At first blush, as I broke down the math meaning of operator and compared it to the common everyday meaning, the definitions seemed to be the same across the board; “a mapping of two spaces” totally jives with “someone who performs the practical work at a telephone switchboard.” Two spaces / two entities / two people are being mapped – they’re being connected – by an operator.

But then – oh yeah, it happened again – that mathnificent bit of the word operator called out to be seen (it’s not gonna be ignored, Dan! )

That mathnificent bit is that the output of those two function spaces – that output of a message, or a direction, or some other form of communication that the operator will use to connect one person to the other – that output must have a specific quality. The math goddesses dictate that the quality of that output must be well-defined and in ye ol’ math world that means it must have the quality of being unambiguous and uncontradictory.

That message can not be vague. That information is not in opposition nor is it inconsistent. This is a fantastic distinction.

If I order a pizza, and the order is communicated to the person making the pizza via an order app or by the person who answers the phone and writes it down, I want the exact pizza that I ordered; if I ask for extra cheese, I expect extra cheese.

If, as I leave my office to go see a client, one of my co-workers asks me to communicate that they’ll be sending that client an important email which must be replied to by a specific date and time, and then I tell the client that they’ll be receiving an email from my co-worker which they should respond to when they have a free moment — I completed the operation that my co-worker asked me to do, right? My messaging was definitely not vague — yet, it was also not correct. It’s actually contradictory to what I was asked to communicate. I’m such a jerk.

So, here is my wish for you: May your future be filled with operators that aren’t jerks.