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#35935 07/19/01 08:12 PM
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nancyk Offline OP
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Excuse the long post, but this arrived in my e-mail today and I thought some of you might enjoy. Some I'd seen, some were new to me, but FWIW....

New entries in the 2001 Dictionary:

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.”

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

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

Body Nazis - Hard-core exercise and weightlifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.

Career Limiting Move (CLM) - Used among microserfs to describe an ill-advised activity. Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.

Chain Saw Consultant - An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the brass with clean hands.

Cube Farm - An office filled with cubicles.

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

Flight Risk - Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave the company or department soon.

404 - Someone who is clueless. Taken from the World Wide Web error message "404-URL Not Found," meaning that the requested web page could not be located. Used as in: "Don't bother asking him...he's 404."

Generica - Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, subdivisions. Used as in: "We were so lost in Generica that I forgot what city we were in."

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.

Irritainment - Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trial was a prime example.

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

Ohno-Second - That minuscule fraction of time immediately after you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.

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

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.

Salmon Day - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

Seagull Manager - A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything, and then leaves.

SITCOM - What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for "Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage".

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 whiney.

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

Umfriend - A sexual relation of dubious standing or a concealed intimate relationship, as in "This is Bob, my...um...friend."

Yuppie Food Stamps - The ubiquitous $20 bills spewed out of ATMs everywhere. Often used when trying to split the bill after a meal: "We owe $8 each, but all any of us have are Yuppie Food Stamps."


#35936 07/19/01 08:41 PM
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the only few i know that are missing
Mushroom managament keep them in the dark, feed them s***, and if they poke their head up, lop them off.

and good enough for Government work a working but un elegant solution to a problem.. (in a house, this is surface mount wiring..,i.e.)


#35937 07/19/01 08:54 PM
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nancyk,
Thank you for this! I love/hate all of them! And hadn't heard any of them! Also, Helen, thanks for "mushroom management," hadn't heard that either, though "close enough for government work" has been around long enough that even I have heard it.

I guess there are some compensations for no longer being in the corporate world.

meanwhile, daring a YART, I resurrect buzzword bingo:

http://www.btinternet.com/~mr.nik/business/buzz-bingo/


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Here is where this expression came into being:
Prior to the age of electronic surveying, accuracies of 1 part in a million were achieved on numerous surveys while the most accurate baseline ever measured by the Coast and Geodetic Survey with classical techniques had a final accuracy of better than 1 part in 5.5 million. To put that in perspective, that is a measurement error of less than one inch in 90 statute miles. Such accuracies led to surveyors coining a saying that in its various forms stated: "Good enough for Government work". Loosely translated, that saying refers to a very accurate survey and has its roots in the science of geodesy as developed by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, an organization that became legendary for the accuracy and precision of its results. Such accuracies were not achieved in sterile laboratory settings.

This comes from http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/historic/c&gs/moregeo.html, a fascinating website! If you go, you have GOT to check out the photographs. See you in a week or so.


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So when did the expression change from one meaning extremely accurate to one meaning done in a slipshod or in the easiest way possible?


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nancyk Offline OP
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when did the expression change

Good question. Even my government-employed husband uses the phrase with the negative connotation. Maybe the original survey was the very rare exception and the expression originally was used ironically?


#35941 07/21/01 04:02 PM
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wow Offline
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Thank you, nancyk ... all new to me! And a good chuckle to start the weekend! Sent them off to those still in the Corporate Tangle.
Salmon Day - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
Oh yah! Many's the Salmon Day I had in the news biz!





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