Office jargon
It’s very common for a small, close-knit group to develop a vocabulary or slang of its own. Obviously, the office is a perfect place for such jargon, although the words can become such a part of our daily lives that we no longer realize we’re part of a specialized niche with a specialized vocabulary that lacks a defined meaning outside of that group.
But enough of that intro. We’ve got two words at the office I want to tell you about:
- Jag - A jag is like a slacker, but with an utterly negative connotation. While sometimes “slacker” can be neutral or even subtly positive, a jag is just a worthless sonofabitch who should be doing work but isn’t. This is a highly useful term in the workplace.
- Shermanize - Until a week ago, I did not know this term was in use at my office. Since I come in later than the other guys for my morning cup of coffee, it seems they had a creative way of squeezing an extra cup of coffee out of the pot. In fact, shermanizing can be done while there’s still coffee in the pot, meaning the result will be diluted coffee. If the coffee is totally shermanized, it’s significantly weaker and basically tastes like haterade.
Yeah, uh, re: “shermanize,” joke was on me.