# "No Elvis." -- Terminology unique to YOUR workplace **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 25, 2002, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791 "2002-07-25T16:45:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/21 "2002-07-26T04:35:30Z")
“Helicopter” This started from a commercial film producer who kept having run-ins with middle management clients who would randomly cut parts of his project just to show that they were “in charge”. To solve this, he would set out a complete outline of his idea, then add in helicopter rental, saying that a panormic shot of the city would look really good in the ad, and would only cost an extra $125,000. The middle manager would naturally cut this out, and everyone would be happy. The manager had shown he was the alpha male, and the producer could film the project the way he wanted. A helicopter is now any useless idea we intentionally sacrifice so that the client (boss, sales rep, anybody trying to stick their fingers in the project) will go away and let us work. ---
**Author:** ![tavalla](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tavalla/32/89_2.png) [@tavalla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tavalla)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/22 "2002-07-26T07:12:33Z")
One place I used to work at had frequent FOPUs - front office piss-up. The network I’m with now refers to digitally-garbled sound as ‘turkey’ (sounds like an amplified turkey on speed). ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/23 "2002-07-26T11:54:49Z")
I REALLY like the “Helicopter” idea. It has countless applications. Mind if I use it? ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/24 "2002-07-26T13:22:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by plnnr \* > \*\*I REALLY like the “Helicopter” idea. It has countless applications. Mind if I use it? \*\* I found that particularly ingenius also… So many practical applications! ---
**Author:** ![blanx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f04885/32.png) [@blanx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blanx)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/25 "2002-07-26T13:28:56Z")
My old job as a public defender had the “fork”, which was bestowed upon the person who went above and beyond the call of duty in an incredibly pointless quest which did nothing remotely positive for the client, got everyone in the legal system pissed at the attorney, and basically was a suicide mission of the highest order. The fork was presented in an office-wide ceremony, and it was a great honor to receive the fork. (the fork in question was part of an old set of fireplace tools, which had the see no evil speak no evil hear no evil monkeys on the handle) Why a fork, you ask? Comes from an old joke. 3 legal types (a judge, a prosecutor, and a defense attorney) are lost in the amazon, and come across the world’s only English speaking tribe of cannibals. The head cannibal comes up to them and says, “we have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that we’re going to kill you, eat you, and use your skins to make our canoes. The good news is that you get to choose how you want to die.” The judge says, “I want to go quickly. Shoot me in the head.” So they do, and then eat him, and use the skin to make a canoe. The prosecutor says, “I want to go painlessly. Give me poison.” So they do, and then eat him, and use the skin to make a canoe. The criminal defense attorney says, " I want a fork." So they give him a fork, and he starts plunging it into his body, over, and over again. He’s grimacing in pain, and blood is slowly dripping from the wounds. The cannibal says," Good lord, man, doesn’t that hurt?" The c.d.a. says, “Hurts worse than you can possibly imagine.” The cannibal replies, “So why are you doing it?” The c.d.a. says, “You can kill me, and you can certainly eat me, but so much for your f\*cking canoe!” ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/26 "2002-07-26T13:31:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tavalla \* > \*\*One place I used to work at had frequent FOPUs - front office piss-up. > \*\* I had a co-worker who was less-than-competant. We usually had to redo vast amounts of her work, and she had a bad habit of wrecking our work while we weren’t looking. “How did you delete that _entire_ project?!!?” “I dunno.” God forbid she offer to “help” you with something, for it would lead to project destruction. She became known as Yub-Yub. It stood for: “You useless bitch, you _useless_ bitch!” ---
**Author:** ![tavalla](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tavalla/32/89_2.png) [@tavalla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tavalla)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/27 "2002-07-26T13:38:49Z")
:cracks up laughing: I work with a Yub-Yub and, if I change ‘bitch’ to ‘bastard’, I can add a couple of male Yub-Yubs to the list. [sub]But, to clarify a possible misunderstanding here, a ‘piss-up’ in Australia is a drinking session. A fuck-up or cock-up is entirely different to a piss-up. Never mind, I still love Yub-Yub.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/28 "2002-07-26T13:48:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tavalla \* > \*\*[sub]But, to clarify a possible misunderstanding here, a ‘piss-up’ in Australia is a drinking session. A fuck-up or cock-up is entirely different to a piss-up.[/sub] \*\* Ah, I had interpreted to be more like a “hissy-fit” or else kind of squabble you get in the boardroom when the middle management guys get pissy (as in “cranky”) and then try to “assert their authority” (getting, of course, absolutely nowhere.) ---
**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/29 "2002-07-26T14:11:23Z")
My hubby’s job (he’s a detective) calls Post-it Notes FLYNs. Fucking Little Yellow Notes. ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/30 "2002-07-26T14:35:10Z")
I work for a small publisher of monthly newsletters on legal topics. From an editor’s perspective, the most crucial point in the development of a new product is the drafting of the Beer Truck memo. The Beer Truck usually runs about twenty pages, covering everything the editor needs to know about how to write this new newsletter: basic structure of the law covered, analysis of the intended audience, contact information for sources, details about the board of advisors, lists of story ideas, etc. The idea is that should the editor get hit by a beer truck, another editor can take over the product in a reasonable amount of time. ---
**Author:** ![CRorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CRorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CRorex)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/31 "2002-07-26T15:26:38Z")
I’ve heard the phrase, “Vampire Time” used. That’s what some people say when it’s time for our semiannual serum banking. (We get 5-10 vials of blood drawn and the blood serum removed so they can test out blood to see if we have antibodies from any of the pathogens we do research on). “We’ve got a runner” – A baboon (usually a juvi) got out of the cages. Which is usually pretty funny, since we’re safe in the labs and it’s the animal handlers who have to chase the little guy all over the place. ---
