The production translation lexicon

It turns out I had a blog post sitting in my saved folder for over a year - so rather than having to come up with new content, I'll post whatever drivel I was planning at the time!  Begin:

Hello loyal readers (interns I pay to read my blog - and Mom)!

As we were closing out the last minute polish items for E3, it occurred to me that a lot of the members of the team might not be aware of the translation of certain key phrases producers tend to use.  Other producers -or at least producers who attend the mandated, and grueling, industry-wide yearly production month training in Cancun - are taught these techniques during a rigorous break-out session called "Manipulation and Margaritas: Techniques to break your team's spirit - also Margaritas."  With the myriad of JabroniReport knock-off blogs now nipping at my heals, I figured that leaking our secret language would be a great way to get some cheap page views.  With that said, here's some translations for phrases you will often hear your producer say:

• Producer Speak - "No pressure.  I just wanted to see where you were at with this task.  I don't care when it gets done.  I trust you'll get it to me when it is ready."  Translation: "Seriously, dude, you've got like 20 minutes to finish, or we probably will have to cancel the game.  I have one hundred and one puppies in my office, and for every minute you are late, I'm going to bring one to your desk and murder it."
• Producer Speak - "You are doing great!"  Translation: "See that intern behind you.  I'm literally measuring your desk every time you step away to make sure he will be comfortable at it."
• Producer Speak - "I'll take care of it." Translation: "There's probably a 75% chance that the universe will magically make whatever you need happen, and if not, I plan on blaming the fact that it didn't get done on an intern anyway."
• Producer Speak - "I like this diet Dr. Pepper a lot." Translation: "I like the four shots of rum in this diet Dr. Pepper a lot."
• Producer Speak - "That is an awesome idea!  Let me check with marketing."  Translation - "That was literally the worst idea I've ever heard, but I want to gather some friends around so we can all make fun of it together."
• Producer Speak - "How about breaking the job up so it'll fit to run on the SPUs?"  Translation - "I spent two weeks memorizing one single phrase so it kind of looks like I know programming, but I actually utter these words anytime I speak to a programmer on any topic.  That said, I seem to have a 92% success rate at solving technical issues because of this."
• Producer Speak - "Look, I know it seems like a menial task, but localization really is important."  translation - "Given that you just cleaned my car, I literally can't think of anything else I can possibly ask you to do that is important, so just do this, ok?"
• Producer Speak - "According to the schedule, we won't need this done for two weeks." Translation - "Look, let's stop playing games - We both know I never made a schedule, so if you just keep your mouth shut about that, I'll assign your task to someone else and we'll go our separate ways."
• Producer speak - "That's awesome - it reminds me of one of the key features that made World of Warcraft so successful."  Translation -"I'm going to kill whatever feature you just showed me because you kept me from logging in and doing my WOW dailies."
• Producer speak - "We're switching to scrum." Translation - "I just read a book on scrum, and even though everything is going smoothly with our current project methadology, I refuse to have read such a boring book and have it go to waste...so much so that I'm willing to sink this whole thing just so I didn't waste my time."
• Producer speak - "I'm in a good mood today!"  Translation - "Every day of my life reminds me of how much I hate every single one of you.  Today, at least, is one step closer to my death, and thus one step closer to a reprieve from having to speak to any of you."
• Producer speak - "Definitely a lesson learned.  Make sure you put that on the post-mortem!"  Translation - "I've forgotten what we are talking about already, so I'm hopeful that by the time we do a post-mortem, you too will have forgotten."