We have logical Fridays. A logical Friday is the last day of the week you’re at work when it isn’t actually Friday due to a long weekend, doctor’s appointment, whatever. There are logical Mondays as well, but they are referred to as such much less (the reason being that “it’s a logical Friday” is the reason for going down to a restaurant down the road for lunch, which is traditional for Fridays, while “it’s a logical Monday” is the reason for having the weekly development team meeting on Tuesday).
Also, “Damn you Bill Gates!” is synonomous with “my computer is being screwy”.
Hose 'em and close 'em - To get the customer off your phone as quickly as possible without fixing their problem. “reboot and call back” One who uses such techniques is a hoser.
If a tech support agent tells you that you have an “I D 10 T” error, be offended.
Prospie: An undergraduate who has been accepted for graduate school in the fall, who is visiting the department to decide whether to come here. Short for ‘prospective grad student.’
Pizza Czar: the person in charge of organizing the weekly pizza night.
CRAP talks: Current Research in Astrophysics. A lecture series called “Current Research” in front of faculty.
Grups: Grown-ups. PhDs, staff, etc.
If anyone asks “How to you spell that?” the answer is “M-A-R-C.” Some grads were ordering pizza for carry-out and asked for his name, and without thinking, Marc gave them his last name, let’s say it was “Schnackenpfefferhausen”. The pizza guy asked, “Schnackenpfefferhausen? How do you spell that?” Marc answered, “M-A-R-C.”
If somebody loses their train of thought, they say, “Argh! Core dump!” or “Reboot!”
“I’ll be Jeremy [engages in a virtuous activity]” or “I’ll bet Jeremy doesn’t [engage in a suspect activity]”, 'cause my advisor is always comparing me to this other grad, Jeremy.
Anything you can do, you can do “aggressively.” Another thing my advisor said once.
And at my bookstore, books that had fallen off the shelf and were lying on the floor were “suicidal”. Customers that knocked more than one book off the shelf contributed to “Black Monday”.
“Code 25 in <science, humor, cafe, whatever department>” was “young, attractive male browsing through the stacks alone”.
** Pony ** - A customer who asks for things that are completely unrealistic,like a replacement credit card in twelve hours. Came from a call I took where the customer asked for that, an immediate 5000 credit line increase and his annual percentage rate decreased. I put him on mute and asked him if he’d also like a pony,someone overheard and it spread.
** Lloyd ** A MST3K reference. If Lloyd Bridges was in a movie they’d always say “By this time, my lungs were aching for air” referring to Sea Hunt. In our context it’s a customer who doesn’t stop talking long enough for you to talk,as if they have a scuba tank attached and don’t need to pause for a breath.
** Uncle Fucker ** A customer who thinks using profanity will get them what they want. Unfortunately we are not allowed to hang up on these people anymore and must transfer them to a supervisor. A friend of mine was transferring one of these and when she was waiting for the supervisor to pick up said,without the customer hearing her, “I’m a bitch? Well shut your fucking face, Uncle Fucker!”
I once came back from a simple help call after three hours, explaining that once I was there everyone in the department grabbed me with “Can I just ask you a quick question?” (Apparently not.) It was, I noted, like being nibbled to death by ducks.
So now departments that are notorious for this behavior are called duck ponds.
We also have a Coffee Nazi! How could I have forgotten? Then again, she is also our Sharon Stone (see my earlier post). Our CN is defined differently than yours, though. She has passed out memos reminding people that coffee costs money, and we should be grateful that our company provides it, and we should only be going through “X” amount per week. She actually puts out “X” amount each Monday in the break room, and keeps the rest locked in her office, so we don’t use too much.
You may or may not be surprised to know that this woman has a few nicknames
The two that come to mind have to do with sneaking out early. When I worked in the plant engineering group, we’d say someone “signed out to the Test Cell” - the Engine Test Cell was probably the farthest building from ours - isolated to keep the noise away from the offices. It also happened to be near a large parking area - convenient when they ducked out not to return.
In my current job, I share a cubicle with 3 others - one of whom is notorious for leaving without taking annual leave. His standard line is “I’m going across the street” - what he actually does is cross from engineering to the main building, go out the back door, thru the back gate, and to his truck. So among the three of us who remain, the standard line is “Has Tom gone across the street?” In fact, we’ve asked him at times if he’s going across the street, to the amusement of ourselves. How petty are we??
The powers that be here recently had to come up with a name representing independent research groups within the organization that were doing similar sorts of work. The winner: NOG, standing for Naturally Occurring Group. The persons in charge of such groups are…wait for it…
NOG-heads.
Needless to say this innovation has been the source of much snarkiness.
(all props to Jerry Seinfeld for this one)
Monday morning used to be full of “How was your weekend?” or
“See any good movies?” or “What’s new with the family?”
Time is money, so we have minimized this chitchat into one word - “acknowledge”, said without making eye contact and moving away quickly from colleague.
In the Department of Entomology/Mosquito Research and Control:
Nozzleheads: those who want to kill mosquitoes without understanding basic mosquito control concepts.
Nab 'em and jab 'em or Noose 'em and goose 'em: Catch an animal and take blood or temperature.
Stinkwater: a potent fermented water used in mosquito gravid traps. This term may actually be in the literature.
The Ladies: EEE surveillance chickens.
Paranoidsitosis: is actually my term because for some reason I have a hard time remembering “Delusions or Paranoia of Parasitism,” a medical condition where people think they are being attacked by insects. We get a lot of calls from these folks.
RU Screw: The Catch-22 that one finds oneself in when dealing with the Rutgers bureaucracy.
We have that too, but we call it “Functional Friday”.
And I have one user who’s actually a great guy and a good friend, but whenever we catch each other in making a boneheaded error, we say we’re sending them the “Ass Ears” to wear.
Twelve O’Clock Flasher n.: Slang for someone who doesn’t know anything about computers. Comes from Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie’s Welcome to the Help Desk where he explains that this person is so stupid all their electronic devices are flashing 12:00.
After a particularly horrendous experience with a couple of appallingly dishonest, corrupt, and paranoid schizophrenic contractors with the last name “Heefer” (it’s not actually Heefer, it’s something else close to it, just to avoid them suing me) in my office “Heefer” or simply “Heef” has become the swear word of choice.
“Heef you.”
“What a stupid motherheefer.”
“Well, this is all heefed up.”
“What a heefing mess!”
Some others:
Bag drive. A particularly difficult and time-consuming task. “This project’s going to be a real bag drive.”
Thud. A dull person.
Thudfuck. A very stupid person.
Making puppies. A polite way of saying “fucking the dog.”
A riggins is any piece of equipment that you either don’t know the name of, or can’t think of the name of at the moment.
“What kind of riggins is that?”
or
“That riggins where we send stuff to head office is broken, Dave.”
“You mean the fax machine?”
“Yeah, that’s the deal.”
An attaboy is praise from the boss - usually as the result of a particularily suckholing move. Used derisively.
I sense there is a good story here. Wanna explain?
Where I work, we call the good parking the sweet spots, but I like Rock Star Parking even better. We also talk about parking karma as in, “I got a sweet spot today. Parking karma loves me.”
Psychologists in general also use the term FLK, which stands for Funny-Looking Kid, to refer to children who, well, look funny.
Gee, are we the only ones who refer to them as IBM problems? (Idiot Behind Machine)
Watch acronyms around trainees, tho - referred to a
(ab)user as DKS, industrious trainee wrote it down, asked what it meant. Pat, it means Don’t Know Shit…
