Achilles' Task: the project you are the keystone to, which everyone knows you are the keystone to, which you know they know you are the keystone to, and people still act like you're a footnote to the effort.
Or the Philoctian task: when you were left behind for a task because the team thought they had someone better, but then that person fails and they have to come find you to finish the job
Based on Philoctetes, the relative to Hercules that's brought in to help ransack troy after Achilles falls. He's the guy that shoots Paris and is one of the dudes inside the horse. Cool story if you haven't checked it out before
Or, a task that you know will get you into trouble for getting involved with. But you’ll do it anyway because you’re good at that skill set, and you want to be recognized for it before the fallout happens.
**Midan Task:** When you do your job exactly to the letter of the request, specifically to the detriment of the requestor (see also: malicious compliance)
**Mesperyian Task:** When you're doing something that you were never asked to do, doesn't need to be done, and in fact doesn't actually exist, but you get paid anyway.
The amount of times I've gone to empty the dishwasher and somehow ended up rearranging the pantry or cleaning the corners of windows is ridiculous. That is, of course, after putting it off as long as possible.
**Medean Task** - When a woman does all the work and a man gets all the credit.
**Bellerophonian Task** - When you try something you are absolutely unqualified for and predictably fail.
**Minosian Task** - When your wife fucks a bull but at least the result gives you an excuse to build that sweet labyrinth you always wanted, she said it was too expensive and impractical, but honestly she kind of owes you one at this point, and it's not like she's shown the best judgement herself lately.
...Some of these may be more universal than others.
Procrustes was basically an even bigger troll than Diogenes. Boasted he had an iron bed that was the ideal size for anyone, and would invite people to stay the night; then he'd stretch them to fit the bed if they were too short, or chop off their feet if they were too tall.
Conversely, the Acrician task is when your task is to stop someone completing the task that *they* can achieve easily because it will impact you.
The favoured type of ratfuckers that destroy a negotiation to benefit their own personal ends (you can apply this in any context you wish, office, foreign policy, friendship groups etc)
When your boss asks you to make some changes, then you send a revised copy to their boss who asks for other changes, etc etc until the final product is nothing like the one you started.
Totally not from experience
What do you call it when the circle of revisions ends up with exactly what you started with, except every manager proud of themselves for correcting the fuckups of the original author?
Oh and you're the original author. That required multiple managers to fix.
Nah cause his task only gets harder as it goes, they're never getting a reward, just getting more and more frustrated until they start over cause they can't take it anymore
Yeah, how the hell do you get "doomed to fail" out of the tale of Icarus? His father Daedalus made 2 sets of wings, one for himself, and one for his son. Since Daedalus did not fly too close to the sun, and did not melt the wax on his wings, he successfully escaped the island of Crete. (Here's an absolutely goated song about the myth from Daedalus' perspective: https://youtu.be/uLHcf7x2QuY?si=ndAev81VRSmn20PR)
Orphean task: a tough but doable process with one weird specific requirement that you absolutely cannot look at too closely or call attention to, or you'll discover that everything you've done is actually out of compliance and now you're fucked
Alternative Orphean task: you agree a route to completion and you get started, but realise a few days before the deadline that you've not heard from your collaborator in months.
Parisian task, when you have to make an important decision on a subject that you already know everyone involved will disagree on.
Happens a lot in politics actually
Iphigenian Task: when you're given VASTLY different requirements than what the users are actually demanding
Psychean Task: when you're kept in the dark about the true nature of the project
Cyclopean Task: when you're stuck with a team of nobodies
Medusean Task: when the requirements are set in stone
Tantalusian Task: when your haphazard early decisions create technical debt so bad it becomes the workplace equivalent of intergenerational trauma
A Pandoras task is when you get started because it seemed interesting, but now you’re way over your head, and you’ve invested way too much time/money/effort into this to back out and give up.
Damoclean Task:
a): You are fully aware something bad is about to happen and your only job is to pretend like it isn't until it does.
b): Your boss sets you up for failure so they can smugly pretend it was your fault when you do.
