Unwritten Laws, Rules, and Observations

The last few posts were pretty heavy so here’s a fun one.  Every profession develops its own rules of thumb that everyone in that profession remembers, uses, applies, and heeds.  Here are a couple from my profession:

• Regarding Observing and Evaluating Teachers – If it wasn’t written down, it didn’t happen.
• When doing informal observations during the school day – If a student can’t explain it, they didn’t learn it.

However, there are unwritten laws that observant people have noted in everyday life.

Unwritten Laws

• Clever’s Law – You’re either part of the solution or you’re a part of the problem.
• Clinton’s Laws of Politics 1 – Nearly everyone will lie to you given the right circumstance.
• Clinton’s Laws of Politics 2 – When someone tells you it’s not personal, they’re fixing to stick it to you.
• Kahn’s Law – If you can’t explain what you’re doing in simple English, you are probably doing something wrong.
• The Matthew Effect – The tendency in the scientific community to give all credit of discoveries to the senior members of the team, while giving short shrift to junior members for the work that they have carried out and sometimes conceived.
• McGovern’s Law – The longer the title, the less important the job.
• Peter’s Placebo – An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.
• Peter’s Paradox – Employees in a hierarchy do not really object to the incompetence of their colleagues.
• Schonberg’s Law – Anybody who gets away with something will come back to get away with a little more.
• Quinton’s Law – Whatever women do, they must do it twice as well as men to be thought half as good.
• Locke’s Law – One day you're a peacock, another day you’re a feather duster.

What are some unwritten laws that you’re profession follows or that you have found to be true?

Source

Comments

[John]

A corollary to If it wasn’t written down, it didn’t happen.

When dealing with the FDA. If it isn't signed it's just graffiti.

[Jordan Henderson]

Hofstaedter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect,
even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

[Brenden Johnson]

I second Hofstadter's Law. If more people (managers) knew that everyone's life would be so much easier.

[Russell]

Russell's Law: Never insult the cook.

[GBGames]

Goodwin's Law of Usenet: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 (i.e. certainty).

Whoever mentions Nazis or Hitler first loses the argument by default.

Quirk's exception: Intentional invocation of Goodwin's Law to end a discussion is ineffectual.

[yoda]

That would be "Godwin's Law", not "Goodwin's Law" (named for Mike Godwin; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law).