404 - Someone who is clueless. From the Web error message, “404 Not Found,” which means the document requested couldn’t be located. “Don’t bother asking John. He’s 404.”
Adminisphere - The rarified organizational layers above the rank and file that makes decisions that are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant.
Alpha Geek - The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. “I dunno, ask Rick. He’s our alpha geek.”
Assmosis - The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
Batmobiling - putting up emotional shields. Refers to the retracting armor that covers the Batmobile as in “she started talking marriage and he started batmobiling”
Beepilepsy - The brief siezure people sometimes suffer when their beepers go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid-sentence.
Betamaxed - When a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior but better marketed competition as in “Microsoft betamaxed Apple right out of the market”
Blamestorming - A group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.
Bookmark - To take note of a person for future reference. “After seeing his cool demo at Siggraph, I bookmarked him.”
Brain Fart - A byproduct of a bloated mind producing information effortlessly; a burst of useful information. “I know you’re busy on the Microsoft story, but can you give us a brain fart on the Mitnik bust?” Variation of old hacker slang that had more negative connotations.
CGI Joe - A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure.
Chainsaw Consultant - An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the top brass with clean hands.
Chip Jewelry - Old computers destined to be scrapped or turned into decoration. “I paid three grand for that Mac and now it’s nothing but chip jewelry.”
Chips and Salsa - Chips = hardware, salsa = software. “First we gotta figure out if the problem’s in your chips or your salsa.”
CLM (Career Limiting Move) - Used by microserfs to describe an ill-advised activity. “Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.”
Cobweb - A WWW site that is never updated.
Crapplet - A badly written or profoundly useless Java applet. “I just wasted 30 minutes downloading that crapplet!”
CROP DUSTING - Surreptitiously farting while passing thru a cube farm, then enjoying the sounds of dismay and disgust; leads to PRAIRIE DOGGING…..
Cube Farm - An office filled with cubicles.
Dorito Syndrome - The feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction triggered by addictive substances that lack nutritional content. “I just spent six hours surfing the Web, and now I’ve got a bad case of Dorito Syndrome.”
Egosurfing - Scanning the Net, databases, etc., for one’s own name.
Flight Risk - Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.
Glazing - Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open; a popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. “Didn’t he notice that by the second session half the room was glazing?”
Going Postal - Totally stressed out and losing it like postal employees who went on shooting rampages
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.
Gray Matter - Older, experienced business people hired by young entrepreneurial firms trying to appear more professional and established.
Graybar Land - The place you go while you’re staring at a computer that’s processing something very slowly (while you watch the gray bar creep across the screen). “That CAD rendering put me in graybar land for like an hour.”
Keyboard Plaque - The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on some people’s computer keyboards.
Link Rot - The process by which web page’s links become obsolete as the sites they’re connected to change or die.
Metaspace - The physical world (as opposed to the virtual) also “carbon community” “facetime” “F2F” “RL”
Mouse Potato - The online generation’s answer to the couch potato.
Ohnosecond - That minuscule fraction of time during which you realize you’ve just made a terrible error.
Percussive Maintenance - The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
Plug-and-Play - A new hire who doesn’t require training. “That new guy is totally plug-and-play.”
Prairie Dogging - When something loud happens in a cube farm, causing heads to pop up over the walls trying to see what’s going on.
Salmon Day - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end. “God, today was a total salmon day!”
Seagull Manager - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything and then leaves.
Square-Headed Spouse - Computer
Squirt the Bird - To transmit a signal up to a satellite. “Crew and talent are ready…what time do we squirt the bird?”
Stress Puppy - A person who thrives on being stressed-out and whiny.
Tourists - Those who take training classes just to take a vacation from their jobs. “There were only three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists.”
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.
WOOFYS - Well Off Older Folks.
World Wide Wait - The real meaning of WWW.
Xerox Subsidy - Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.
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