Yak shaving
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Yak shaving is a neologism which describes the act of performing seemingly unrelated and often annoying tasks which stand in the way of an ultimate goal. Often these tasks stack up on each other, where one task becomes impossible due to some obstacle, which leads to another unrelated task, yet another obstacle, and so on.
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[edit] Fictional example
Bob gets up in the morning and decides to make himself a cup of coffee. He opens the refrigerator and discovers that the milk that he needs has spoiled, so he decides to drive to the store to buy more. As he opens the garage door to get his car, he finds that his kids have left their bicycles in front of his car. While moving the bikes out of the way, he knocks over a glass jar, which shatters. Since he can't drive the car over the glass, he sweeps up the glass. This lets him finish moving the bikes, which allows him to get the car, so he can go to the store, where he buys a gallon of milk, so that he can finally (after an entire morning of yak shaving), make himself a cup of coffee.
[edit] Original author
It is unclear who originally coined this phrase. This MIT post from 2000 claims that a person called Carlin Vieri did. Other fans of the phrase point to a 1992 episode of Ren and Stimpy which featured a holiday called Yak Shaving Day, although there is, perhaps ironically, little relation between that episode and the current meaning of the phrase.
[edit] Another example
Seth Godin illustrates the concept with a story actually involving a yak.
Yak Shaving is the last step of a series of steps that occurs when you find something you need to do. "I want to wax the car today."
"Oops, the hose is still broken from the winter. I'll need to buy a new one at Home Depot."
"But Home Depot is on the other side of the Tappan Zee bridge and getting there without my EZPass is miserable because of the tolls."
"But, wait! I could borrow my neighbor's EZPass..."
"Bob won't lend me his EZPass until I return the mooshi pillow my son borrowed, though."
"And we haven't returned it because some of the stuffing fell out and we need to get some yak hair to restuff it."
And the next thing you know, you're at the zoo, shaving a yak, all so you can wax your car.
