d remember that one.”
*Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast – this broadcasts information about the aircraft to other aircraft and ATC (Air Traffic Control). It’s how you track planes.
To which I said the whole spiel above. I was made for this. Just this week Steven introduced VASI and PAPI (Visual Approach Slope Indicator and Precision Approach Path Indicator – visual lights on the runway that let you know if you’re above, below, or at the 3% glide path) to me and I watched a short video and was able to repeat it all back to him that night, along with a general idea of what it is.
Photo from last October. Those four red lights on the left are VASI.
I love learning this stuff. Are you all ready for when it’s my turn to learn to fly and I spew even more random plane sh*t here?
We won’t talk about what I struggle with, which is the mechanics of the plane. Embarrassing, since my dad is an auto mechanic.
I’m laughing because yesterday we had a call with a vendor about a service issue and they spoke in nothing by acronyms. It was so ridiculous that I couldn’t help but chuckle, which meant that I had a big ol’ smile on my face. The vendor was just like, “see, Birchie knows exactly what I mean”. I said nothing and kept making like Mona Lisa. So I was not made for this, apart from the occasional lol, btw, ftw, and wft.
OMG I am DYING. Buah ha ha ha ha ha. Did you all finally figure out wtf they were talking about?
Hahaha, OMG, I can attest to the acronym frenzy of the federal government. It’s insanity. I still have to look up stuff all the time!
It is! We get a weekly newsletter from our national office and it always has a link to a acronym website cheatsheet specific to our agency LOL.
Wait – did I miss the announcement that you’re going to learn to be a pilot too???
I feel like every organization has their specific acronyms and you better know what they mean! We have so many in digital marketing, and then specific ones that only people at our company know.
I’ve mentioned it casually a few times over the year, but no announcement. I’ve wanted to be a pilot since I was a little kid, but it doesn’t make sense for us to learn at the same time!
You’re right! It’s not just a government thing!!! What are some of the most common digital marketing ones? Like SEO, etc?