26 lines
3.4 KiB
HTML
26 lines
3.4 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>droid</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../D.html" title="D"/><link rel="previous" href="driver.html" title="driver"/><link rel="next" href="drone.html" title="drone"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">droid</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="driver.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">D</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="drone.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="droid"/><dt xmlns="" id="droid"><b>droid</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [from <span class="firstterm">android</span>, SF terminology
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for a humanoid robot of essentially biological (as opposed to
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mechanical/electronic) construction] A person (esp. a low-level bureaucrat
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or service-business employee) exhibiting most of the following
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characteristics: (a) naive trust in the wisdom of the parent organization
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or ‘the system’; (b) a blind-faith propensity to believe
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obvious nonsense emitted by authority figures (or computers!); (c) a
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rule-governed mentality, one unwilling or unable to look beyond the
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‘letter of the law’ in exceptional situations; (d) a paralyzing
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fear of official reprimand or worse if Procedures are not followed No
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Matter What; and (e) no interest in doing anything above or beyond the call
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of a very narrowly-interpreted duty, or in particular in fixing that which
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is broken; an “<span class="quote">It's not my job, man</span>” attitude.</p><p>Typical droid positions include supermarket checkout assistant and
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bank clerk; the syndrome is also endemic in low-level government employees.
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The implication is that the rules and official procedures constitute
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software that the droid is executing; problems arise when the software has
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not been properly debugged. The term <span class="firstterm">droid
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mentality</span> is also used to describe the mindset behind this
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behavior. Compare <a href="../S/suit.html"><i class="glossterm">suit</i></a>,
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<a href="../M/marketroid.html"><i class="glossterm">marketroid</i></a>; see <a href="../O/suffix-oid.html"><i class="glossterm">-oid</i></a>.</p><p>In England there is equivalent mainstream slang; a
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‘jobsworth’ is an obstructive, rule-following bureaucrat, often
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of the uniformed or suited variety. Named for the habit of denying a
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reasonable request by sucking his teeth and saying “<span class="quote">Oh no, guv, sorry
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I can't help you: that's more than my job's worth</span>”.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="driver.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../D.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="drone.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">driver </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> drone</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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