What's in a name ?

Someone noticed the reference to the Pretty Contractor Lady which I snuck into yesterday's post :-).

So I thought - I've used a lot of codenames for people over the years, let's give some of them a mention again. Almost all of them have been awesome friends and colleagues over the years, they deserve their mention again.

So - Pretty Contractor Lady ! Name born out of lack of inspiration for describing this awesome lady. She's one of the acceptance girls who worked over at our Prime Contractor's place. My last project had 6 major milestones. Massive milestones. This lady was instrumental in getting the acceptance work done which saw us through not 1 but 5 of those major milestones. Not just a pretty face but a consummate professional who stuck at it producing high quality work despite us not being the best behaved customer at times.

And she was helped out by Ms Warpath (don't make her angry! nah - she's great and that's not a particularly apt name) and the Scottish Go To Girls (definitely an apt name). We've been blessed with having outstanding people on the project and it's a shame they're gradually bleeding away to the Next Big Thing.

Back home we have the Apprentice, who is so much more than that. She got the name Apprentice because when she joined us, I was trying to pass on as much information and process as I could in a very short time before I got redeployed. And she keeps the boys on the job like a boss too.

There's another name - The Boss never had staff. (We occasionally think of staff as an infection, to be avoided wherever possible). But her empathy had everyone coming for advice. Why "The Boss" ? Cos she told the team leader what he was doing every day. The Team Leader was God. And The Boss was the one telling God what he was doing. There's also "Actual Boss" too.

And now I've mentioned the old team ...

Snow Queen ! That name came from how enchanting she was at one of the Xmas parties. At the same time, there were ads for an adaptation where the Snow Queen steals the heart of the bell boy. I actually feel a bit bad about this one because the Snow Queen adaptation was nigh on unwatchable with the core character being narcissistic and evil, which is the complete opposite of our Snow Queen. We had to leave her behind when our team got rearranged and we miss her terribly. Not just for her indomitable character (yes that's you ! you've just forgotten !) but she's another one who is a consummate professional. There's the wrong way, the right way and the perfect SQ way.

And she worked with :
Ms Sunshine - who would walk into a room with a round face framed by sun yellow blonde hair, it would be like the sun walking in and making everything brighter.
Wild Thing - who made a daft comment during one of the team moves which got picked up on by me and Diablo. And yes, the natural unconscious grace she possesses could have turned our bones to water (line nicked from which book ?)
Diablo ? We had a double act going. Both techies, both a little nuts. His nuttiness has been worn off a bit too much by promotion. Anyway, we had pictures on our "who are we?" tallies. Mine was an angel smiley, his was a demon smiley. The demon smiley got spotted by the French teacher consultant we had and El Diablo was born.

We still have the Finance Angels working for us. There's two of these, both utterly charming (and angelic). The original name got coined because Angel E is one of those people who is unfazed by anything. She was very hard to tease because it just didn't register. She's one of those beautiful people who can't recognise badness. But, again, it's not how they are which earns the respect, it's their professionalism.

Noticing a theme there ? We've been blessed with the services of some highly professional and highly skilled people. It's that which gets the respect, not the looks. In fact, something I've observed over many years is that the ladies who have the looks tend to spoil their own image by being hostile and unfriendly.

There's a bunch of other names that appear here, most of which are chosen by other people. Names like Craziequeen, Cyberkitten, Aginoth, BionicDwarf, Ravenwolf, RCA. All fantastic friends (ok, one on that list isn't a friend of us any more but she was!)

Oh ! I almost forgot a few others.

The Little Canteen Girl was great fun while she was here. She's now disappeared to have kiddies so isn't around to sneak extra turkey into my sandwiches.
There were the Axe Girls who tormented me and Diablo when they walked past our desks on their way home. Imagine a pair of meerkats popping up and us both going sigh.
Superspy - cos his name matched someone in the movies. He's retired now. I spotted him ages ago and he looked the same but lighter, freer, healthier.
Miss F - who listened when I needed a friend to sort out some threads that were getting heavily knotted in my head.
Miss L - who gave me an example that I needed to pull myself out of a deep hole.
Bright Young Thing - who had me utterly besotted at one point but who disappeared out of my life with no thread to follow.

There's far more people out there who have earned a mention - I tend to struggle for inspiration though. The thing with a codename is that it has to be usable. It has to be positive. It has to be something that doesn't get me sued or sacked for discrimination. That's another reason I'm uncomfortable with one or two of them ... Partly cos one reminds me of one of my nicknames over the years:

Snowman - yep. I had dandruff ;-)
Alisha's Addict - used this for a while, it was a joke on me finding everything I could that was produced by Alisha's Attic
Sleepypete - to distinguish me from the other Pete in the gaming group. I got off lightly, he was PGS or Power Gaming Scumbag :-)
Keela - after my Eve character, it came from a randomly made D&D character which I liked.
Ice or Iceangel - after my Warcraft character

And - last but definitely not least - I am Dwagon Guy.