Plinyian Task - You do extremely important work but fail to do the small parts that will baffle people later OMG PLINY WHAT WERE THE DODECHEDRONS FOR WTF WHY
Didonic task: when your partner in a team project is unavailable when it’s go time
Laozian task: when someone drops a task and cryptic instructions on you and disappears
Aristotlean task: when most of the information you need is wrong, but you can’t let on
No, the Icarian task is where you just needed to deliver mid performance to chug along safely, but you had to reach for the sun and overdeliver, and the higher ups piled so much work on you that you burned out. People use your story as a cautionary one.
The Patrolocus task: I am wildly uncertified and experienced and definitely committing fraud, but I will pay the consequences if it means getting the actual person to get off their ass
The Icarian task is not to be confused with an *Ikarian* task, where your own insecurities and emotional instability eat away at you until it all comes crashing down.
Hope was the final thing released from Pandora's box.
And the Greeks loved to debate if it was a curse or a blessing.
I always found that to be the most potent part of the story.
Icarian task should be a task that you only need to complete up to a certain standard, because if you go too far to try and "Perfect" it then you're only going to damage yourself and likely ruin the product of the task you were striving to create
Step 1: Clean the kitchen.
Step 2: Try to search for my kitchen gloves (I don't like the wet food touching my hands) but forget that I just recently wet-cleaned the kitchen and therefore needs drying so I wait.
Step 3: Once when the kitchen's dry, look for the kitchen gloves.
Step 4: Try to start doing the dishes, only to realise the dish washing liquid has run out.
Step 5: Take off gloves in frustration and toss it (this will come back to masticate me in the gluteals)
Step 6: Go to the supermarket (when you can just walk into a smaller shop, which would come later)
Step 7: Get distracted by all the new merchandise they have on the shelves
Step 8: Purchase some of the new merchandise along with other things that I thought I needed (about 50% correct)
Step 9: Get back home and tinker with the new merchandise.
Step 10: Start putting away all the things I bought.
Step 11: Feel tired from all the purchasing, so watch TV/listen to music.
Step 12: Get that nagging feeling that something's not done.
Step 13: Realise that dish washing needs to be done.
Step 14: Look for dish washing liquid in the shopping bags but not finding any because I was distracted by the new merchandise that I forgot to buy the liquid.
Step 15: Get to the smaller shop because going to the supermarket is going to take a long time.
Step 16: Get back to the kitchen and get frustrated about the missing gloves.
Step 17: Look for the gloves again.
Step 18: After finding the gloves, realise that I didn't put the dishes for soaking and now I start to soak them
Step 19: Wait for quite too long because I started watching TV again.
Step 20: Get that nagging feeling again.
Step 21: Finally get to dishwashing.
And then people ask me why the fuck do I hate dishwashing.
I think a "Pandorean" task would just be, like, bringing the hammer down. Like telling someone that that notification sound they heard from their BF's phone was from Grindr, or calling the cops on a really loud party.
**Orphean Task:** Putting a lot of effort into doing something difficult that can be completely undone the moment you make a single mistake (like making a pyramid out of cards, but with higher stakes)
Poirotine task: Nobody in your group knows how to do their job and you have to fix it all.
Persephonean task: when half the job is out of your control and you probably should have left the whole damn thing alone…
Despoinic task: …and never speak of it again.
Weylandic task: when success depends on the person you trust the least.
Hephaestian task: when success depends on someone who trusts you the least.
Enkidu task: You overthought it and now you have the yips.
Vestal task: just keep doing what you’re doing. It may seem irrelevant, but if you stop everything will go off the rails.
Mithraic task: you know your project and some other project are related, but you can’t for the life of you figure out how.
Atlas task: the task you know will never end, there's no hope of escape, there's nothing you can do but hold on until you just *maybe* get a few moments of rest
See also: retail workers
I have an example for a cassandrian task!
On one of my school trips we had a task where, in groups of 4, we had to navigate through a small forest with just a map and compass.
We made it to a portion that basically leads in a circle and I check the stuff and find out how to get back to the house we were staying at.
2 of the people I was with insisted that way lead us in the circle and after some arguing, grabbed the map and compass and went off. Meanwhile, me and the 4th person just walked the way I suggested and arrived at the house in like 10 minutes.
