404 - Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located. Used as in: "Don't bother asking him ... he's 404, man."

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.

ALPHA GEEK - The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group.

ASSMOSIS - The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss.

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

DILBERTED - To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character. "I've been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."

IDEA HAMSTERS - People who always seem to have their idea generators running.

MOUSE POTATO - The on-line, wired generation's answer to the Couch potato.

OHNO-SECOND - That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE - The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

SEAGULL MANAGER - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything and then leaves.

SALMON DAY - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream, only to get screwed and die in the end.

STRESS PUPPY - A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

TOURISTS - People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. Example: "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

YUPPIE FOOD STAMPS - The ubiquitous $20 bills spewed out of ATMs everywhere. Often used when trying to split the bill after a meal: "We owe $8 each, but all anybody's got are yuppie food stamps."

1.	Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
2.	The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
3.	I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.
4.	Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
5.	I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don't give a damn.
6.	I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.
7.	What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?
8.	I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant.
9.	I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
10.	Ahhh, I see the fuck-up fairy has visited us again.
11.	I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.
12.	It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.
13.	Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
14.	No, my powers can only be used for good.
15.	How about never? Is never good for you?
16.	I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to worship me.
17.	You sound reasonable...Time to up my medication.
18.	I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.
19.	I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.
20.	I don't work here. I'm a consultant.
21.	Who me? I just wander from room to room.
22.	My toys! My toys! I can't do this job without my toys!
23.	It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level I'm really quite busy.
24.	At least I have a positive attitude about my destructive habits.
25.	You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
26.	I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
27.	Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously, and change the subject.

A woman called the Canon 'Help' desk with a problem with her printer. The tech asked her if she was "running it under Windows." The woman responded, "No, my desk is next to the door. But that's a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his is working fine."

Tech Support: "OK Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter 'P' to bring up the Program Manager."
Customer: "I don't have a 'P'."
Tech Support: "On your keyboard, Bob."
Customer: "What do you mean?"
Tech Support: "'P' on your keyboard, Bob."
Customer: "I'm not going to do that!"

Customer in computer shop: "Can you copy the Internet onto this disk for me?"

Customer: "So that'll get me connected to the Internet, right?"
Tech Support: "Yeah."
Customer: "And that's the latest version of the Internet, right?"
Tech Support: "Uhh...uh...uh...yeah."

Tech Support: "All right...now double-click on the File Manager icon."
Customer: "That's why I hate this Windows - because of the icons - I'm a Protestant, and I don't believe in icons."
Tech Support: "Well, that's just an industry term sir. I don't believe it was meant to-"
Customer: "I don't care about any 'Industry Terms'. I don't believe in icons."
Tech Support: "Well...why don't you click on the 'little picture' of filing cabinet...is 'little picture' OK?"
Customer: [click]

Customer: "My computer crashed!"
Tech Support: "It crashed?"
Customer: "Yeah, it won't let me play my game."
Tech Support: "All right, hit Control-Alt-Delete to reboot."
Customer: "No, it didn't crash - it crashed."
Tech Support: "Huh?"
Customer: "I crashed my game. That's what I said before. I crashed my spaceship and now it doesn't work."
Tech Support: "Click on 'File,' then 'New Game.'"
Customer: [pause] "Wow! How'd you learn how to do that?"

I had been doing Tech Support for Hewlett-Packard's Deskjet division for about a month when I had a customer call with a problem I just couldn't solve. She could not print yellow. All the other colors would print fine, which truly baffled me because the only true colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. For instance, green is a combination of cyan and yellow, but green printed fine. Every color of the rainbow printed fine except for yellow. I had the customer change ink cartridges. I had the customer delete and reinstall the drivers. Nothing worked. I asked my coworkers for help; they offered no new ideas. After over two hours of troubleshooting, I was about to tell the customer to send the printer in to us for repair when she asked quietly, "Should I try printing on a piece of white paper instead of this yellow paper?"

And another user was all confused about why the cursor always moved in the opposite direction from the movement of the mouse. She also complained that the buttons were difficult to depress. She was very embarrassed when we asked her to rotate the mouse so the tail pointed away from her.

Email from a friend: "CanYouFixTheSpaceBarOnMyKeyboard?"

My friend was on duty in the main lab on a quiet afternoon. He noticed a young woman sitting in front of one of the workstations with her arms crossed across her chest, staring at the screen.

After about 15 minutes he noticed that she was still in the same position, only now she was impatiently tapping her foot. He asked if she needed help and she replied, "It's about time! I pressed the F-1 button over twenty minutes ago!"

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