Words/Phrases You've Never Uttered Until You Started Working There

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…and would make very little sense outside of the workplace. Okay, and sometimes make little sense within.

I’ve found that, ever since I started working at a new job, in a new city, with all new people - a job in which I have never had any previous experience and dove into cold and nekkid - that there are some new phrases where I’ve found myself thinking: “Damn. I would have never thought I would use a phrase like that in all my life.”

Sometimes the phrases grow from a work-related shibboleth, or sometimes, quite simply, an odd circumstance. For example, at my old job, we used to gleefully yell at our forklift drivers: “I need some more cartoons!” Hardy har har, we meant “cartons”. But “cartoons” is more fun to say. My job title was “pilot”. Informally. It was even written on most work-related forms by my supes. “Pilot” actually means “pile-it”, since that’s what I did: I picked up a box and then I piled it. Many of them. Repeatedly. All night long. Har har. So “pilot” I be. From this, however, whenever something was going horribly wrong with us pilots, we would have to stick our head in the doorway to where the main room was, housing the operator of the robot that put the boxes out (a job I eventually got, but “pilot” was my favourite), and yell to the operator: “PILOT TO BOMBARDIER! PILOT TO BOMBARDIER! MAY DAY! MAY DAY!”

Not a phrase I ever would have thought I’d use at a fish factory. Or ever, let’s be honest.

Now, at my new job, I have no need of yelling “PILOT TO BOMBARDIER!” any longer, which is a nice change, and a bit of a relief. However, there are new phrases I’ve found myself uttering that I never would have dreamed of uttering. The latest ones:

(me to my manager): “You’re not a despot and I love you dearly.”
(me to co-worker): “If Sade comes to the door, my husband leaves and I get to sleep with her.”
(me to customer): “Ma’am? Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am, you dropped your binky.”
(co-worker to me): “I squished my Gertie.”
(me to co-worker): “Where do we hang the lederhosen?”

What are some of yours?

2

At Australia Post, there used to be a job where the truck bringing mail from the local post offices to our sorting facility would back up to a loading dock, and the drivers would throw mail bags onto a conveyor. A few of us would be around the conveyor at various points, taking mail off and putting it into containers, separated by type. One guy would be near the truck “calling” the type of mail as it came along the conveyor. He’d shout arcane stuff like: “mail… priority… OA… mail… OA… post office… mail… parcels… city…” Anyway, “OA” means “other articles” (small parcels), and many of the guys doing that job wouldn’t say “OA” but “HIP! HIP!” and we’d all yell “OA!!!”

“mail… priority… city… mail… HIP!! HIP!!”

OA!!!

“…city… priority…”

3

Me (to the accountant): Hi. Sorry to bother you, but do you have any work you need done? I finished all mine before lunch and I have four hours to go and I think I’ll go crazy if I don’t do something. Please. Please.

Accountant: Nope. Nothing. Sorry.

Me: MAKE ME WORK FOR MY MONEY GODDAMN YOU!

Never in my life did I think slacking for money would be so hard.

4

“sorry, i don’t know how to make a buttery nipple. do you know what’s in that?”

5

I briefly worked for the Ministry of Defence some years ago.

In order to liven up a dull day, I picked up the phone and asked the switchboard to put me through to the Russian Embassy.

I never thought I would say that.

6

The other day I was proofing a procedure and discovered that a writer-no-longer-with-us had instructed the user to “Populate the fax.” Reading this aloud in a tone of utter disbelief caused my co-worker to laugh uncontrollably. Now I say it anytime I want her to laugh.

I mean, what did the writer expect the user to do? Have faxes breed indiscriminately? :eek:

7

Just five minutes ago, I sent my VP a paper titled “Alpha solar wobbler POP”

And yes, it actually means something. And it’s nothing related to astronomy or carbonated beverages.

Not only are those four words I’d never used before working here, they’re four words I’d never imagined could be put together.

8

So many words and phrases, I wouldn’t even want to start listing them.

Many of them are industry specific, and I giggle nearly every time I hear myself using them with a straight face.

And when I caught myself saying earnestly on the phone ‘He’s absolutely right, we really do need a three dimensional classification system’ I almost choked trying not to laugh.

The best thing is that as part of my work is translation, I get to use all of these previously undreamt of words and phrases in three languages. It’s an enormous source of pleasure.

