New and Used Terms for the Times

I just got this in an e-mail. I tried to find the source. I think a lot of them came from Dilbert, but I can't find the web locale.


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

ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they claim to solve.

ALPHA GEEK: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group.

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.

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 weightlifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.

BOZONE: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

CAREER LIMITING MOVE (CLM): Used among microserfs to describe an ill-advised activity. Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.

CHAINSAW CONSULTANT: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the brass with clean hands.

CONTRATEMPS: The resentment permanent workers feel toward the fill-in workers.

CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube Farm.

CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles

DEAD TREE EDITION: The paper version of a publication available in both paper and electronic forms.

DILBERTED: To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character."I've been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."

DORITO SYNDROME: Feelings 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."

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 popularity. "Barney the dinosaur's Elvis year was 1993."

FLIGHT RISK: Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave the company or department soon.

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.

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: 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.

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.

IDEA HAMSTERS: People whose idea generators are always running.

IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben wedding (or not) was a prime example -- Michael Jackson, another.

KEYBOARD PLAQUE: The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on computer keyboards.

KINSTIPATION: A painful inability to move relatives who come to visit.

MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, 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. (Like after hitting send on an email by mistake)

ORF: Old Retired Fart - the retired officer or NCO who has returned as a contractor to do the same job he did on active duty.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

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.

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

SARCHASM: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient who doesn't get it.

SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

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.

SNOOPERVISION: A management or regulatory style characterized by intrusiveness or excessive prying.

SQUARE-HEADED SPOUSE: Computer

STARTER MARRIAGE: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

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

TELEPHONE NUMBER SALARY: A salary (or project budget) that has seven digits.

TINK: Acronym for a highly paid single consultant. Ten Incomes, No Kids!

UMFRIEND: A sexual relation of dubious standing or a concealed intimate relationship, as in "This is Dale, my...um...friend."

WOOFS: Well-Off Older Folks.

XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

YUPPIE FOOD STAMPS: The ubiquitous $20 bills spewed out of ATMs everywhere. Often used when trying to split the bill after a meal: "We owe $8 each, but all anybody's got are yuppie food stamps."