I know I am supposed to be writing stuff that derives from my own unparalleled insight and wide experience (SFX: whatever it takes), but it would be ungenerous to be faced with something as interesting as this list of secret job tricks that professionals know and you don’t and not be impressed.

I got a similar thrill from this as from finding out years ago about the secret language of the Emergency Room from an acquaintance. No, I don’t mean this kind of stuff, which we can all get from watching too many ER reruns with George Clooney and Anthony Edwards (who makes an appearance a positively hallucinatory indie film that I have returned to again and again with pleasure), but this kind of thing. Someday I’ll find out that none of that stuff is true, but the last person in the profession I asked did recognize a couple of ’em.