9

I spent three months doing that, last January to March. We were in a finite-time project in Costa Rica, I was ahead of schedule, the schedule got pulled back (putting me even further ahead); everybody else was behind schedule. It would have been ok if at least I had been allowed to study at work, which by Spanish law they are supposed to allow when the study is work related (I’m working on a degree in work safety so it’s related to any job in the world), but then again, by Spanish law you can’t work 12-hour days more than 3 days in a row and we were working them M-F. At first the new boss even made that M-S, but after 4 weeks he realized he’d have to drive us all to the ER if he kept that up.

The logistics guy didn’t want to give me work because “it’s my work and I have to be the one doing it”, until I finally got it through his skull that I was bored out of mine. The finance guy thought it would take longer to explain to me how to do stuff than to do it himself. I finagled some data entry work from him, pointing out that all it requires is the list of data, and some pointers on which piece goes where. Since I’ve actually held data-entry jobs and can find the keys without hunting painfully for each one, I finished it way too fast…

If you don’t need me to be there at that point and don’t want to give me vacation, then at least don’t make be there overtime!

Forklifts are nicknamed “toros” through most of Spain (bulls). In my hometown they’re called Muliks or mules: they’re strong as a mule and the first brand that sold them ended up in “-ik”. I keep having to explain that word to outsiders. Did you know that a mule’ horns can plug a cage? That’s when one of the warehouse guys is trying to line up the m3 plastic containers, the ones that have a metal cage all around, and the forks puncture the cage behind. It’s called plugging if the guy has the presence of mind to leave the forks in, so they stop the flow of liquid, until sand and buckets have been placed around the holes. If they have taken the horns out, then the terms get more colourful and I don’t know how to translate them to English properly, but think Onan and a lot of jokes about sexual positions come into play.
In Spanish, “walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…” is said “¿blanco y en botella? ¡leche!”: “white and in a bottle? milk!” But ah, the last factory where I worked made “milky white liquids” which could get “cream” (coagulation) on top and which would often be kept in bottles. So we said “white and in a bottle? call the lab, make sure it ain’t paint…”

10

This is all railroad related stuff, except for maybe the 1st one

Fucking the dog is a totally new one to me. It’s apparently what you do when you squeeze as much overtime as you can out of a job.

A “quit” or “running for the quit” is when you know you can’t get overtime so you try to get done in less than 8 hrs, but still get paid for 8. A “quit faggot” is someone who does this repeatedly.

“Blowing up” or “Outlawing” is what a crew does when they hit their hours of service limits and can’t mave a train another inch. A “quit faggot” might call this crew a “buff” or a “railroad buff” because they apparently like being out there.

“Going in the hole” is when your airbrakes dump all the air on you and the train goes into emergency.

“On the ground” is bad. That’s when your wheels are no longer on the rail, but…on the ground.

We have “dump tests” where we test the markers on the back of the train and when the test is good it’s called a “good dump”. That’s funny to me.

A “tick” is a person who’s part of a saturation team. They hide in the woods and wait for you to break rules, then pounce.

A “car knocker” is a car repair person

A “hammy” is any Harrisburg crew. They got their name from the times when cabooses were used and the crews would cook hams all day inside the caboose as they made their trip. Hammies are a big pain in the ass. If a train has 100 cars, they’ll find a way to put on 101 hand brakes for the re-crew.

A “conehead” is any allentown crew. I don’t know how they got their name but I think it’s a good one.

A caboose is called a “hack” or a “cabin” but never a caboose.

11

The best one from where I currently work…

My company facilitates agreements between debtors and creditors via a government agency. Basically, we make the agreement and send it to the agency, then the creditors have a voting process on whether or not to accept the agreement.

Thus, our term for that acceptance is that an agreement has “gotten up”.

So we have conversations like this:

“Mr. Smith is going to get up. Mr. Jones is going to get up. Mr. Baker can’t get up.”

With a slightly dirty mind, this gives me the giggles.

Our (LAME LAME LAME) company slogan is: There is life after debt!

Thus, we refer (in the office, out of earshot of any manager) to our clients as zombies.

