01.13.09
No-no bots
I already have a nomination for the American Dialect Society (ADS) 2009 Word of the Year, in the “Most Useless Word” category. This past year, ADS awarded that category to moofing (Mobile Out of OFfice-ing). My nomination is very much in line: nanobot.
Interesting word, and it’s been around for a time. It denotes microscopic robots—”wannabe proteins,” as Urbandictionary.com puts it—the stuff of science fiction. Nanobots injected in your body, for instance, could give you x-ray vision by deploying microlenses in your eyes, or recomb your hair without you having to reach all the way up there, or somesuch.
But that’s not the word I’m blasting. Nanobot is a well-constructed contraction of the prefix nano- (indicating something very small, a generalized use of its technical meaning of 10 to the minus ninth power, or one billionth, or at least I think, but then again, everything I know about math is wrong, too), and robot (a word itself introduced in science fiction: Karel Capek’s 1920 play, R.U.R.). I’m referring to the clumsy, difficult-to-remember, huh?-inducing acronym for Nearly Autonomous, Not in the Office, doing Business in their Own Time Staff. People who set their own hours while working at home. (Or PWSTOHWWAH, if you will.)
Empowered by their mobile devices and remote access to the corporate network, nanobots put in long hours, sometimes seven days a week—just not at their desks.
So write David Pauleen and Brian Harmer in Away From the Desk . . . Always,” in MIT Sloan Review
A Wall Street Journal Report podcast discusses (a bit drily, I must advise) how to evaluate and motivate this breed of out-of-office employee. I have one motivational tip: don’t refer to such employees with a word meaning “ultra-tiny, invisible robot.” Doesn’t look good on a business card.
Besides, wouldn’t Nearly Autonomous, Not in the Office, doing Business in their Own Time Staff lead to nanitodbitot? And, now that I think about it, wouldn’t Mobile Out of Office lead to mooo?
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SoupAddict Karen said,
January 13, 2009 at 12:56 pm
For a second there, I thought you said, “nintendobot,” which is what my suspicious hr team thinks we would be if we worked from home.
Speaking of looking good on a business card, now that you’ve officially identified yourself as mooo, and I have further lent the descriptive “Amusiationist” to your tagline, I found an appropriate photo to replace your current head shot. Mooo.
Wendy said,
January 14, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I’ve never heard of ‘moofing’, though I do sometimes use ‘OOO’ as shorthand for ‘out of the office’ – as in “Yay, a day to relax a little; the boss is OOO!”
I’d not heard of NANOBOT either (not in the acronym sense), though it turns out I’m married to one. Who knew? I thought he was just a workaholic.