A duck? A canary? withing your documents or coding

Hi guys,


When you leave something in a document, purely so your boss can pick it out (and feel like he/she has contributed to the final product; when in actual fact they would otherwise have gotten in the way.)
Does this have a name?

I feel like its called "a duck" or something like that?

Now that I think about it a bit more it might be a "canary", my remember is making think to the Tom Clancy books.


Anyways, does anyone know what I'm talking about? what's the terminology.


Cheers,
Jimmy

Originally Posted by MarvinP

Hey Jimmy,

In the US we might say you "Threw him a bone". As in a dog who is hungry for praise but does little you say "Throw him a bone".

Yeah that's true.. but doesn't have the same finesse as what i'm think of :p
Good try though.

Originally Posted by MarvinP

It is tough to know what you are thinking

Yeha, sorry. I'm not making it easy for anyone!

Originally Posted by MarvinP

Formula = Formular
Meter = Metre

Aussie Aussie Aussie OI OI OI!
I'm Australian, so "Meter", but I don't think it's an Australian thing.

All good attempts. but I feel like the "Throw him a bone" is the closer to the what I'm thinking.

however I feel like what I'm looking for could also describe the situation where you "write a report, and someone else is someone is suppose to check; so you write a line of gibberish in the middle of it, just to test to see if they actually read it or not."

It might have just been a term that Tom Clancy made up? Or maybe my imagination is getting the best of me?

Cheers all,
Jimmy

.
I never did that to anyone. However, had one boss who did it to me. He was manipulative, overbearing, controlling and full of (you know what). If you weren't absolutely perfect, in his eyes you were less than dog poo.

Needless to say, never liked him and my tenure there was a short 8 months. Left on my own accord. It was a very good decision on my part.

As for the term you are seeking :

"A given" as in 'If you miss this you're dumber than a rock.'

"A cherry" 'It's so obvious you certainly can't miss this.'


I agree with Marvin ... the person who does it is usually considered a 'kiss ****' .... but if you worked for someone like I did (above) it might just be self preservation. "Boss do you mind reviewing this for me. I think I've missed
something but can't see it. ..................... Good gawd you are good ! Can't believe I missed that ! Thank you SO MUCH !!!"

My 2 cents.

"EASTER EGG" - I think we have a winner!
Honorable mentions to:
"Bug Seeding"
"Digital Graffiti"
"A cherry"

Ohhh, I see what you guys are saying about the "butt-kisser"; I think you have it all wrong.
I haven't done it, but my logic was more along the lines of "you work with someone incompetent, they always want's to throw in their 2 cents in." So even if you make something perfect, they'll nit pick and do something to wreck it. So you put in something silly for them to catch, so that they can feel like they've accomplished something while simultaneously distracting them from doing any actual harm. I think there was an episode on Dilbert about this.


Cheers all,
Jimmy

Keeping with the bird theme, you could use Cuckoo, as that's exactly what they do - drop an egg into someone else's nest (report) and leave them to sort it out.

Hope this helps.

Pete