Cheers,
G

12

For Black Train Song, some Aussie railway slang…

In the dirt = on the ground (not good)
Bung = a “please explain” note or a disciplinary one
SPAD = Signal passed at danger (definitely worth one hellava bung)
WOLO = Restricted speed in force due to high temperatures
Jumbo = type of old “bulldog” locomotive (Alco)
Spark = EMU
Juice = Overhead electric power
Banjo = Fireman’s shovel (steam)
U Boat = type of 1950s EMU (class was prefixed ‘U’)
Crib = meal break
Bustitution = what happens to passengers during track maintenance.
Stick = signal
Flying Brick = Boringly square locomotives of 70s/80s design
Flea Gauge = Narrow gauge
Blister = (See “Bung”)

And a little poem for you:

The guard is the man
Who rides in the van
At the back of the train.
The driver up front
Thinks the guard is a c–t
And the guard thinks the driver’s the same.

13

“You need to talk to the Pig People about that.”

I worked in a seismic equipment factory. It’s a little complicated, but to put it as simply as possible, we made and repaired equipment used in underground exploration. One of the most important pieces of equipment we made was the geophone–a microphone that listened for vibrations that bounced off underground landforms.

Anyway, inside the geophone was a pair of wires, twisted and soldered into place. The pair of wires was known in the factory as a pigtail, and the people who soldered the pigtail were known as “pig people.” And they were actually proud of the title.

Also, while it’s probably only tangential to the OP’s topic, we never pluralized the word “cable” in the factory. We never shipped, say, forty seismic cables; but rather, forty seismic cable. No plural. I don’t know why. But we all said it.

14

I have fun at work trying to write whole sentences of nothing but acronyms or abbreviations: “Pt to rtc for f/u ucg prn if sx or /p 2 wks /c no menses, or prn for bcm /c ecf/vcf disp today.”
Also, I say the word “vagina” more times in one day than I ever thought possible. Vagina!

15

Australia Post: “ADF has sent us a special because they’ve got DD, so they’ve run some letterform through 552 because most of it is tag. It’s being inducted into the TMS now by the 12 noon SL people, so we’ll need to run it as 587 on 11. There’s some 020 res still in the TMS, so you’ll need to cleardown first. Watch out for lumpies. Don’t rerun if they go to 2.”

If you ever wondered what happens to a letter after you mail it - DON’T.

16
  1. She’s 38 and 4, closed, thick, high and back.
  2. Void or mec?
  3. We’re on Mag, so pad them.
  4. That’s an FLK but you should see the dad.
  5. 42 and 2, intact.

So many phrases, so little time. I never knew gestational ages, cervical states and perineal status would rule my day. If a patient is on Magnesium Sulfate for seizure prophylactis, of course you cushion her bedrails in event of the anticipated seizure. A Funny Looking Kid is just that, no suspicion of syndrome worries or genetic studies needed if the parents share facial traits. A void is a pee but a Peed is a pediatrician. Meconium is black and tarry excrement.

17

[hijack] Black Train Song, can I ask you a railroad question that I have not been able to find the answer to anywhere else? I live near a train yard in Seattle, and every now and then a train will blow its horn repeatedly and EXTREMELY loudly. We call it the “train car alarm” because it will be 2-5 minutes long, made up of 1-or-2-second blasts, and it’s loud enough to wake us out of a sound sleep – we can feel the vibrations. Why do they do that? I assume there’s a reason for them to do it in a highly-populated area, but it would annoy me a lot less if I knew why. And why they (sometimes) have to do it at 3am.

Thanks!

[/hijack]

As for the OP, I just started a new job, so I don’t have a handle on the lingo yet. I had a number of these “I can’t believe I said those words together” at my old job, but I’ve blocked them out because the job was sucking my soul away.

18

“haaaaaaaaaaands!”

19

stargazer , The only times you really need to blow the horn repeatedly that I know of is when there are maintenance of way workers in the area. Then you have to sound short blasts until the workers acknowledge your presence. But I doubt that’s the reason.

When passing another train that’s standing we just sound the bells until we’re clear of it.

Crossings have to be blown too, but not usually ones inside yards.

My guess is that the guy’s just being a jerk, but who knows. Our yard is also near a residential area and we try to keep that in mind. Some yards we go through are full of jackasses though. Maybe that’s what you have.

TheLoadedDog , that reminds me. Our yard engines are usually called “pups” and I’ve heard them called “puddle jumpers” too.

“Spinning the power” is when you have to turn the engines or “wye” them so they face the right direction.

A live track is called a “hot rail”

20

“You can’t do the sales cause my 9’s running.”

“I need that back so I can put it on my paid outs.”

“Three slash this for me.”

But we have a new system, so we don’t say these things any more. Also, anyone here who works for my company knows where I work and what I do there.