Generation X Office Lingo

This is an "oldie but goodie" that I thought I'd bring back. Enjoy!

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

Body Nazis - hard-core exercises and weight-lifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.

Chainsaw Consultant - an outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Cube Farm - an office filled with cubicles.

Ego Surfing - scanning the Net, databases, print media, and so on, looking for references to one's own name.

Elvis Year - the peak year of somethings popularity.

404 - someone who is clueless (from the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning the requested document couldn't be located).

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

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

Ohnosecond - that minuscule fraction of time in which you realize you've just made a big mistake.

Prairie Dogging - something loud happens in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

SITCOM - stands for Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.

Stress Puppy - a person who thrives on being stressed-out and whiny.

Tourists - those who take training classes just to take a vacation from their jobs.

Uninstalled - euphemism for being fired.

Xerox Subsidy - euphemism for swiping free photocopies from the workplace.

Is Gen X Losing The American Dream?

The stock market continues to reach new highs almost daily. Unemployment rates are at or near their historic lows. The global economy continues to grow and shows no signs of slowing down. Times are good right? Well maybe not.

For many in Generation X and now Generation Y (the Millennial Generation), this is a time of insecurity and anxiousness. Yes, economically speaking, times are good. But the economic boom has not benefited everyone in our country equally.

Generation X and Y are coming of age and growing up in a unique and unenviable position in America today:

• Wages and wage growth have stagnated. According to many studies, wages aren’t even keeping up with inflation, let alone the skyrocketing costs of real estate, energy, child-care and healthcare. According to some experts, Generation X is now almost guaranteed to become the first generation in the history of our great country to be less well off than our parents.



• Job security no longer exists. It used to be that you would graduate from college, go to work for a company for 30+ years and then retire with a defined pension and a gold watch. But those days are gone. Security no longer exists in the fast-paced global economy of today. The new economy requires constantly reinventing yourself and the never ending race for new opportunities. Not that having to constantly reinvent your self is a bad thing. I tend to like the idea of learning and doing something new. But the risks associated with this type of economy significantly outweigh the awards. We are being told to embrace the entrepreneurial risks of the new economy, but we do not experience the rewards usually associated with such risks. Unless you consider a 2%-4% annual pay raise a good risk/reward benefit.



• We are burdened with staggering levels of personal debt. We are the first generation to start our “adult” lives with significant amounts of personal debt. According to Tamara Draut in her book “Strapped: Why America’s 20-and-30-somethings can’t get ahead,” college students today are graduating on average with close to $20,000 in student loan debt for a bachelors degree, $45,000 for a graduate degree, and $100,000 or more for a professional degree. In addition to student loan debt, the typical young American has an average credit card balance outstanding of $2,000-$3,000. Servicing such a large debt load, given the stagnant wage growth has become a nightmare.

Even with the deck stacked against us, we continue to work hard every day to achieve the American dream. Although the media has labeled us as “slackers” and “entitled,” we continue to shoot for the ever elusive American dream. It is a struggle to have to fight and claw your way to stay on track, especially when most of us are living paycheck to paycheck and are only one job loss or illness away from financial disaster. But that is the hand that we were dealt. So play the hand the best way you know how. You might surprise yourself and go “all-in” and end up a winner.

Some Gen X Humor

Video: How Gen X Thinks About Work:

You Might Be A Gen X-er If...

I received an e-mail the other day with a great list for Gen X’ers. There was not an author listed, so I do not know who to give credit to for the list. But whoever it was, CUDOS! The list is awesome!

The list is a take off of the old “You Might Be a Redneck If…” tag line, but the “You Might Be a Redneck” has been replaced with “You Might Be a Generation X-er If…” tag line. I personally found the list to be extremely funny and it definitely brought back some wonderful childhood memories.

So take a look at the list below and let me know your thoughts. Also, if anyone has anything to add to the list, leave it as a comment so we can continue to build on the preexisting list.

YOU MIGHT BE A GENERATION X-ER IF…

• You remember when Jordache jeans were cool.



