I’ve actually heard some of these terms used by folks from Microsoft. I think they invented some of the concepts. Innovation for sure! Non-Micorosft locals from Redmond are often called sitcoms, for example.
NEW WORDS FOR 2005: Essential additions for the workplace vocabulary
1. BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.2. SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.
3. ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
4. SALMON DAY: The experience of spending all day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
5. CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles
6. PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something in a Cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.
7. MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato.
8. 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 or what the woman becomes after they get divorced.
9. STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
10. SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
11. XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.
12. IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying
but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben wedding (or not) was a prime example.13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
14. 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.
15. 404: Someone who’s clueless. From the WWW error message “404 Not Found,” meaning that the requested document could not be located.
16. GENERICA: Features of American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.
17. OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake.
18. WOOFS: Well-Off Older Folks.
19. CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube Farm…
via B. Delaney
You wrote “I’ve actually heard some of these terms used by folks from Microsoft. I think they invented some of the concepts.” Microsoft reinvents stuff John. Now they are reinventing our English? Maybe next every word will start with X. Xxcuse xe. Xindows xust xrashed. Xuck xt Xill. Xerox xill xe xet. Xvorak Xncensored. I’m developing a new wheel, it’s better than the old round one. Have you looked at Xinux by Xicrosoft Xorp.? I hear the XBI is running Xinux. They are getting rid of all the paper. Maybe the XIA wil do this next. Check with Xalon News for more on these and other developments on the XatriX. I just made that up. Xeally X xid. A few laughs are good, for everything else there is Xisa.
Those are hilarious/
A lot of these appeared in Wired Magazine’s Jargon Watch columns in the 90’s.
For example, number 9 – stress puppy – was in February 1995 issue.
Feb 95 Jargon Watch
Attentional User Interface is something new. The PC knows what you want to do, before you do it. Some kind of new technology involving state of flow. AUI strunz.
Check out the new evil looking corporate Bugs Bunny.
It’s just not Bugs Bunny, it’s Thugs Bunny now! Look for plenty of crying disturbed kids and new drugs from the folks who made kiddy valium a smash hit. Bugs Bunny for the Hitler Youth. Give all the kids knives and uniforms. Wait until you see the new Mickey Mouse coming from Disney. The new Mickey will please those desperate housewives. Reports are still coming in…more to come. Bugs Bunny is going to be renamed “Buzz” and star in a new series called “Loonatics.” Look at msnfound.com Buzz is viral marketing, position the brand with a search opera. Mickey will be pitching extreme rape porn in LA. Mickey has more than big ears.
Protect your kids from these corporate sickos.