The English language is nothing if not adaptable and creative. The corporate world has evolved along with the rest of society. Here are some examples of useful new terminology:
-Blamestorming –Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was miss, a project failed; and most importantly, who was responsible.
-Seagull Manager –A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything, and then leaves
-Chainsaw Consultant –An outside expert brought in to reduce employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands and consciences.
-Expert –Person from out of town who has a PowerPoint program.
-Cube Farm –The office—a place filled with cubicles.
-Idea Hamsters –People who always have idea generators—not necessarily new or useful ideas.
-Mouse Potato –The new world online, wired in generation’s substitute for the couch potato.
-Prairie Dogging –Someone yells or something drops and makes a noise, and dozens of heads pop up over the cubicle walls to see what’s going on.
-SITCOM –What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working. The other one stops working to stay home with the children. SITCOM is an acronym for Single Income Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.
-Stress Puppy –The office person who thrives on being stressed out and being whiny.
-Tourists –Office people who have to take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. The expression is used thus: “We have three serious secretaries; the rest are just tourists.”
-Treeware –Hacker slang for printed documentation or other printed material.
-Xerox Subsidy –Euphemism for taking free photocopies (theft) from one’s workplace.
-Going Postal –Being totally stressed out and losing control. The obvious reference is to the unfortunate spate of postal employees who snapped and went on shooting rampages.
-Alpha Geek –The most knowledgeable and technically proficient person in an office—and usually considered a necessary social evil.
-GOOD job –Get-Out-Of-Debt job. A reasonable paying but uninteresting job which people take to pay of their debts and then quit as soon as they become solvent.
-Irritainment –Office pep-talks with graphics. Also entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but somehow seduce bored office workers to watch them—such as any of the dozens of entertainer award shows.
-Percussive Management –The delicate art of whacking an electronic device to get it to work again.
-Uninstalled –Being fired. Also referred to as Decruitment.
-Vulcan Nerve Pinch –Taxing hand positions required to reach all the appropriate keys for certain computer demands repetitively.