Allow me to introduce you to two of my colleagues at my new job, Data Girl and Flow Chart. What I didn't know when I got the position was that there would be three of me. Well, three external contractors brought in to do the same job work together towards a common goal.
Data Girl is so named because she is the one tasked with presenting the data to the various managers involved in the project. Data Girl believes in providing management with ALL the data they asked for. Raw. When asked to sum it up and provide even very simple analysis, her response is always the same: but I gave you the data. It's all there. She keeps explaining to management that if they want to calculate percentages or tabulate responses, it's very easy.
Data Girl is actually a very nice person, but that's not funny, so let's not dwell on it.
Flow Chart is so named because, well... He keeps offering to prepare flow charts for everybody detailing the steps they need to take, may want to consider taking, or have already taken. These flow charts resemble extremely complex Snakes and Ladders games. You start off in a completely unintuitive spot and then proceed to go in the most random of directions. They typically involve as many bright colours as he can think of, as well as numerous different textures, fonts, shapes, and sizes. There is no rhyme or reason to his flow charts. They simply do not flow. Also, flow charts are for losers (or as my father would say: loosers).
Moreover, Flow Chart is a Random capitaliser. This gives us what I shall hereby Dub 'business Analysts' capitalisation', which is similar to the notion of greengrocers' apostrophes (or as Terry Pratchett calls them: greengrocer's apos'trophes). Now I kind of like the Terry Pratchett approach of slapping an upper case letter on words that have taken on a life of their own and become semi-conscious, thus (arguably) justifying the conversion into proper name, such as Foul Ole Ron's Smell. This however, is not that. This is Merely the slapping On of a capital letter At the Beginning of whatever words happen to strike His fancy. It makes me violent.
Flow Chart may or may not be a nice person outside of the above. I'm not sure. I do know that he is frequently absent from or late to conference calls because he needs to: a) put money in the parking meter, b) move his car, or c) bail his car out of automotive jail. He lives in a major city, which I'm pretty sure has a public transit system. The company's offices are right downtown, thus making parking difficult and expensive (not to mention the cost of having one's car towed). I don't understand the reluctance, nay, refusal to take public transit. But then, I don't understand most of what this guy does. And yet apparently we share a job.
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