From Slack-lash to Toggle Tax: The new vernacular of work

As we stand on the threshold of 2024, it’s not just about waving goodbye to the familiar tech trends and the seemingly eternal tango of RTO. We’re also ushering in a fresh class of terms to describe and navigate the shifting sands of digital and IRL office life. Gone are the days when the ‘new normal’ was a novelty. It’s now the terrain we traverse daily, and we’re not just adapting to changes; we’re naming them. In a year marked by endless Zoom calls and virtual collaborations, we’ve embraced a new lexicon that balances the absurd with the astute, the frank with the funny, designed to be your guide through the work landscape of today.

Fidelity Fluency

The art of knowing just how polished your project needs to be. It’s the wisdom to discern whether you’re sketching a concept car or detailing the dashboard. It’s about striking that perfect balance between effort and impact, where wisdom triumphs over wasteful pixel-perfecting.

Icebroken

That awkward moment in a meeting icebreaker when you overshare and suddenly everyone knows about your weekend hobby as a kazoo enthusiast. It’s when “breaking the ice” turns into “falling through the ice,” and you’re left paddling in the chilly waters of TMI.

Keyboard Cardio

Where your fingers sprint across the keyboard, channeling emails and Slack messages with the intensity of a heart-pumping cardio session. It’s a workout, it’s an Olympian effort, and despite what healthcare professionals might tell you, it does raise BPMs—or, as we like to call it, BPdMS (Blood Pressure-driving Messages).

Screenshare Scramble

A high-speed game of virtual hide-and-seek, where you swiftly click to hide your most embarrassing tabs under the digital rug before the Zoom frame exposes you.

Slack-lash

That pulse-spiking moment when Slack goes off, unleashing a digital avalanche of messages. It’s the virtual equivalent of an impromptu surprise party—overwhelming, startling, and a little bit thrilling, all at once.

Style Guide Safari

An adventurous trek through the wild and wonderful world of a style guide. It’s where every scroll reveals a new typographic character or a vibrant swatch. Armed with nothing but your design instincts, you navigate this jungle of creativity, discovering the rare and the exotic in the flora and fauna of fonts and hues.

Sudden Heavy Stamping

The dopamine hit of social validation meets live collaboration—sudden heavy stamping is the moment when your idea outshines the rest and your collaborators swarm your sticky with +1s and hearts.

Tab Tsunami

A tidal wave of browser tabs threatening to engulf your screen and sanity. It’s digital surfing at its most extreme, and you’re going to need nerves of steel to ride this wave.

Toggle Tax

The silent toll you pay as your brain flips between tasks like a tech-savvy acrobat in a trapeze act gone haywire. It’s mental gymnastics, a cognitive marathon, and a test of your multitasking mettle. Will you soar or stumble?

UI Lock Ness Monster

A legendary creature of the user interface world, always rumored to be included in the next update but never quite making an appearance. It’s the digital equivalent of a mystical beast—much talked about, eagerly anticipated, but as elusive as a pixel in a power outage.

WIP Waltz

An elegant dance of constant iteration, where each step is a tweak, and each spin brings a fresh perspective…and another round.

Workplace Whack-a-Mole

A relentless, high-stakes game of batting down tasks, alerts, and emails as they pop up with unnerving frequency. It’s a test of patience, a challenge to your sanity, and frankly, the workday’s wildest ride.

Zoombie

That colleague who’s mastered the art of virtual presence without actual engagement. They’ve got that post-Zoom meeting gaze, a thousand-yard stare that says, “I've seen too many shared screens.” It’s like they’re there, but they’re really navigating the digital abyss in their mind.

Zoom Zen

The rare, almost mythical state of digital tranquility. It’s achieved in a Zoom call where everything aligns: the agenda is crystal, attendees mute and un-mute as needed, and the meeting wraps up leaving everyone feeling like they’ve just had a virtual group hug.

Whether you identify as an asynchronous enthusiast, a pandemic pivot pro, or a deep work disciple, these phrases are your passport to navigating the work world with flair and finesse. So, here’s to mastering the art of workish speak, to finding the humor in the hectic, and to thriving in the digital jungle. What phrases became your linguistic life rafts in the turbulent seas of 2023?

Explore Figma’s 2023 Handoff.