Alpha Geek - The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. "I dunno, ask Rick. He's our alpha geek."

Blamestorming - A group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Cube Farm - An office filled with cubicles.

Plug-and-Play - A new hire who doesn’t require training. "That new guy is totally plug-and-play."

Prairie Dogging - When something loud happens in a cube farm, causing heads to pop up over the walls trying to see what's going on.

Tourists - Those who take training classes just to take a vacation from their jobs. "There were only three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

The number of jobs advertised these days demanding the knowledge of a second language is also a good indication of just how pervasive the need for language education has become. Companies with global aspirations are beginning to realize the significance of having employees who are multilingual and able to communicate with international clients. Simply put, while multilingualism may not yet be considered an essential job skill, in the business community, it is fast becoming an additional skill employers are seeking for. "If you're in competition with somebody else for a job, and you have only the essential skills, the person who has capability and experience in another language gets the edge," claims Zekulin.

Terms such as jpeg, javascript and cookies are among the problem words highlighted by firm Computer People.

The recruiter, which questioned 1,500 workers, says effective technology professionals "understand the need to tailor their levels of jargon".

The findings revealed that younger workers were just as likely to make a mistake over computer language.

Just under two thirds had sent e-mails with large attachments which had blocked clients' systems.

More than one in four people are not sure what a firewall does, tempting them to turn it off.

Turning off firewall - software to protect computers against hackers - is the worst course of action to take, according to IT experts.

Nathan Lehman, 18, is a good example. He hopes to earn a degree in agribusiness management and technology before he starts working at his family's grain elevator.

"It's going to improve how I'll market my grain, how I'll go about handling different people and different landlords," he said. "Having a basic degree is almost essential."

Mike Boehlje, an agricultural economist at Purdue University, said farming is shifting to a profession, rather than a way of life.

"To be a successful farmer today, you have to have manager skills and do the physical work, but you also have to have the general manager skills to work as a chief executive officer and manage the people and the financial side of a business," Boehlje said.

Celebrities such as Olympic track star Carl Lewis and singer Macy Gray are featured in ads dubbed "My First" that talk about their short-lived careers at McDonald's. Others include franchisees, who liked their jobs so much they bought a store.

"It's a very strong message about how when you start at McDonald's, the opportunities are limitless," said Richard Floersch, executive vice president of human resources. "You can stay within the organization and work your way up or go through the franchisee route."

Jim Skinner, chief executive of the hamburger giant, for example, began as a crew person in high school. Of the 50 top managers, 20 list McDonald's crew jobs as one of their first places of employment.

"It's the teamwork and the timing that you learn," he said. "I joke about this all the time, but my world is about split seconds. Working back there with people cooking, cleaning and doing whatever had to be done, the timing was so important.

"If something was out of line, the hamburger's soggy and the fries are too old and people didn't like that," he added. "It's something that has always stayed with me."

If you're surprised to hear that this is a common practice, then I'm happy for you -- many job seekers have been dealing with it for years. If a company believes what you've said about your accomplishments and challenges at past jobs, if it believes what you've said about your likes and dislikes, your strengths and weaknesses, and everything else you discussed at the interview, but can't believe what you say about your past earnings without written proof -- then it doesn't deserve you.

This practice is so unspeakably tacky that I can hardly move my fingers over the keys to write this, but run -- RUN -- away from a company that asks for proof of your past compensation.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for unemployment benefits jumped by 71,000 last week, the biggest increase since the East Coast blizzard of 1996.

The government said 68,000 of those claims were hurricane-related and analysts predicted that number would climb higher in coming weeks as more laid-off workers get around to filing claims and state unemployment offices process a backlog of claims already filed.

In other bad economic news, the Labor Department reported consumer inflation grew by 0.5 percent in August, after a similar jump in July. Both increases were driven by surging energy prices.

Economists said the September figure is likely to be worse, noting that gasoline reached its record high of more than $3 a gallon this month and other fuel prices increased as well.

But Dr. Cerf, whose first official day at Google is Oct. 3, said it was too early to know exactly what he will be working on.

"I haven't spent enough time at Google to know if any of the ideas I have are old hat or already in the pipeline," he said.

And in spite of the widespread use of the Internet around the world, Dr. Cerf said, a measure of evangelism is still in order.

"The Internet has a billion users, and we have 5.6 billion to go," Dr. Cerf said. "Each will come to the Internet in different ways, like wirelessly, and Google needs to be receptive and adaptive to those different circumstances."

1. Don't hold meetings in your cube

2. Don't talk loudly on the phone in your cube.
Do talk loudly on your phone in your private office, if and when you get one.

4. Don't IM gossip. The cube mate behind you is reading your comments, even though you don't think they are.
Do IM important work questions, like "are you at your desk? Can I stop by?"

10. Don't have a boring cube.
Do make your cube suitable for all to enjoy.

I had been working for a mortgage company as a developer for 18 months and things were going well. Then, one day I saw that a different group in my company had just finished up a pot-luck and had some pizza left over. I thought they would probably end up throwing it away and I was kind of hungry so I went for it ... I took a slice of pizza.

Apparently the employees who threw this pot luck were planning to take it home and were offended by my action. Now I thought we were all basically on the same team and if someone didn't like what I did they would tell me so and I would apologize and maybe offer to pay for the pizza. These employees ended up telling their manager, who told her vice president about what I did.

Loggers recorded 85 fatalities in 2004, a rate of 92.4 deaths for every 100,000 workers, more than 22 times the rate among all workers. Loggers deal with tremendous weights when they fell trees and it's not always possible to know exactly where a tree will fall or when. Too, they often work on steep hillsides, in poor weather, and in a hurry.

Aircraft pilots matched that death rate of 92.4 and 109 of them died on the job. Many of these were in the general aviation category, small aircraft manned by bush pilots, air-taxi pilots, and crop-dusters. Their equipment can be old and the maintenance less stringent than among the big airlines, adding to the danger.

The fishing industry is a perennial leader as measured by death rate and 2004 was no different; 38 fishermen died, a rate of 86.4 per 100,000. Drowning is the most common cause of death in this industry, but fishermen also suffer from fatal accidents in handling some of the heavy equipment that the modern fisheries employ.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the area of New Orleans, Metairie and Kenner was 4.9 percent in July, Hopkins said based on his calculations. The jobless rate there could easily climb to 25 percent, he estimated.

In another storm-slammed area of Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in July was 5.7 percent, Hopkins said. That jobless rate could rise to around 20 percent or higher, he added.

"It's a pretty sizable impact. Commerce has come to a standstill in those counties that were hit," Hopkins said.