New Office Vocabulary

Essential NEW WORDS for the work-place vocabulary:

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
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. (This also applies to applause from a promotion because there may be cake.)

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

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

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

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE
The fine art of whacking an electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE
The 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. This is often affiliated with the dreaded "administrivia" - needless paperwork and processes.

404
Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.

OHNOSECOND
That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all').