principle of definitional equivalence - noun phrase - Often shortened to the ≡ symbol. A polite way of saying "Because fuck you, that's why." See also judgemental equality, homotopy type theory.
sharkfinning - verb, gerund - Learning something from scratch in an entirely hands-on way, which is to say, "Swimming with the sharks." When you don't know what you're doing or how to do it, but you have a job to do.
Faraday roundtable - noun phrase - A meeting conducted entirely offline. All portable devices and computers are powered down, and ideally locked inside conductive and grounded containers to prevent radio transmissions from reaching or being emitted from same. Similarly, no active computers are permitted at the meeting. The proceedings of such a meeting are carried out using Chatham house rules.
squirrel clever - noun complex - The state of being extremely smart when it comes to figuring out how to do something. Notably, this does not include figuring out whether or not one should do something.
onboarding suppository - noun complex - The massive volume of data that a new hire has to assimilate and comprehend before they can understand what they're supposed to be working on to any meaningful extent.
Binder Hell - noun - The state of being stuck dealing with varying numbers of people on the phone who are only functionally capable of putting you through processes documented in their three ring binders, even though none of those processes will actually fix the problem you have. Symptomatic of an over-engineered system which has all but programmed out common sense and initiative. For example, a company which is so hell-bent on keeping customers will needlessly obfuscate or entirely eliminate processes that let customers cancel their service. As another example, a telecom provider which demands the serial number of your SIM card …