Karl Klockars

Know this: The most important thing about your job, no matter what you do, is the language. As tools separate us from the common beast, job-related lingo separates us from the other wage-slaves. It lets us think that the way we use words and how they relate to our chosen occupation give us some sort of special status, that those who understand the things we say when talking about work put us in a special club.

It’s part of the acclimation process. You can tell the new guy because he’s stumbling over nicknames and file attachments, or she just hasn’t quite grasped the way the phone extensions work or how the printers are attached to the network. It’s a brave new world we live in, and you’ve gotta speak the language.

There are a metric shit-ton of things I’ve learned in my past few months on the new gig. Allow me to run them down for you in a short amount of time, but it’s valuable now to know exactly the one thing that will separate you from the herd the quickest. There is one thing in each job that will be greek to your fellow cocktail partygoers, the line you can drop in front of good-looking cougars and rich partners alike that will give them an idea as to your general acclimation, and superior genius.

Before we get to mine, the way you drop these lines is just as important as knowing the intrinsic value within them. It’s vital that you drop these little hunks of knowledge as casually as humanly possible. At best, these phrases start off with “Oh, well…” or perhaps a “Of course, and…”

To be able to just slide them into casual conversation like it ain’t nothin’ is the way to be. It, in effect, makes you, as the kids say, the bomb. Impress your co-workers! Shock your friends! Learn a new language in only 8 hours a day, 5 days a week! Enough delay. My go-to phrase is thus:

“The A ISDN generates its own mix-minus.”

Feel free to take this hunk of genius and use it for your own benefit. Well of course, because the A ISDN generates it’s own mix-minus. It’s all ball bearings these days. The hog-ringer is lacking air pressure so you won’t be able to get the best grip on the innertuft. The PERC Grant hasn’t gone through CAP so we can’t RCN the BBW.

And so on.

I never really felt comfortable at any gig until I had a working vocabulary and at least a couple inside jokes. It helps to have them hire a friend of yours a couple weeks after they hire you, so you’re not the FNG any more and you don’t have to feel guilty about making fun of him so as to take the focus off of you.

A few of the other tidbits of phrased information I’ve gleaned over the course of the past 9 months or so:

“We’ll have to do that in program, and I’ll be recording in News 3 in Utility.”
“Use a 1kHz tone and edit in about a half second on Cool Edit.”
“Bring up x0325.”
“We’ll come back with NDHL-5 and then go to Juday on the Hotline.”

It’s almost like learning how to sound cool on the CB. Breaker breaker one-nine, what’s your twenty? It’s a straight shot, no smokey bears, Big Underpants here, signing off and going ten-seven. I used to roll my bangin’ Cadillac Cimmaron (baby blue, thanks) with a CB up front and think I was cool. Again, I was even less cool until I figured out all this slang.

As you may have gathered, it’s important to throw in as many acronyms, nicknames, and pet names for as many things as possible. Just start naming thigns on your own. Make something up. Name your desk “Jenny.” Name your next meetingplace “coffeecake” or something. Oh, you know, I’m just going to take ten from Jenny and cruise out to coffeecake for a recon. Ten-four.

Let’s get Ed on the squawker talkback and make sure the IFB Lockout for the CR A ISDN is on for this remote. Are they in cue? Of course, because the A ISDN generates its own mix-minus.