New Business Terms

Here are some new terms for the people and situations we experience at work. I'm sure many of you know people who fit these descriptions and if you don't you are probably one of these terms. Enjoy.

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

Blamestorming - Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Seagull Manager - A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything, and then leaves.

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.

Chainsaw Consultant - An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the brass with clean hands.

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.

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

404 - Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message " 404-URL Not Found," meaning that the requested web page could not be located. Used as in: "Don't bother asking him... he's 404, man."

Ohno-Second - That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.

Percussive Maintenance - The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Umfriend - A sexual relation of dubious standing or a concealed intimate relationship, as in "This is Dylan, my...um...friend."

Body Nazis - Hard-core exercise and weightlifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.

Mouse Potato - The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

Cube Farm - An office filled with cubicles.

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.

SITCOMs - What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for "Single Income, Two Children, and Oppressive Mortgage".

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.

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

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.

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 stamp