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.