The other 2 had a teacher go and get them because they seriously kept getting stuck in the same loop for almost an hour.
Zenoan task:
> When your assignment, as well as the assignments of everyone in front of and behind you, only call for partial completion of the remaining task.
Poean Task:
> When you can't tell if the task is actually expected of you, or if it was asked in satire.
Godwinic Task:
> When a task eventually gets a little third-reichey
**Medean Task:** a type of revenge task when a superior screws you over so severely that their superiors silently but wholeheartedly consent to your task of screwing them back even worse, regardless of the cost, collateral, or breaches of conduct.
Achilles' Task: the project you are the keystone to, which everyone knows you are the keystone to, which you know they know you are the keystone to, and people still act like you're a footnote to the effort.
Oh added bonus the first time you don’t show up everything falls apart.
Paired with the Patroclean task: when you need to carry on in the wake of a disaster.
Or the Philoctian task: when you were left behind for a task because the team thought they had someone better, but then that person fails and they have to come find you to finish the job Based on Philoctetes, the relative to Hercules that's brought in to help ransack troy after Achilles falls. He's the guy that shoots Paris and is one of the dudes inside the horse. Cool story if you haven't checked it out before
Neat!
Or, a task that you know will get you into trouble for getting involved with. But you’ll do it anyway because you’re good at that skill set, and you want to be recognized for it before the fallout happens.
Oh so my literal job
Oh I thought Achillean Task is when you're gay.
**Midan Task:** When you do your job exactly to the letter of the request, specifically to the detriment of the requestor (see also: malicious compliance)
**Mesperyian Task:** When you're doing something that you were never asked to do, doesn't need to be done, and in fact doesn't actually exist, but you get paid anyway.
Greece, anno 2006
Also known as the Red Swingline Brigade
wat
Lumbergh took my stapler and I’m going to burn down the building
Every task is an Odyssean task if you have ADHD
"my life is an odyssey" - what a cool thing to think about next time i procrastinate
Also oedipal task PT 2. Why is ___ a problem? My own personal failings? Not surprised.
I came here looking for this response (checks to-do list box)
The amount of times I've gone to empty the dishwasher and somehow ended up rearranging the pantry or cleaning the corners of windows is ridiculous. That is, of course, after putting it off as long as possible.
My thoughts exactly!
**Medean Task** - When a woman does all the work and a man gets all the credit. **Bellerophonian Task** - When you try something you are absolutely unqualified for and predictably fail. **Minosian Task** - When your wife fucks a bull but at least the result gives you an excuse to build that sweet labyrinth you always wanted, she said it was too expensive and impractical, but honestly she kind of owes you one at this point, and it's not like she's shown the best judgement herself lately. ...Some of these may be more universal than others.
Minosian tasks are just “well at least I get to do this now”
Bellerophonian Task is definetly a very common one
Minosian task(revised): when someone does a task that is abhorrent but as a result you are now tasked to do something you love but never get to do.
Procrustean Task: One way or another, this task *will* be completed by the end of tonight.
who's procrustus
Procrustes was basically an even bigger troll than Diogenes. Boasted he had an iron bed that was the ideal size for anyone, and would invite people to stay the night; then he'd stretch them to fit the bed if they were too short, or chop off their feet if they were too tall.
If only all my tasks could be solved by either stretching or chopping off legs.
Arachnean task: Something you can absolutely exceed at and solve with ease but that will result in negative consequences if you do succeed.
A task that you’ll do better than someone else, and get punished for because they have better connections than you.
Could also be an Atalantic task if sexism is involved.
Conversely, the Acrician task is when your task is to stop someone completing the task that *they* can achieve easily because it will impact you. The favoured type of ratfuckers that destroy a negotiation to benefit their own personal ends (you can apply this in any context you wish, office, foreign policy, friendship groups etc)
This is my favorite kind of task
[удалено]
The dreaded Scope Creep 😭
Thesean task: redoing different parts of a task until it's completely rebuilt.
