Office Lingo

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

Cube farm
An office filled with cubicles

Prairie dogging
Something loud happens in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on

Ohnosecond
That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize you've just made a big mistake.

SITCOM
Stands for Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage

Stress puppy
A person who thrives on being stressed-out and whiny

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."

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

It's a Feature
From the adage "It's not a bug, it's a "feature." Used sarcastically to describe an unpleasant experience that you wish to gloss over.

Chainsaw consultant
An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands

Elvis year
The peak year of something's popularity. Barney the dinosaur's Elvis year was 1993.

World Wide Wait
The real meaning of WWW.

Nyetscape
Nickname for AOL's less-than-full-featured Web browser.

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.

Cobweb Site
A World Wide Web Site that hasn't been updated for a long time. A dead web page.

404
Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web message "404, URL Not Found," meaning that the document you've tried to access can't be located. "Don't bother asking him...he's 404, man."

Link Rot
The process by which links on a web page became as obsolete as the sites they're connected to change location or die.

Plug-and-Play
A new hire who doesn't need any training. "The new guy, John, is great. He's totally plug-and-play."

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."

Under Mouse Arrest
Getting busted for violating an online service's rule of conduct. "Sorry I couldn't get back to you. AOL put me under mouse arrest."

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

Dead Tree Edition
The paper version of a publication available in both paper and electronic forms, as in: "The dead tree edition of the San Francisco Chronicle..."

Egosurfing
Scanning the net, databases, print media, or research papers looking for the mention of your name.

Keyboard Plaque
The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on computer keyboards. "Are there any other terminals I can use? This one has a bad case of keyboard plaque."

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.

Alpha Geek
The most knowledgable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. "Ask Larry, he's the alpha geek around here."

Adminisphere
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.

Tourists
People who are taking training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. "We had about three serious students in the class; the rest were tourists."

Blowing Your Buffer
Losing one's train of thought. Occurs when the person you are speaking with won't let you get a word in edgewise or has just said something so astonishing that your train gets derailed. "I just blew my buffer!" (Also used as "Head Crash")

Graybar Land
The place you go while you're staring at a computer that's processing something very slowly (while you watch the gray bar creep across the screen). "I was in graybar land for what seemed like hours, thanks to that CAD rendering."

CGI Joe
A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure.

Gray Matter
Older, experienced business people hired by young entrpreneurial firms looking to appear more reputable and established.

Bookmark
To take note of a person for future reference (a metaphor borrowed from web browsers). "I bookmarked him after seeing his cool demo at Siggraph."

Salmon Day
The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get shafted in the end.