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Hit By a Bus

Higher class of corporate denizens absolutely love metaphors, buzzwords and doublespeak. Corporate conversations are sometimes a bit similar to the way that Mr. Helpmann speaks in the movie Brazil:

Bad sportsmanship. A ruthless minority of people seem to have forgotten good old-fashioned virtues. They just can’t stand seeing the other fellow win. If these people would just play the game… ”

We’re fielding all their strokes, running a lot of them out, and pretty consistently knocking them for six. I’d say they’re nearly out of the game.”

All I can say is don’t fall at the last fence. The finishing post’s in sight. See you in the paddock… keep your eye on the ball. ”

Although Mr. Helpmann only uses sports metaphors, they usually come in a much wider variety as chronicled at jennypeters.com.

For some reason, public transportation in a form of a bus became a symbol of “quick corporate death” as in “you need to document this project for the “hit by a bus scenario”” or “what if Joe gets hit by a bus tomorrow?”. There’s even an expression “bus number” - a number of key people in a company.

Yesterday I’ve encountered the actual “hit by a bus” scenario:

Apparently some old lady got run over by an MTA bus and lost a leg. My favorite cop quote from the incident - “Hey, you better get onto the sidewalk, especially in light of what happened here.”

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Sun, 02/12/2006 - 04:01 — Anonymous

advertisement heaven

Tue, 02/14/2006 - 10:25 — Michael F. (not verified)

Brazil is my dad’s favorite movie—and you picked the best quote from it!

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What's All this Then?

My name is Michael Krakovskiy, and this is my blog.

Here’s what you might find interesting:
100 Views of the Empire State Building project: I try to take 100 interesting photos of Manhattan’s (sadly) tallest building.

My Gastronomic Adventures: I eat weird food - from 13 year old New Coke to Durian and parasitic fungi.

My attempts to grow exotic plants: pineapples, coconuts, etc.

My photos, mostly of New York City.

My musings about architecture mostly illustrated with my own photos. Would you like to learn about a mental patient who died at 103 who served as a model for some very famous sculptures? How about Brooklyn’s ugliest building? How about a wooden skyscraper?

I find myself frequently writing about logos. The most popular article I ever wrote is about the redesigns of the Starbucks logo.

I wrote a series of “Best Sci-Fi You Haven’t Read” posts:

Psywarrior
Yes, Virginia There Is Synergy
Call Time Police - We’ve Got a Time Traveler

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