OFFICE LINGO

As technology marches ever onwards and we are assailed with more and more jargon, here is a handy cut-out-and-keep quick reference guide to office lingo.

Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

Chainsaw Consultant: An outside expert brought in to reduce employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands

Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles.

Ego Surfing: Scanning the net, databases, print media etc looking for references to one's own name.

Elvis Year: The peak year of something's popularity - Barney the dinosaur's Elvis Year was 1993.

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

Idea Hamsters: People who always seem to have their idea generators running.

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

Ohnosecond: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realise you've just made a big mistake.

Prairie Dogging: Something loud happens in a Cube Farm and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

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 courses as a vacation from their jobs. Example: "we had three serious students in the class; the rest were tourists."

Uninstalled: Euphemism for being fired.

Xerox Subsidy: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from a workplace.