New Office Words
1. BLAMESTORMING : Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
2. SEAGULL MANAGER : A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.
3. ASSMOSIS : The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
4. SALMON DAY ;: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
5. CUBE FARM : An office filled with cubicles.
6. 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.
7. MOUSE POTATO : The on-line, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato.
8. SITCOMS : Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies get into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.
9. STRESS PUPPY : A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
10. SWIPEOUT : An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
11. XEROX SUBSIDY : Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.
12. IRRITAINMENT : Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.
13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE : The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again. Often feel like doing this to my computer.
14. 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.
15. 404 : Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message “404 Not Found,” meaning that the requested site could not be located.
16. GENERICA : Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.
17. OHNOSECOND : That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an email by mistake).
18. WOOFS : Well-Off Older Folks.
19. CROP DUSTING : Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube Farm.
20. MUSHROOM MANAGER: Keeps all of their staff in the dark. Whenever employees grow too big, they chop off their heads.
Calling In Sick
Calling in sick to work makes me uncomfortable. No matter how legitimate my illness, I always sense my boss thinks I am lying.
On one occasion, I had a valid reason, but lied anyway because the truth was too humiliating. I simply mentioned that I had sustained a head injury and I hoped I would feel up to coming in the next day. By then, I could think up a doozy to explain the bandage on my crown.
The accident occurred mainly because I conceded to my wife’s wishes to adopt a cute little kitty. Initially the new acquisition was no problem, but one morning I was taking my shower after breakfast when I heard my wife, Deb, call out to me from the kitchen. “Ed! the garbage disposal is dead. Come reset it.”
You know where the button is.” I protested through the shower (pitter- patter). “Reset it yourself!”
“I am scared!” She pleaded. “What if it starts going and sucks me in?” (Pause) “C’mon, it’ll only take a second.”
So out I came, dripping wet and buck naked, hoping to make a statement about how her cowardly behavior was not without consequence.
I crouched down and stuck my head under the sink to find the button. It is the last action I remember performing. It struck without warning, without respect to my circumstances. Nay, it wasn’t a hexed disposal drawing me into its gnashing metal teeth. It was our new kitty, clawing playfully at the dangling objects she spied between my legs. She had been poised around the corner and stalked me as I took the bait under the sink.
At precisely the second I was most vulnerable, she leapt at the toys I unwittingly offered and snagged them with her needle-like claws.
Now when men feel pain or even sense danger anywhere close to their masculine region, they lose all rational thought to control orderly bodily movements. Instinctively, their nerves compel the body to contort inwardly, while rising upwardly at a violent rate of speed. Not even a well trained monk could calmly stand with his groin supporting the full weight of a kitten and rectify the situation in a step-by-step manner.
Wild animals are sometimes faced with a “fight or flight” syndrome. Men, in this predicament, choose only the “flight” option.
Fleeing straight up, I knew at that moment how a cat feels when it is alarmed. It was a dismal irony. But, whereas cats seek great heights to escape, I never made it that far. The sink and cabinet bluntly impeded my ascent; the impact knocked me out cold.
When I awoke, my wife and the paramedics stood over me. Having been fully briefed by my wife, the paramedics snorted as they tried to conduct their work while suppressing their hysterical laughter.
At the office, colleagues tried to coax an explanation out of me. I kept silent, claiming it was too painful to talk. “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
If they had only known.
I’m The Boss
The boss was complaining in our staff meeting the other day that he wasn’t getting any respect. Later that morning he went to a local sign shop and bought a small sign that read:
“I’m the Boss!”
He then taped it to his office door.
Later that day when he returned from lunch, he found that someone had taped a note to the sign that said:
“Your wife called, she wants her sign back!”
How many social workers does it take to change a light bulb?
The light bulb doesn’t need changing, it’s the system that needs to change.
None. Social workers never change anything.
None. They empower it to change itself!
None. The light bulb is not burnt out, it’s just differently lit.
None. They set up a team to write a paper on coping with darkness.
Two. One to change the bulb and another to put your kids into care.
Five. One to screw it in, three to form the support group, and one to help with placement.
Letters Of Recommendation
Have to write a letter of recommendation for that fired employee?
Here are a few suggested phrases:
For the chronically absent:
“A man like him is hard to find.”
“It seemed her career was just taking off.”
For the office drunk:
“I feel his real talent is wasted here.”
“We generally found him loaded with work to do.”
“Every hour with him was a happy hour.”
For an employee with no ambition:
“He could not care less about the number of hours he had to put in.”
“You would indeed be fortunate to get this person to work for you.”
For an employee who is so unproductive that the job is better left unfilled:
“I can assure you that no person would be better for the job.”
For an employee who is not worth further consideration as a job candidate:
“I would urge you to waste no time in making this candidate an offer of employment.”
“All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this candidate or recommend him too highly.”
For a stupid employee:
“There is nothing you can teach a man like him.”
“I most enthusiastically recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever.”
For a dishonest employee:
“Her true ability was deceiving.”
“He’s an unbelievable worker.”
