For a couple of weeks or so, I’ve been experiencing <sarcasm> the pleasure </sarcasm> of acquainting myself with a new system monitoring software called Foglight. Being familiar with Patrol, a much more superior product than Foglight from a system administrator’s point a view, it’s depressing to play with Foglight. Hence, the following greetings between me and my boss the last time I met him:

Me: Hi.
Boss: Hey, how are you doing?
Me: Getting depressed.
Boss: Playing with Foglight?

Anyways. I was told I’m going into it with a wrong attitude because I was already completely turned off  by Foglight the instant I saw the term “cartridge” being used as one of its architectural components. For all intents and purposes, their cartridges are equivalent to software modules. The term “module” is not good enough for them so they had to create a whole another definition for another word?

You know, that’s exactly the reason I didn’t like Starbucks when I walked in to Starbucks for the first time to get a coffee long long time ago. I asked for a medium coffee. And this guy who was taking my order had the audacity to say in a derisive tone, “We don’t have medium. It’s called, tall, grande and venti.” I stood there speechless, dumbfounded. Finally I answered, glaring at him, “I don’t give a shit what YOU call it. I want a MEDIUM coffee. In case you don’t know, it’s the size in the middle, between the smallest cup and largest cup you have.”

Believe it or not, I had to go through this again and again when Starbucks first came to NYC (after the third time I just stopped going there), and my friends used to complain about the same thing. What? Small, medium and large not good enough for them? Why do I have to learn a whole new vocabulary to order a fucking coffee? Arrogant fucking asses. Fortunately, I was told this practice of correcting the customers stopped pretty quickly.

I don’t know why using unconventional words for conventional things is supposed to appeal to the decision makers on things like this. I wonder if it appeals to majority of consumers. Am I in the minority? Do people really like this bullshit? Is it supposed to be cute?