Dilbertisms

Dilbert's newest additions to add to your vocabulary in the 21st Century office environment:

  1. Adminisphere: The rarified 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.

  2. Alpha Geek: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group.

  3. Assmosis: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss.

  4. Body Nazis: Head-core exercise and weight lifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.

  5. Chips and Salsa: Chips = Hardware, Salsa = Software; e.g., "Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."

  6. Deinstalled: Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voicemail of a Vice President at a downsizing computer firm: "You have reached the number of a deinstalled vice president. Please dial our main number and ask the operator for assistance." (See also, "Decruitment")

  7. G.O.O.D. Job: A "Get-Out-Of'-Debt" Job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

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

  9. Imtainment: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trial is a prime example.

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

  11. Percussive Maintenance: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

  12. Squirt the Bird: To transmit a signal to a satellite.

  13. Starter Marriage: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

  14. Stress Puppy: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

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

  16. Tourists: People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. Example: "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

  17. Treeware: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

  18. Vulcan Nerve Pinch: The taxing hand position required to reach all the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm re-boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control key, the Command key, the Return key, and the Power On key.

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