Shoot from the hip.

[CarlPugh]

What is your opinion about using the expression "Shoot from the hip"
One of the postings in this forum used the expression "Shoot from the hip".
I once used this expression to a legal type person and he exploded. He was in the process of taking me to the company president before I calmed him down.
To me it means that there is a minor problem and you made a quick decision that could be incorrect, but it was better to make the decision and be incorrect than use the time to research the problem and find the correct answer.

 

[TFL]

perfectly reasonable saying to me. what was his problem?

 

[TheTick]

Problem #1 probably was his being a "legal type person". Gives a whole new purpose to shooting from the hip.

Anyhow, sounds like your definition is in line with the reasonable portion of the general populace.

Decisions are clean cuts, often easier to repair than the nasty tear left by indecision and inaction.

Most engineering work cultures I have worked in are pretty understandig about this. Mistakes can be readily forgiven if one shows due diligence in getting as much information as possible beforehand.

I could be the world's greatest underachiever, if I could just learn to apply myself.

http://www.EsoxRepublic.com

-SolidWorks API VB programming help

 

[IRstuff]

The allusion is to gun fighters, who, in order to minimize time to first shot, would fire the gun just barely out of the holster, e.g., from the hip.

TTFN

 

[GregLocock]

I suspect the legal bod was taking the expression as meaning that you thought insufficient work had gone into the decision.

Do you really get dragged into the principal's office? How amusing.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[unclesyd]

Rewrite IRstuff's post and substitute brain for gun. The problem with this approach to gun fighting is you usually shoot yourself in the foot and have to stick it in your mouth to try to stop the bleeding.

I don’t think that there is a single definition only few very good ones.

This could happen when shooter makes a suggestion that is coming from left field. The origin is normally a sycophant trying to get the first suggestion tabled. It will usually be followed later on when someone tables a viable approach and you will hear the words “That is kinda what I was trying to get across or that’s in line with what I was thinking.” Then continue to make off the wall comments while talking directly to chair.

In a breakdown situation when you are awaiting someone’s appearance with the a report on the current situation and when they walk in and state the agitator shaft is in two pieces, up pops our shooter with the suggestion that we ought to make it out of stainless. Again not a clue about the specific equipment or the mechanics of an agitator.


The shooter is also the late arrival who has to have half the minutes repeated then start offering suggestions, most of which have absolutely no relevance or merit. Again, once a viable suggestion is tabled they would chime in again with technobabble just to get the floor while contributing absolutely nothing to a resolution of the current problem.

You can usually tell a shooter by the fact that they tend to forget a statement made 10 minutes ago or keep trying to inject a revised form of the same suggestion at every opportunity. You could usually get them off track by asking “Do you have anything to back that up?” If the questions would get very binding they would work very hard to find an exit strategy, either the question or the meeting.

Another way to spot one is when you develop a plan and a sequence of events to make it happen and when they join the discussion it is usually with a suggestion of a change in the sequence or timing of the events that had been decided on to resolve the problem.

A prima fascia case was one very good machinist that attended the meetings we would have on problems with mechanical equipment and involved the machine shop. The big team. We would present the circumstances surrounding the failure and the laboratory report for informational purposes and he would be the first to speak while everyone else was try to digest the information presented, “ If we would make that out of cold rolled we wouldn’t be having this trouble”. If there was anyone new attending they would want to know more about this and the meeting was off on a tangent. His argument for using cold roll was that in his father’s machine shop they made everything out of cold rolled, especially for all the pulp wood trucks. Several people tried to get him dis-invited , but to no avail as was the shop’s head represenetive.
Being somewhat sneaky I made a couple of trips by the paper mill and every time I would see a pulpwood truck on the side of the road with the cones out I would take a picture. When I had about ten pictures I was ready. The very next meeting up jumped the cold rolled problem and I immediately dropped the pictures on the table with the statement “Eddie if cold rolled steel is so good why are all these trucks broken down on the side of the road”. Later on I explained to him that he should stick to the machining aspects and leave the material problems to the engineering group. I always had some pictures, any kind, in my papers at the meetings and made sure he saw them.

 

[IRstuff]

Actually, the professional quick draw artists of the modern day are remarkably accurate and the guns are usually barely inches out of the holster when fired.

TTFN

 

[DRC1]

My Grandfather used to shoot from the hip occassionly when he was hunting pheasent. Rarely missed.
So these three guys go duck hunting. The First is a design engineer, The second is an enviornmental engineer, the third is a contractor. The first ducks come over the blind and it is the consultants turn. He starts checking the wind speed, estimating their approach velocity and.. then they are gone. The second flight comes over. The enviornmental engineer strains to check the outline to be sure it is a duck and not a protected speices, checks it aginst the hunting guide to be sure, and.. they are gone. The third flight comes over and.. BAM BAM - a bird falls. The contractor turns to his companions and says.. "What do you know, its a duck!"

 

[25362]

Unclesyd's expert is called, according to my dictionary, an ultracrepidarian.

 

[unclesyd]

If you are not a member or an unrecognized practitioner here is the mother organization. You are also welcome to nominate someone for membership. It would be nice to have gift memberships to pass out at the appropriate time.

http://ultracrepidarian.org/

 

[LHA]

Carl:
One possible reason the lawyer was offended was that the lawyer misread an implication of a sexual connotation in the phrase. If he or she had never heard that expression before, and is not a gun fighter or hunter, it takes on a different meanting. Just a thought.

Remember: The Chinese ideogram for “crisis” is comprised of the characters for “danger” and “opportunity.”
-Steve

 

[IRstuff]

TOO MUCH BAD GRAPHICS ;-)

Someone who has a non-leg appendage growing out of their hip has other problems.


TTFN

 

[HgTX]

Or maybe they're just oversensitive about violence in the workplace...?

Hg

(I went to one o' them violence in the workplace classes, but it turned out not to be a "how-to"...)

Eng-Tips guidelines: faq731-376

 

[Comcokid]

People who shoot-from-the-hip too often get the reputation of being a "loose cannon"!

 

[Slugger926]

Or maybe they're just oversensitive about violence in the workplace...?

Hg
-----------------------------------------

Yeah. Some companies in the past during cutback and layoff periods had the legal and HR people looking out for any king of other terminology that could mean violence rather than the true meaning. They used this to fire the people rather than give them severance packages. They also had the county sheriff's waiting on them at the door to be booked downtown as soon as the firing was over.

Some people would comment about that dept. just blew up when everyone in that whole dept. was laid off. Then the person making the comment was fired and arrested.

 

[IRstuff]

And any half-way decent lawyer will take the employer to the cleaners; which is probably why you don't hear about people doing that now.

TTFN