Here are some Google-specific words you learn once you start working inside the Googleplex.
Plex: The Googleplex, as the company's sprawling Mountain View, California, campus is called, is shortened to the Plex by many employees.
GBike: The mode of transportation on Google's campus, the GBike is known for its colorful frame. If you visit campus, you can even catch a glimpse of the conference-room bike.
Stan: In the Googleplex, you'll meet Stan — Google's own T. rex. The statue is there to remind the company to never become a dinosaur, or at least that's one theory behind it.
Noogler: If you're new to Google, expect to be called a Noogler. Pronounced "new-gler," these people are identifiable thanks to the Google-colored propeller caps they receive.
Gayglers: Members of the LGBT community (and their supporters) are known as Gayglers.
Greyglers: Another Googler nickname, Greyglers are Google employees 40 and older (though we'll guess some of those in their 40s aren't sporting gray hairs). One of Google's most prominent Greyglers is its chief internet evangelist (and one of the fathers of the web) Vint Cerf.
Xoogler: A Google employee who leaves the company becomes a Xoogler. A shortened version of ex-Googler, Xoogler is actually pronounced "zoo-gler."
Some have credited Google employee No. 59, Doug Edwards, with inventing the term Xoogler. His blog was one of the first places to coin the term.
Googlegeist: This isn't a ghost that haunts the Plex. The Googlegeist is an annual survey in which all of Google's employees are asked to rate their managers and life at Google. While many employees would shy away from an HR questionnaire, more than 90% of Googlers fill it out every year.
Perf: Short for performance review, the dreaded annual Perf is what determines whether Googlers rise or fall in the coming year. It's generally not what gets employees fired, though. Google tracks other performance reviews along the way.
TGIF: It does mean "Thank God It's Friday," but it also is the name of the weekly all-hands meeting — confusingly, now held on Thursdays. The hour-long meeting dates back to the early days of Google, but it is now held in a worldwide Google hangout. It's also where Nooglers receive their hats. Here's a throwback video to a TGIF meeting in 1999:
Jolly Good Fellow: He's not Santa, but Google employee Chade-Meng Tan is known as Google's Jolly Good Fellow. "Fellow" is a term normally given to Google's most valued engineers, but Tan's title is to show what he's working on: how to make people feel happy.
Tech Stop: The code name for Google's IT department, Tech Stop fixes employees' computers and is a standard in Google offices worldwide.
20% time: Google allows its engineers to spend 20% of their time working on something other than their main job. In that time, Googlers have dreamed up some of Google's biggest products, including Gmail, Google News, and AdSense.
GUTS: This has nothing to do with Googlers' bodies. GUTS is short for Google Universal Ticketing Systems, or where Googlers file tickets about problems that the company can track. It's like an internal 311 system.
FixIts: FixIts started out as a way for Google engineers to hunker down and focus on back-burner issues. They were originally 24-hour events, but FixIts have evolved into shorter bursts to clear backlogged projects.
