New Office Lingo

Author Unknown

Adminisphere:
Middle Management: the rarified 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 were designed to solve.

Assmosis:
The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss.

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.

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 top brass with clean hands.

Cube Farm:
An office filled with cubicles.

Dilberted:
To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. "I’ve been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."

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

Glazing:
Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open at conferences and early-morning meetings. "Didn’t he notice that half the room was glazing by the second session?"

G.O.O.D. 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.

High Dome:
Egghead, scientist, PhD.

Idea Hamsters:
People who always seem to have their idea generators running.

Open-Collar Workers:
People who work at home or telecommute.

Prairie Dogging:
Something happens in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.

Salmon Day:
Swimming upstream all day to get screwed in the end.

Seagull Partner:
A partner who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything and then leaves.

Strawman:
A proposal everyone expects to fail but will still get your group noticed. As in," a strawman proposal for the marketing weenies."

Stress Puppy:
A person who thrives on being stressed out and whiny.

Tourists:
Employees who take training classes just to take a vacation from their jobs. "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were tourists."

Triority:
The three important things your boss expects you to do at once.

Xerox Subsidy:
Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from the workplace.

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