New Words For The Nineties
- Blamestorming:
- Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a
project failed, and who was responsible.
- Body Nazis:
- Hardcore exercise and weightlifting fanatics who look down on anyone
who doesn't work out obsessively.
- Seagull Manager:
- A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits on 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 the class; the rest were just
tourists."
- Treeware:
- Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material, such as
books.
- Xerox Subsidy:
- Euphemism for swiping freephotocopies 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=3D hardware, salsa=3D 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 wellpaying 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.
- Yuppie Food Stamps:
- The ubiquitous £20 bills spewed out of ATMs everywhere. Often
used when trying to split the bill after a meal: "We all owe £8 each,
but all anybody's got is yuppie food stamps."
- From the Internet. Original © not known. This version ©2000 OFC