Vocabulary of the '90s |
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.
Chainsaw Consultant: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.
Beepilepsy
- The brief seizure people sometimes have when their beeper goes
off (especially in vibrator mode). Characterized by
physical spasms, goofy facial expressions and interruption of
speech in mid-sentence.
(this one's for you Conrad!)
Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles.
Ego Surfing: Scanning the Net, databases, print media and so on, looking for references to one's own name.
Elvis Year: The peak year of something's or someone's popularity. "Barney the Dinosaur's Elvis year was 1993."
404: Someone who's clueless."Don't bother asking him; he's 404." From the WWW error message "404 Not Found," meaning the requested document couldn't be located.
Idea Hamsters: People who always seem to have their idea generators running.
Keyboard Plaque: The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on computer keyboards.
Mouse Potato: The online, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.
Ohnosecond: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize
that you've just made a big mistake.
Perot: To quit unexpectedly, as in "My cellular phone just perot'ed."
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.
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.
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's in your chips or your salsa."
Dancing Baloney - Little animated GIFs and other Web F/X that are
useless and serve simply to impress clients. "This page is
kinda dull. Maybe a little dancing baloney will help."
Depotphobia - Fear associated with entering a Home Depot because of how much money one might spend. Electronics geeks experience Shackophobia.
Flight Risk - Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.
Generica - Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is. "We were so lost in generica, I actually forgot what city we were in."
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.