Flop -- Telco Lingo

[sagehen]

  > He handed it to an assistant and
>said, "You've got a flop here."  He repeated this in the course of
>explaining.  He did not say, "flip-flop," which I believe has a specific
>meaning in that world, ie a circuit governed by a toggle switch or having
>some other way of achieving either of two states.  I don't know if he would
>have said "flip-flop" if the lines had been completely reversed.  I was not
>about about to ask a man up to his knees in tangled wired.
 >--Tom Kysilko
~~~~~~~
I forwarded this post to a tech who has been working for the past 5 years
for Ameritech (now SBC).  This was the reply:

"Understand the phenomenon, but haven't heard the term. Nor do I know of any
special meaning for the term "flip-flop, though I can guess at one that
would make sense. Within my tenure I have noticed that some terms seem
older, i.e., are in use by techs who've been around longer.   I've only
known one tech who transfered from a different telco, and he was known for
using a term that the Springfield techs considered foreign (and of course
mocked him for)."
A. Murie