Now, before any of you old DODO hands beats me to it, I’ll stipulate that jargon and acronyms are a staple of many large modern organizations, especially in the military and intelligence sectors, where documents sometimes look like a bowl of alphabet soup. I know that perfectly well from my twenty years of experience in such environments.
Even so, I was taken aback when I first came to the Department of Diachronic Operations and began to experience a whole new world of exotic terminology and funny strings of letters. Diachronic Shear, Strands, ODECs, QUIPUs, DOers, and more! Now, some of these I think are clear and good terms to use, such as DOer, which is self-explanatory, and DEDE, which I now understand is just an alternate spelling of “deed.” But in some cases I do sort of get the idea that a very clever person, perhaps someone from an advanced academic background where wordplay is a kind of sport, is trying to have a teeny little joke at my expense. And maybe also trying to poke fun, in a sly way, at the military world that has brought us so many brave defenders of our freedoms such as LTC Lyons and the late General Schneider. For example, lately we have begun to see DORC for Diachronic Operative Resource Center and DOOSH for Diachronic Operative Occupational Safety and Health. Perhaps those of you who have been putting so much of your creative energies into dreaming up these hilarious acronyms might consider putting yourselves into the shoes of Dr. Blevins when he has to give a tour of the facility to a senator or a general, or a foreign visitor from one of our allies, and finds himself having to explain why such terms are stenciled on doors and bandied about on official letterhead. It certainly doesn’t send the message that all the brainpower we’ve gathered together under this roof is being applied in the most productive manner, does it?
To impose a little order on all of this creative chaos, and to ensure that none of the taxpayers’ money is wasted as the result of inefficient communications, I’m putting into place a new Policy on Official Jargon and Acronym Coinage. You’ll find full details and procedures in the attached PowerPoint deck, which I encourage you all to peruse at your leisure. Existing acronyms, where widely adopted, can of course be “grandfathered in,” but those of you seeking to add new terms to DODO’s specialized lexicon will need to abide by the procedures spelled out in the deck.
Exchange of posts between Dr. Melisande Stokes
and LTC Tristan Lyons on private ODIN channel
AFTERNOON AND EVENING, DAY 623
Post from Dr. Stokes:
Re: POOJAC (Policy on Official Jargon etc. . . .)
Tristan—do you want to break the news to her, or should I?
Reply from LTC Lyons:
Stokes, I know. Everyone’s talking about it. Shut up. The first one who calls it POOJAC to her face is going to come off either as a malcontent or a snitch. If it’s the former, you’re going to end up on a PEP.
From Dr. Stokes:
PEP?
From LTC Lyons:
Try to keep up, Stokes. PEP = Performance Enhancement Plan. It’s what you get assigned to when you are in trouble.
From Dr. Stokes:
First I’ve heard of it. Has “PEP” gone through POOJAC?
From LTC Lyons:
What you’re not getting is that THIS IS ALL PUBLIC. It doesn’t matter how secure the Shiny Hat operating system is, Stokes, when the subpoena comes through from the Inspector General, all of what you’re writing ends up in public.
From Dr. Stokes:
Just making an observation.
Post by Macy Stoll, Head of C/COD,
on “General” ODIN channel
DAY 623
All, there seems to be some confusion brewing in the wake of my memorandum concerning the Policy on Official Jargon and Acronym Coinage. While I am aware that the letters spell out POOJAC (a nonsense word—don’t waste your time Googling it!), this is not an approved substitute for the full name of the aforementioned Policy. Remember, the entire point of the Policy is to establish an approved procedure for coining new terminology, and so to refer to the Policy as POOJAC is in and of itself a violation of the Policy.
You can easily spell out the full name of the Policy, or copy-paste if you are in that much of a hurry.
I realize that it’s something of a mouthful to use in conversation. Around the office, we have taken to calling it the Jargon and Acronym Policy, and I encourage the rest of you to follow suit.
Follow-up from Stoll, two hours later:
In the wake of a very respectful and sensitive exchange of feelings with Dr. Oda, I would like to amend the above to “Acronym and Jargon Policy.” Please refer to DODO’s Diversity Policy for more on these matters, which we take extremely seriously.
Follow-up from Stoll, one hour later:
I have been made aware that our Diversity Policy is still being drafted. I assumed we had one in place already, but the unusual operational environment of DODO apparently makes it more complicated. In the meantime let’s all just use common sense, please.
AFTER ACTION REPORT
DEBRIEFER: Dr. Melisande Stokes
DOER: Chira Yasin Lajani
THEATER: Constantinople
OPERATION: Antwerp witch recruitment
DEDE: Obtain/secure viable kalonji seeds for later p/u
DTAP: Blachernae Palace, Constantinople, August 1202
STRAND: Fourth and last repetition of this DEDE
Note: Will avoid undue repetition of physical details, etc. from previous three Strands.
Erszebet Sent Chira via ODEC #2 at 11:15 of Day 626, without incident.
Chira materialized in the unlit brick bathhouse of the women’s apartments of Blachernae Palace. We had already confirmed a witch in Blachernae on previous Strands: Basina, illegitimate granddaughter of Empress Irene (née Bertha).
Chira arrived in the dark hours of the morning but moonlight shone in to give illumination to the room. (She has drawn detailed diagram of bathhouse, scanned and converted to 3-D renderings; refer to DORC Cartographic and Architectural Database.) General setting: large striated-brick hall with marble baths heated from below, running water available via lead pipes.
From prep research combined with past Strand experience, she knew that for efficiency in plumbing, the laundry was beside the bathhouses, and a connecting room between the two held cabinets with clean shmatas/drab shifts to be worn by women working in either chamber. After waiting in the shadows to ensure that the coast was clear, she moved quietly to this cabinet and donned one; it would pass as a servant’s nightdress.