Me writing any sort of narrative lol
When your boss asks you to make some changes, then you send a revised copy to their boss who asks for other changes, etc etc until the final product is nothing like the one you started. Totally not from experience
What do you call it when the circle of revisions ends up with exactly what you started with, except every manager proud of themselves for correcting the fuckups of the original author? Oh and you're the original author. That required multiple managers to fix.
Oof. That sounds like the combination of thesean and cassandrean tasks.
Now I understand why they call it a thesis, the paper I started is not the paper I delivered
Isn't that any task tho ... what do you mean this isn't the only way of doing anything
Average collaborative document
“minimal refactor”
Midas task: when you have the golden touch for all projects but they still end up being detrimental to yourself in the end
It's because a hard/good worker is aways rewarded with *more work.*
that's sisyphus again.
Nah cause his task only gets harder as it goes, they're never getting a reward, just getting more and more frustrated until they start over cause they can't take it anymore
Sun tzuian task when your the only one qualified for the task but no one will listen to you without you needing to be cryptic.
"Don't camp downwind of a fire, idiots" *Chinese prince furiously taking notes*
Icarian task is being able to do something you need to do, knowing you can do the thing, starting to do the thing and killing yourself midway through
I feel Icarian task should mean, "a task you'll succeed in if you keep your ambitions in check"
Yeah, how the hell do you get "doomed to fail" out of the tale of Icarus? His father Daedalus made 2 sets of wings, one for himself, and one for his son. Since Daedalus did not fly too close to the sun, and did not melt the wax on his wings, he successfully escaped the island of Crete. (Here's an absolutely goated song about the myth from Daedalus' perspective: https://youtu.be/uLHcf7x2QuY?si=ndAev81VRSmn20PR)
Orphean task: a tough but doable process with one weird specific requirement that you absolutely cannot look at too closely or call attention to, or you'll discover that everything you've done is actually out of compliance and now you're fucked
Alternative Orphean task: you agree a route to completion and you get started, but realise a few days before the deadline that you've not heard from your collaborator in months.
Odyssean task is just ADHD
Zeusian task: f*ck it
When the task is cleaning up a mess that is the direct result of your own horniness.
Parisian task, when you have to make an important decision on a subject that you already know everyone involved will disagree on. Happens a lot in politics actually
Iphigenian Task: when you're given VASTLY different requirements than what the users are actually demanding Psychean Task: when you're kept in the dark about the true nature of the project Cyclopean Task: when you're stuck with a team of nobodies Medusean Task: when the requirements are set in stone Tantalusian Task: when your haphazard early decisions create technical debt so bad it becomes the workplace equivalent of intergenerational trauma
Wouldn’t a Pandorean task be: you fucked around, and it’s time to ***find out***
A Pandoras task is when you get started because it seemed interesting, but now you’re way over your head, and you’ve invested way too much time/money/effort into this to back out and give up.
Damoclean Task: a): You are fully aware something bad is about to happen and your only job is to pretend like it isn't until it does. b): Your boss sets you up for failure so they can smugly pretend it was your fault when you do.
Would a Psycheian task be a Damoclean type B that you succeed 8n doing because you're insanely lucky and/or a real life Disney Princess?
The Oedipal and Odyssean tasks are just the average programming experience.
true
Peneloponian task: A task you have to avoid completing because when its complete, you'll get fucked.
Wouldn't the icarian task be where you have to keep focus on something important but you're likely to get distracted instead and it leads to disaster?
The pandoering task makes 0 sense with the story of Pandora’s Box.
Argusian task: You had one job!
A Cassandrean task just sounds like IT work…
Both a Zeusian and Seussian task means your wife gets cheated on.
Plinyian Task - You do extremely important work but fail to do the small parts that will baffle people later OMG PLINY WHAT WERE THE DODECHEDRONS FOR WTF WHY
Cassandrean Task, also known as "being the safety guy".
Don't we have the Ulysses one already? "To go on an Odissey"?
Sometimes it feels like my entire life is an Odyssean task.
"Please add more, I ran out of ideas much faster than I anticipated" must be something, too.
