Happy Path

What the Hell are You Saying?

I could never differentiate between language that was FinTech specific, bank specific and project management specific. My job as PCO for an IT group of ABM nerds made me recall how I read The Picture of Dorian Grey when I was in grade 11. That book was a language revelation and I read it with a companion piece—the pocket dictionary. I was working at the Vancouver Aquarium as part of a co-op placement (totally different story called HOW I THOUGHT I WANTED TO STUDY MARINE BIOLOGY) and my long commute and solitary lunch hours in Stanley Park ensured I stuck with it and grew my language prowess. At The Bank, I read project proposals with a companion piece—The Bank Acronym List. I learned to talk the talk to a certain extent, but the day I walked out the IT&S doors for the last time, my brain issued a purge order and I've mostly forgotten the terminology. In the context of the bank and my department, a few gems stuck out.

KILL MATRIX - A mechanism that prevents a customer from being exposed to a campaign via more than one channel. That means that if you're at the ABM and you're offered a Visa card, and you decline, you won't be offered the same Visa card when you log onto online banking at home two days later. If I ever start a heavy metal band, this will be its name.

HAPPY PATH – The designed scenario in programming. If a program is tested and it works as designed, it has followed the happy path. Also the ironic and bittersweet name of my fish out of water story where I'm on a journey to find my true path to happiness and fulfillment. HA! I really just thought it was kind of poetic and a better title than FRAUD.

UNHAPPY PATH – When a program doesn't work as designed and you hack the desired outcome. Also see my first marriage.

WHITE LISTING – A security feature whereby certain addresses are cleared to access a server or program or other IT application. I like to use it as a stamp of approval – That hot guy over there is white listed!

TIVOLI – I think this was actually specific to the ABM workflow at The Bank. It's a program used to deliver new software. But to me, it's short for Tivoli Gardens, a lovely old amusement park in Copenhagen where I got severe food poisoning when I worked on cruise ships.

ANAL – Shortened form of ANALYST used on internal job postings. Some things should never be abbreviated.

"O" CLOCK – An endemic pronunciation at The Bank. "My meeting starts at one O clock." As opposed to "one UH clock". It was cross-cultural and widely used, so I never figured out its origins. Whenever I heard this formal-sounding usage, I'd cock my head to the side like a dog hearing an unfamiliar sound.

IST – Integrated System Testing. Once code has been written, it needs to be tested for bugs. In my IT experience, that meant testers would stand at an ABM, exercising various scenarios and recording the outcome. When someone says "IST" with a Polish accent, it sounds like "iced tea".

SHOW STOPPER – This is a problem so egregious, it will stop production in its tracks. The first time I heard this, I thought Finally! A familiar term. But of course it means exactly the opposite of the show biz version, which refers to an awesome event.

AUTOMAGICAL – an action done without the user perceiving or understanding the effort behind it. This is an IT word, but has much broader applications and I've happily adopted it as part of my vernacular.

MOL – I came across this term while looking up something else on the acronym list. I was excited to see what my oft-used nickname meant! Here's the definition: Mol, the SI unit symbol for the base unit measuring the amount of substance. The symbol for the latter is n. Do you see? Do you see how FinTech sucks all the fun out of everything??? I reread this definition a number of times to try and understand what it meant. Then I scrolled down to "SI", which had seven definitions, so at that point I gave up.

IDENTITY MANAGER – This is a system used by HR to search for resources. But I think it also sounds like a giant spinning wheel the FBI would employ to give someone in the witness protection program a new identity.

BIG BANG – A change in code that happens all at once. Means there is no pilot. It's all or nothing. The opposite is a controlled release.

SMURFING – see chapter on compliance testing

MATRIX – used as a verb to mean flow into order. To me, "matrix" will always be where Neo met Trinity. In my opinion, "matrix" should never be a verb!

PETARDOS – roughly means "firework" in Spanish. ABM screens are translated into several languages in Canada. Occasionally, a team member will catch a mistake made by the company hired to perform the translations. One such mistake still makes me giggle when I think about it. The English word "item" had been mistranslated into Spanish as "petardos". This is mildly amusing. But when you actually start replacing the word as it would appear to a Spanish-speaking person? Please place all your FIREWORKS in the envelope provided. Please list all FIREWORKS included in your deposit. The FIREWORK has been rejected. Now that's comedy.