New corporate buzzwords for '99
- Blamestorming
- Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
- Body Nazis
- Hard-core exercise and weight-lifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.
- Seagull Manager
- A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything and then leaves.
- Chainsaw Consultant
- An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.
- Cube Farm
- An office filled with cubicles.
- Idea Hamsters
- People who always seem to have their idea generators running.
- Mouse Potato
- The online, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.
- 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
- 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.
- Squirt the Bird
- To transmit a signal to a satellite.
- 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. "We had three serious students in 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. "Ask Larry, he's the Alpha Geek around here.
- Assmosis
- The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
- Chips and Salsa
- Chips = hardware, Salsa = software. "Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem is 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.
- Irritainment
- Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime example.
- Percussive Maintenance
- The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
- Uninstalled
- Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voicemail 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." See also Decruitment.
- Vulcan Nerve Pinch
- The taxing hand positions 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.
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