You can't be cool if you're using outdated lingo. Here's the latest from
 the corporate and Silicon Valley jungles:
 

 

 "batmobiling" - putting up emotional shields (from the retracting
 armor that covers the batmobile) as in "She started talking marriage and
 he started batmobiling." 
 

 "beepilepsy" - afflicts those with vibrating pagers characterized by
 sudden spasms, goofy facial expressions, and loss of speech 
 

 "betamaxed" - when a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior
 but better marketed competition as in "Microsoft betamaxed Apple right
 out of the market" 
 

 "blowing your buffer" - losing your train of thought 
 

 "cobweb" - a WWW site that never changes 
 

 "elvis year" - the peak year of popularity as in "1993 was Barney  the
 dinosaur's elvis year" 
 

 "generica" - fast food joints, strip malls, sub-divisions as in "We
 were so lost in generica that I couldn't remember what city it was" 
 

 "going postal" - totally stressed out and losing it like postal
 employees who went on shooting rampages 
 

 "high dome" - egghead, scientist, PhD 
 

 "irritainment" - annoying but you can't stop watching e.g. the O.J.
 trial 
 

 "meatspace" - the physical world (as opposed to the virtual) also
 "carbon community" "facetime" "F2F" "RL" 
 

 "percussive maintenance" - the fine art of whacking a device to get it
 working 
 

 "prairie dogging" - in companies where everyone has a cubicle
 something happens and everyone pops up to look 
 

 "siliwood" - the coming convergence of movies, interactive TV and
 computers - also "hollywired" 
 

 "square headed girlfriend" (boyfriend) - computer 
 

 "treeware" - manuals and documentation 
 

 "world wide wait"- WWW on AOL 
 

 "yuppie food coupons" - twenty dollar bills from an ATM 
 

 "gaper" - someone who is always a recipient on the email lists but
 never sends any.
 
 
 
 More GENERATION X  OFFICE LINGO 
 

 

 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 weight-lifting fanatics who     
 look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.
 
 

 Beepilepsy - The brief seizure 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.
 
 

 Cube farm - an office filled with cubicles.
 
 

 Ego surfing - scanning the Net, databases, print media, and so on,
 looking for references to one's own name.
 
 

 Idea hamsters - people who always seem to have their idea generators
 running .
 
 

 Mouse potato - the on-line generation's answer to the couch potato.
 
 

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

 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 .
 
 

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

 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."
 
 

 World Wide Wait - The real meaning of WWW.
 
 

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

 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 on-line 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..."
 
 

 Treeware:  Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.
 
 

 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."
 
 

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

 Squirt The Bird - To transmit a signal up to a satellite.  "Crew and
 talent are ready...what time do we squirt the bird?"
 
 

 Brain Fart - A byproduct of a bloated mind producing information
 effortlessly. A burst of useful information. "I know you're busy on the
 Microsoft story, but can you give us a brain fart on the Mitnik bust?"
 Variation of old hacker slang that had more negative connotations.
 
 

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

 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.
 
 

 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."
 
 

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

 Adminisphere - The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above
 the rack and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often
 profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were
 designed to solve.
 
 

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

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

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

 404 - someone who is clueless, from the World Wide Web error message
 "404 Not Found", meaning the requested document couldn't be located --
 Don't bother asking him, he's 404.
 
 

 Perot:  To quit unexpectedly, as in "My cellular phone just 
 perot'ed."
 
 

 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.
 
 

 Uninstalled:  Euphemism for being fired.
 
 

 Xerox Subsidy:  Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's 
 workplace.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 No one ever said "if I'd only spent more time in the office"
 
 

 

 From: Nathan
 
 

Wil Stark, wstark04 (at) pobox _dot_com

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