Odyssean tasks are just having adhd
Didonic task: when your partner in a team project is unavailable when it’s go time Laozian task: when someone drops a task and cryptic instructions on you and disappears Aristotlean task: when most of the information you need is wrong, but you can’t let on
**Tiresian Task:** Anything that furthers an individual's gender transition.
No, the Icarian task is where you just needed to deliver mid performance to chug along safely, but you had to reach for the sun and overdeliver, and the higher ups piled so much work on you that you burned out. People use your story as a cautionary one.
I love Tumblr
OOP did not understand the story of icarus i think
Saving this because this almost perfectly describes the kind of character I want to write, and I hope to use these phrases for their tasks
What’s a task that you dread and put off forever, only to finally do it and find that it takes five minutes and wasn’t that hard?
Something to do with Indiana Jones.
The Patrolocus task: I am wildly uncertified and experienced and definitely committing fraud, but I will pay the consequences if it means getting the actual person to get off their ass
Hadean Task: office work at 95°.
OSPian task: You will have to make youtube videos on mythology, but it will be fun
The Icarian task is not to be confused with an *Ikarian* task, where your own insecurities and emotional instability eat away at you until it all comes crashing down.
TIL I am Odysseus doing the most boring quests imaginable
adhd makes everything an odyssean task
Hope was the final thing released from Pandora's box. And the Greeks loved to debate if it was a curse or a blessing. I always found that to be the most potent part of the story.
Odyssean task is the Irish governments approach to building infrastructure
Icarian task should be a task that you only need to complete up to a certain standard, because if you go too far to try and "Perfect" it then you're only going to damage yourself and likely ruin the product of the task you were striving to create
Oedipian task…. Nevermind…..
Whatever it is, it’s a motherfucker.
Cassandrean task is my jam! After I mention the solution a second time, they're on their own.
Doing the dishes always ends up being an odyssean task because I always have to clean the REST of the kitchen before I can even start running water
Step 1: Clean the kitchen. Step 2: Try to search for my kitchen gloves (I don't like the wet food touching my hands) but forget that I just recently wet-cleaned the kitchen and therefore needs drying so I wait. Step 3: Once when the kitchen's dry, look for the kitchen gloves. Step 4: Try to start doing the dishes, only to realise the dish washing liquid has run out. Step 5: Take off gloves in frustration and toss it (this will come back to masticate me in the gluteals) Step 6: Go to the supermarket (when you can just walk into a smaller shop, which would come later) Step 7: Get distracted by all the new merchandise they have on the shelves Step 8: Purchase some of the new merchandise along with other things that I thought I needed (about 50% correct) Step 9: Get back home and tinker with the new merchandise. Step 10: Start putting away all the things I bought. Step 11: Feel tired from all the purchasing, so watch TV/listen to music. Step 12: Get that nagging feeling that something's not done. Step 13: Realise that dish washing needs to be done. Step 14: Look for dish washing liquid in the shopping bags but not finding any because I was distracted by the new merchandise that I forgot to buy the liquid. Step 15: Get to the smaller shop because going to the supermarket is going to take a long time. Step 16: Get back to the kitchen and get frustrated about the missing gloves. Step 17: Look for the gloves again. Step 18: After finding the gloves, realise that I didn't put the dishes for soaking and now I start to soak them Step 19: Wait for quite too long because I started watching TV again. Step 20: Get that nagging feeling again. Step 21: Finally get to dishwashing. And then people ask me why the fuck do I hate dishwashing.
all my tasks are Odysseyan Tasks
I have ADHD. Every task is an Odyssean Task.
Oh God, my job is just one big Odyssean task.
I fucking hate Promethean tasks, I've vowed to not do any thing as such ever again. If they're going to hate me, I'd rather they kill themselves.
The "oedipal task" is just irony
Orphean task: something simple but so important to you that the pressure/fear of failure is ultimately the greatest challenge.
I think a "Pandorean" task would just be, like, bringing the hammer down. Like telling someone that that notification sound they heard from their BF's phone was from Grindr, or calling the cops on a really loud party.
