Issue 183, page 5

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NEW WORDS FOR 2003 - Essential additions for the workplace vocabulary [a few we've seen before, but they're still good!]:

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 on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

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

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.

MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

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

WOOFYS: Well Off Older Folks.

STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiney.

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

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

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. 

GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, subdivisions. 

OHNOSECOND: 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. 

Send us your e-mail, clipping or photograph (via e-mail or snail mail). If we use it in Laughing Stock, you will receive a $10 gift certificate from Amazon.com!  Erica Beth Hruby wins this week's gift certificate.

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Last Updated 05/06/03 09:03 PM