Work Buzzwords

Work BuzzWords of ‘07


Blamestorming:
A group discussion about 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.

Assmosis:
The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

Salmon Day:
The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

Cube Farm:
An office filled with cubicles.

Prairie Dogging:
When someone yells or drops something in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up to see what's going on.

Mouse Potato:
The online, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

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 whiney.

Swipeout:
An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

TIREDs:
Thirty-something Independent Radical Educated Dropouts. Anyone over thirty taking a gap year and calling it a 'career break'.

Xerox Subsidy:
Euphemism for taking free copies from one's workplace photocopier.

Irritainment:
Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.

Percussive Maintenance:
The fine art of hitting an electronic device to get it to work again.

Adminisphere:
The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often completely inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

404:
Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message '404 Not Found,' meaning that the requested document could not be located.

Generica:
Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.

Ohnosecond:
That minuscule fraction of time in which you realise that you've just made a BIG mistake.

WOOFs:
Well-Off Older Folks.

Crop Dusting:
Surreptitiously passing wind while walking through a cube farm.