Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Programmatic Potpourri!

A friend of the blog sent along the following very serious but also very funny excerpt from a Acquisition Program document.

People wonder where I got the idea for the subtitle of this blog from ....

Sometimes you have to wonder if we just hit the "Enter" button in a random word generator to create this stuff - or just pick a scattering of FITREP bullets; same thing.

People write, read, and make policy based on this every day. It explains a lot.


BEHOLD!

"Integrate force projection, employment and sustainment in order to eliminate unnecessary redundancies, reduce friction, stimulate synergy, and enhance the effectiveness, efficiency, and economy of operations."
Someone Please diagram that sentence for me.

Hat tip J.

11 comments:

LT B said...

Whoever put that $h!t out needs a Three Stooges smack and eye ball *doink* to bring them back to reality.  If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull$h!t.  Remember your writing classes kiddies; write in active voice, be precise and brevity counts.  I always hated the teachers that said, "at least a 1000 words."  President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was about 3 minutes long while the orator blathered on for 3 hours.  Which stood the test of time?

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

Are you looking to add to the "proactively from the sea..." tag line?

kmadams85 said...

Simpler translation:  "Do stuff together to make it better."

The best part: "eliminate unnecessary redundancies" - being simultaneously a redundant statement and implying that there are "necessary redundancies"

SJBill said...

<span>I won't ask how they intend to "reduce friction" or "stimulate energy" in today's Navy. </span>
<span>
Will cut them some slack since since there was no mention of Green Jobs, Climate Change or Diversity.</span>

G-man said...

Wouldn't you love to read this person's fitrep input?  I'm betting they weren't an EE or aero major.

"The Elements of Style" by Strunk & White was prominently displayed - and used - on the desks of the NavSea front office years ago.  We need to get back to that kind of ccommunication.

The Usual Suspect said...

Sorry Sal, won't be able to help you with this one; it caused a fatal error with my sentence diagramming program.  Something about a logic error.

LT B said...

My grad school prof had a Mark Twain quote over his computer monitor...


Eschew Surplusage

Feel free to embrace that.

ewok40k said...

This reminded me of the diplomatic lingo featured by Asimov in the Foundation, that filtered of non-usefuls meant exactly nothing...

MaryR said...

HAHAHA!

Acquisition Specialist said...

Acquisition is a different animal.  The folks at DAU live for this.  It amazes me how we need 14 volumes to answer a RFP and then thousands of pages of ICD, CDD, CPD, APB, AS, CCA, PPP, PESHE, SEP, PDR, CDR, EA, CCP, CARD, IAS, ISP, TEMP, IMS, and numerous POA&Ms to describe all of this work to accomplish what the civilians do on one sheet of paper, "Deliver (22) of X by (this date) for (this much$).  Signed, (Date)"

LT B said...

NASA would argue there are necessary redundancies.  Now, in paperwork?  No!  But there are safety redundancies for a reason.  Hell, look at how many freaking safety mechanisms the M9 has.