With the year 2000 upon us, it's important to keep up with all the latest 'office speak' being bandied about the workplace. Below is a starter list for you. If you have any to add, then send them in to webmaster@area255.co.uk
SITCOMs
What yuppies turn into when they have children and one
of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.
Starter
Marriage
A short-lived first marriage that ends in
divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.
Stress
Puppy
A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out
and whiny.
Swiped Out
An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless
because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
Tourists
People who take training classes just to get a vacation
from their jobs. Example: "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."
Treeware
Hacker slang for documentation or other printed
material.
Xerox Subsidy
Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's
workplace.
Going Postal
Euphemism for being totally stressed out, for
losing it. Makes reference to the unfortunate track record of postal employees who have snapped and gone on shooting rampages.
Alpha Geek
The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person
in an office or work group.
Chips and Salsa
Chips = hardware, salsa = software. i.e.:
"Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."
G.O.O.D. Job
A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people
take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.
Irritainment
Entertainment and media spectacles that are
annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials, Ally McBeal, Monica Lewinsky, etc.
Deinstalled
Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voice mail
of a Vice President at a downsizing computer firm: "You have reached the number of a deinstalled vice president. Please dial
our main number and ask the operator for assistance. (See also, 'Decruitment'
and 'Decommissioned.)
Vulcan Nerve Pinch
The taxing hand position required to reach all the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm re-boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control key, the Command key, the Return key and the Power On key. Sometimes referred to as the 'Three-fingered salute'.
Yuppie Food Stamps
The ubiquitous $20 bills spewed out of ATMs
everywhere. Often used when trying to split the bill after a meal: "We owe $8 each, but all anybody's got are yuppie food
stamps."
Generica
Features of the American landscape that are exactly
the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, subdivisions. Used as in: "We were so lost in generica
that I forgot what city we were in."
Umfriend
A sexual relation of dubious standing or a concealed
intimate relationship, as in "This is Bridget, my ... um...friend."
Body Nazis
Hard-core exercise and weightlifting fanatics who
look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.
Idea Hamsters
People who always seem to have their idea
generators running.
Mouse Potato
The on-line, wired generation's answer to the Couch Potato.
Blamestorming
Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.
Seagull Manager
A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything and then leaves.
Salmon day
The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
Chainsaw consultant
An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the brass with clean hands.
C.L.M.
Career Limiting Move - Used among microserfs to describe ill-advised activity. Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious C.L.M. (Also known as C.L.B. - Career Limiting Behaviour)
Adminisphere
The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.
Dilberted
To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character. "I've been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."
Flight Risk
Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave the company or department soon.
404
Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located. "Don't bother asking him . . . he's 404, man."
Ohnosecond
That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.
Percussive Maintenance
The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
Prairie Dogging
When someone yells or drops something loudly in a "cube farm" (an office full of cubicles) and everyone's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.
Assmosis
The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss.