• In your fifth grade class picture, you’re wearing an Izod shirt with the collar up.



• You’ve ever conversationally used the phrase “Jane, you ignorant slut.”



• You know by heart, the words to any Weird Al Yankovic song.



• You ever rang someone’s doorbell and said “Land shark.”



• The words: “Atari,” “IntelliVision,” and “Coleco,” all sound familiar.



• You remember the days when “safe sex” meant your parents are gone for the weekend.



• You remember “Friday Night Videos” before the days of MTV.



• You remember when MTV was really a music television station.



• A predominant color in your childhood photos is “plaid.”



• While in high school, you and all of your friends discussed elaborate plans to get together again at the end of the century and play “1999” by Prince over and over again.



• On family trips, before the invention of the minivan, you rode in the back of the station wagon and you faced the cars behind you.



• You watched HR Puffenstuff as a child, but now that you’re older, you really understand that it would have been much better had you known about drugs at the time.



• Schoolhouse Rock played a HUGE part in how you actually learned the English language.



• You ever dressed and/or had a hairstyle to emulate a person you saw in a Duran Duran, Madonna, or Cyndi Lauper video.



• You remember when Hooters was a rock band, not a restaurant.



• The first time you ever kissed someone at a dance came during “Crazy for You” by Madonna.



• You remember the paid the sad day when the Green Machine hit the streets and instantly made your Big Wheel obsolete.



• Honestly remember when film critics raved that no movie could ever possibly get better special effects than those in the movie TRON.



• (For Girls) You thought Shaun Cassidy was “dreamy” and you lusted after “Gopher, your ship’s purser” on the Love Boat.



• You freaked out when you found that you now fall into the “26 – 50” age category on most surveys and questionnaires.



• Your hair, at some point in time during the 80’s, became something that can only be described by the phrase “I was experimenting.”



• When Star Wars opens, you were still in single digit ages, and you thought the creatures in the movie were way cool.



• When The Empire Strikes Back opened, you were now in early double digit ages, and you were convinced that the special effects in the movie were much better than Star Wars, that the characters were cool, and you wanted one of every collectible out there.



• When Return of the Jedi hits the theaters… you were a teenager, and you could not get our eyes off of Princess Leia’s breasts or Han Solo’s butt.



• You’re doing absolutely nothing pertaining to your major in college.



• U2 is too “popular” and “mainstream” for you now.



• You spent endless nights growing up dreaming about being the Bionic Woman or Wonder Woman or the Six Million Dollar Man.



• You know entire introduction to the A-Team by heart.



• You had ringside seats for Luke and Laura’s wedding on General Hospital.



• You remember “Hey, let’s be careful out there.”



• You know who shot J.R.



• You ever wanted to learn to play “Stairway to Heaven” on the guitar.



• You were unsure is Diet Coke would ever catch on because of TAB.



• You know all the words to the double album set of Grease.



• You ever had a Dorothy Hammill haircut.



• You sat with your friends on a Friday night and dialed “8-6-7-5-3-0-9” to see if Jenny would answer.



• “All-skate, change directions” means something to you.



• You ever owned a pair of Rainbow suspenders just like Mork used to wear.



• You bought a pair of Vanns and wanted to order pizza in history class so you could be just like Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.



• You were too young to see the Blue Lagoon, so you had to settle for second hand reports.



• You remember when there was only “G, PG and R” rated movies in the mainstream movie theaters.



• You learned to swim about the same time Jaws came out and still carry emotional scars to this day.



• Your jaw would ache by the time you finished those brick-sized packages of Bazooka gum.



• You remember Bo, Luke, Daisy and Uncle Jesse.



• You remember when VCR’s cost $1,000 and were Betamax.



• No one questioned why Burt and Ernie were living together.



• You remember rotary dial telephones.



• You anxiously awaited “That’s Incredible” with Fran Tarkenton and John Davidson on Wednesday nights.



• You actually believed that Mikey (famed for his “life” cereal commercials) died after eating a packet of pop rocks and drinking a Coke.



• The theme song to “Greatest American Hero” still comes back to you on occasion.