NEW WORDS FOR 2000

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.


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.


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.


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


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


IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you
find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime
example. Bill Clinton's shameful video Grand Jury testimony is another.


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


VULCAN NERVE PINCH: The taxing hand position required to reach all the
appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the arm reboot for a
Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control Key, the
Command Key, the Return Key, and the Power On key.


YUPPIE FOOD STAMPS: The ubiquitous $20 bills spewed out of ATMs everywhere.
Often used when trying to split the bill after a meal, "We each owe $8, but
all anybody's got are yuppie food stamps."


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.


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


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.


WOOFYS: Well Off Older Folks