One Man and a Dog
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One Man and a Dog is a British slang expression for a small startup company, usually in a computer or technological field. The expression became current in the late 1970's and early 1980's after a popular British technical news weekly ran a cartoon strip called "One Man and a Dog - the story of a small systems house", about a company doing business under the name "O.M.A.A.D." ("Organization Methods Analysis and Design"), the office being inhabited only by the proprietor and his dog.
The expression may have a derivation from a saying about automation.
[edit] Examples
- From The Guardian newspaper [1]
- I came to Winchester, first as a summer volunteer digger, working for £2 a week and my keep, so I think I'm quite well paid now. Then I became part of the rescue archaeology service, which was one man and a dog - I was the dog.
- From Automation World [2]
- You may recall the old automation wisecrack, “The fully automated factory of the future employs only one man and a dog. The dog is there to make sure the man doesn’t touch anything, and the man is there to feed the dog.”
- From the Wellcome Foundation [3]
- "I think people have underestimated just what needs to be done in terms of developing career structures, and also developing centres with a critical mass: you can’t train people when you’ve got one man and a dog."
- From BusinessEye [4]
- "He started work as the proverbial one man and a dog operation..."
