Life Is Great

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.

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

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

CLM
Career Limiting Move. Used among microserfs to describe ill-advised
activity. Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a
serious CLM.

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 were designed to
solve.

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."

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
Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.
Used as in: "Don't bother asking him ... he's 404, man."

GENERICA
Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same, no
matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls,
subdivisions. Used as in: "We were so lost in generica that I forgot
what city we were in."

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 Dyan, my ... um ... friend."

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

CUBE FARM
An office filled with cubicles.

IDEA HAMSTERS
People who always seem to have their idea generators running.

MOUSE POTATO
The on-line, wired generation's answer to the Couch Potato.

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, 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.

TOURISTS
People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their
jobs. For example: "We had three serious students in the class; the
rest were just tourists."

TREEWARE
Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

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

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.

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

CHIPS AND SALSA
Chips = hardware, salsa = software. i.e.: "Well, first we gotta
figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."

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.

IRRITAINMENT
Entertainment and money