I got my “Annual Resident Listing” form from the City of Boston today. It already lists my correct name, date of birth, gender, and voter registration status. Then it has, in a column headed “Occupation”
SFTWRE DVLPR
I think they were going for Software Developer. Ironically, if they’d hired me, they wouldn’t have had this little problem with over-eager abbreviating.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Maybe vowels cost too much:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/wheel_of_fortune
Or Boston needs a vowel stimulus:
http://ifaq.wap.org/society/voweldeployment.html
But clearly a visit from Sarah Vowell is what Boston really needs:
http://www.barclayagency.com/vowell.html
HOWEVER, if the occupation description field/column is limited to 12 characters, how would you modify the sftwre to store the unabbreviated name? I suggest PROGRAMMER, or my favorite ELECTRON WRA.