New Words for the New Millennium
• 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, craps on everything, and then leaves.
• CUBE FARM - An office filled with cubicles.
• IDEA HAMSTERS - People who always seem to have their idea generators running.
• PRAIRIE DOGGING - When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.
• SITCOMs - (Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage) What Yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.
• STRESS PUPPY - A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whining.
• ALPHA GEEK - The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group.
• CHIPS & SALSA - Chips = hardware, Salsa = software. "Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."
• FLIGHT RISK - Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.
• GOOD 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.
• UNINSTALLED - Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voice-mail of a vice president at a downsizing computer firm: "You have reached the number of an Uninstalled Vice President. Please dial our main number and ask the operator for assistance."
• CLM (Career Limiting Move) - Used among microserfs to describe ill-advised activity. Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.
• 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."
• 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."
• OH NO SECOND - That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.
• 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, craps on everything, and then leaves.
• CUBE FARM - An office filled with cubicles.
• IDEA HAMSTERS - People who always seem to have their idea generators running.
• PRAIRIE DOGGING - When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.
• SITCOMs - (Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage) What Yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.
• STRESS PUPPY - A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whining.
• ALPHA GEEK - The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group.
• CHIPS & SALSA - Chips = hardware, Salsa = software. "Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."
• FLIGHT RISK - Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.
• GOOD 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.
• UNINSTALLED - Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voice-mail of a vice president at a downsizing computer firm: "You have reached the number of an Uninstalled Vice President. Please dial our main number and ask the operator for assistance."
• CLM (Career Limiting Move) - Used among microserfs to describe ill-advised activity. Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.
• 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."
• 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."
• OH NO SECOND - That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.