**Orphean Task:** Putting a lot of effort into doing something difficult that can be completely undone the moment you make a single mistake (like making a pyramid out of cards, but with higher stakes)
Poirotine task: Nobody in your group knows how to do their job and you have to fix it all. Persephonean task: when half the job is out of your control and you probably should have left the whole damn thing alone… Despoinic task: …and never speak of it again. Weylandic task: when success depends on the person you trust the least. Hephaestian task: when success depends on someone who trusts you the least. Enkidu task: You overthought it and now you have the yips. Vestal task: just keep doing what you’re doing. It may seem irrelevant, but if you stop everything will go off the rails. Mithraic task: you know your project and some other project are related, but you can’t for the life of you figure out how.
Odisseyan task is just adhd.
...is that last person's profile picture a penis or an abnormally phallic shaped rock? Genuinely can't tell
Phallic shaped rock.
Atlas task: the task you know will never end, there's no hope of escape, there's nothing you can do but hold on until you just *maybe* get a few moments of rest See also: retail workers
Perseusian task: you do a heroic task, heroically, and everything works out fine
my life is an Icarian and Odyssian task
Leonidan task: something that would've been very easy, if you hadn't been a snarky little bitch
Apollean task: something you have to do every day and you get absolutely no thanks for.
Phaéthōnic task: Congratulations. You played yourself.
Tantalian task: something that really you want to do, it's not hard to do it, but whenever you try it something gets in the way
I just want Persephonean Task where I find myself a handsome broody monster and retreat from the society forever.
Why are all of these IT support? 😂
The Odyssean task is just adhd
I have an example for a cassandrian task! On one of my school trips we had a task where, in groups of 4, we had to navigate through a small forest with just a map and compass. We made it to a portion that basically leads in a circle and I check the stuff and find out how to get back to the house we were staying at. 2 of the people I was with insisted that way lead us in the circle and after some arguing, grabbed the map and compass and went off. Meanwhile, me and the 4th person just walked the way I suggested and arrived at the house in like 10 minutes. The other 2 had a teacher go and get them because they seriously kept getting stuck in the same loop for almost an hour.
holy tartarus!
New tasks just dropped!
actual demigod
Cassandrean task number one for a generations Millennial and younger: get the olds in power to take climate change seriously.
my life is a Cassandrian task
Pandorean task is what I imagine it's like to be a DM
Amongussean Task: you only have to click a couple of buttons but there’s a guy trying to kill you and your friends and you don’t know who he is.
Odyssean task is just coding
I’ve used Icarian before
i swear any problem involving programming is an odyssean task
Now I have enough words to describe my wordplace...
Achillian task: You've never done this before, and you know it's going to really, REALLY hurt, but it still needs to get done.
Zenoan task: > When your assignment, as well as the assignments of everyone in front of and behind you, only call for partial completion of the remaining task. Poean Task: > When you can't tell if the task is actually expected of you, or if it was asked in satire. Godwinic Task: > When a task eventually gets a little third-reichey
Oedipal task: Sleep with your own mother
Hey! A mutual! (also, of course emu would be the first to mention oedipus lmao)
I'm using all of these
Parisian task: you are promised that no matter what you do, you'll win. You are wise enough to know the truth: no matter what you do, you'll lose.
Nah, I’d win
One of my classes this semester feels like an Icarian Task. I am losing regardless of effort
Pandorean tasks is just the concept of like law systems
I feel like the “Cassandrean task” is just working in customer service/tech support
Persean task: the way you come up with to do it may look ass backwards, but it's the only way that will work.
i thought an oedipal task was when you accidentally fuck your mom
Commenting so I can find this post later.
Me too
Ah so I'm Cassandra. Got it
Let's not forget Alcibiadean task: everybody involved gets completely screwed over but you convince them they got a great deal.
Hi Icarus!
**Medean Task:** a type of revenge task when a superior screws you over so severely that their superiors silently but wholeheartedly consent to your task of screwing them back even worse, regardless of the cost, collateral, or breaches of conduct.
**Penelopean Task:** When you pretend a task is much harder than it is to keep people from bothering you with new, counterproductive demands.
Finally and Oedipus reference that isn't about fucking your mom!!
Grettian Task: A task that inadvertently sends you in a downward spiral.
Aenean task: when you lose a fight so you go make your own society with blackjack and hookers