When I was at Level 3, my first day at work consisted of an orientation class where they gave us a huge rah-rah session about the company and how great it was and such. One of the things they explained to us was the origin of the name, "Level 3". We were a networking company, and the name came from the third layer of the OSI model, the networking layer.

Of course, the geeks in the group immediately took exception to that. First of all, if the name really came from the OSI model, the company would be more properly named "Layer 3" not "Level 3" because common usage speaks of the "layers" of the OSI model, not "levels". Furthermore, as a company, we didn't do *just* the third layer--by necessity we did all layers up to and including the third layer, so our name should be "Layer <= 3". Taking it even further, a lot of our equipment actually does some work on the fourth layer of the model, the Transport layer. So, to be perfectly correct, the name of the company *ought* to be "Layer <=3 With Some Layer 4 Stuff".

Of course, the HR droid running the orientation just smiled and nodded, and moved on as quickly as possible. *sigh*

The other thing we learned was that the company's stated goal was to be "first to market, 80% ready". Meaning we wanted to rush everything out the door as soon as possible so we could be first to market with some new technology, and who cares if it actually works as long as it works about 80% of the time? Grrrrrr.

-- Dave