**Author:** ![Zhora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a5b964/32.png) [@Zhora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zhora)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/32 "2002-07-26T16:50:27Z")
“Fosteritis” Whenever there is a happy hour, Foster gets antsy and ends up leaving work early to get a head start. One day someone was asking for him so I said, “He already left, Fosteritis set in.” Now we say people have Fosteritis whenever they leave early. ---
**Author:** ![CRorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CRorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CRorex)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/33 "2002-07-26T17:10:32Z")
mmm happy hour. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_News_Baboon)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/34 "2002-07-26T17:19:18Z")
at my husbands old job in prototyping, hitting something ‘right on the money’ became: “dead nuts” for example: if a piece was to be EXACTLY correct in dimensions (it had to be 4" not 4-7/8") then the piece had to be “dead nuts”. At my current job, we have many drawings that are set up with industry standards. One sheet we have is for alarm/fire systems in buildings. A co-worker many years ago copied it from an old file and inadvertantly named one of the symbols “Duccle”. When updating the sheet, we noticed the error (so many years later!) we have no idea what a duccle is or what it was supposed to be as the original file is long gone. so, now when we redline each other’s work and something is drawn incorrectly or is drawn so that it is not readily apparent as to what it should be, we circle it and write: “duccle?” ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/35 "2002-07-26T17:55:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by peasea \* > Oddly enough, I’ve heard ‘hosed up’, or sometimes, just ‘hosed’. Even saw it on a billboard. Birch Telecom, I think. Computer techie jargon tends to be widespread, rather than local to a company–possibly because of the longevity of the slang and the extensive jargon-laden communication in the community. [“Hose” and “hosed”](http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/h.html#hose) have a long history in hackerdom. It’s not widespread in our company yet, but several of us use “grace” and “graced” as a code of sorts, based on the effect of a certain cow-orker on meetings, particularly teleconferences: “She graced our meeting with her presence.” means “She dragged the meeting out for an extra hour without contibuting anything useful.” ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/36 "2002-07-26T17:55:41Z")
“Hey, Professor STAFF.” On one campus, the admin. took most of the part time instructors’ names out of the schedule of classes a couple of years ago, reducing us to STAFF even if we’d been there for years. For a while, we just passed each other and said, Hello, Professor Staff. How many classes are you teaching?..Tons? Me, too." They finally put most of the names back in, but there is still an entire division with pts named STAFF. ---
**Author:** ![psiekier](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psiekier/32/116_2.png) [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/37 "2002-07-26T18:19:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tolyri \* > \*\*We also had a Song Of Joy in Finnish > > Yo a la too a la meesa hanky panky > Rupa son maka tippy ooh a soota ma silta > Eee Ahh Ohhh Ooohh > Loom pellan taco koola moskis > > No idea what it means (other than the hanky panky bit) > > Any Finns out there happy to translate? I admit it is not spelled right. \*\* Are you sure that’s Finnish? It’s sounds more like Jar-Jar Binks to me. At my current job, we only have one really funny “new” term. Every user gets a login made by taking their first initial and up to seven letters of their last name; this is, incidentally, where my screen name “ **psiekier** ” comes from. One particularly clueless user has the login “ **snapper** ” because of the combination of her first initial and last name. Unfortunately for her, while this should be a cool moniker to have, we’ve come to use “snapper” mean an incompetent clutz. At my old job - Motorola - I had a team lead (Tom) who was fond of making funny TLA’s for everything. For less-than-grandiose projects, we wrote “Trivial Requirements Documents,” or “TRDs” (pronounced “turdz”). Tom would regularly ask in a deliberately loud voice who had left the “TRD” on his desk. Our database, PRIME, had a separate trouble ticket management system, which he named the PRIME Resolution Issue Base. Trouble tickets then became known as “PRIME RIBs.” I swear, I’m not making this up. ---
**Author:** ![Leifsmama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a698b9/32.png) [@Leifsmama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leifsmama)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/38 "2002-07-26T18:23:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jackelope \* > \*\*I used to be a host at a restaurant in Atlanta. Seating people, etc. One host would be at the front door taking names, and the other would be in back, seating people, busing tables, etc. The two would have walkie-talkies to communicate. When the front host needed to know how many tables were open, he/she would ask for “an all-day.” No idea why, but an all-day was the term for a listing of how many tables of various sizes were available in the restaurant. > > \*\* All day is a kitchen term. When the expiditer is calling out orders, sometimes you forget (especially when your really busy.) You ask for an all day, that is every order hanging that pertains to your station. ---
**Author:** ![Belrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/39 "2002-07-26T20:28:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lno \* > \*\*'nother tech boy checking in. > > It’s not dorked up or hosed up here, but it is jacked. Not jacked up – just jacked. > > “Yeah, systest is jacked - musta been the recent build.” \*\* Add our shop to “hosed” and “jacked”. We also have “horked” - but not “dorked”. -B ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791/40 "2002-07-26T21:14:49Z")
At my previous job with an Evil HMO, the California agency we had to deal with and had oversight of our industry was the Department of Managed Health Care, or DMHC. I came up the (in retrospect, obvious) pronunciation: **"dumb-hick."** Needless to say, a big hit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-elvis-terminology-unique-to-your-workplace/120791.md?page=3)