EVERY company crafts its own culture, and language is a key part of that. Facebook is a huge company with approximately 12,000 employees, so it is only natural that there will be some words that may sound like gibberish to outsiders. If you take a visit to Facebook’s campus in Menlo Park, words like “purple tie” and “epic” won’t mean a piece of clothing or a synonym for awesome, but something entirely different. IndiaTimes
Here are 17 words only Facebook employees understand, and their definitions…
1.TNR 250
TNR 250 is an abbreviation for “The Nouveau Riche 250” or Facebook’s first 250 employees who became millionaires after the company’s IPO.
2. Bootcamp
A six-week introduction to Facebook that all new employees must go through. Once they “graduate” bootcamp, new hires choose their teams.
3. Faceversary
The yearly celebration of how long an employee has worked at the company. The campus store sells special “Faceversary” balloons. It’s even listed on employees’ Facebook pages like a birthday to remind everyone to congratulate each other.
4. Game day
This is basically a grown-up version of field day. Each spring, Facebook employees band together in teams, dress in bright colours and head over to a local park to face off in a series of competitions.
5. Epic
Not just an adjective, it’s also the main cafeteria on campus.
6. Livin’ the Dream
Not a slogan, but another cafe on campus. Facebook renamed one of its cafeterias in memory of one of its first chefs, Josef Desimone, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2013.
7. Little Red Book
Not to be confused with a little black book, Facebook gave out little red books to employees in 2012 when the company hit a billion users (now it’s at the number, daily). While it uses Bootcamp to instill a bit of culture, the book contains Facebook’s mission statements and a chronology of funny company moments. The last page challenges employees: “If we don’t create something that kills Facebook, someone else will.”
8. 20
Although Facebook’s newest campus was designed by Frank Gehry, it didn’t get a special moniker to match its creativity. Instead, the social network company just named it “20” in a naming scheme similar to the buildings that make up the rest of its Menlo Park campus. 20 (pictured below with the rest of the campus in the background) has a green roof employees can use and its own set of cafeterias, microkitchens and conference rooms. Employees can bike or take a shuttle between 20 and the rest of campus.
9. Gravity Room
The aptly-named Gravity room totally ignores gravity in one section of Instagram’s offices.
10. Hacker Square
Facebook’s version of a central square, Hacker Square proudly has “hack” written onto the tiles so its visible from above. Even airplanes landing at San Francisco’s airport can catch a glimpse of it. Hacker Square is a main place for events on campus and for Facebook employees to meet each other.
11. The Crane
The yellow fixture in the middle of Hacker Square serves as the launching point for all hackathons and is a stage for many guests to come talk to Facebook employees.
12. The Aquarium
Also called the Fish Bowl, the conference room where Mark Zuckerberg and executives met was nicknamed for its ability to peer in at the “animals.” Zuckerberg played along with the joke and eventually hung a sign to ask visitors not to take pictures of them inside The Aquarium.
13. Hacker Way
Don’t confuse it with the square. 1 Hacker Way is just the address for Facebook’s campus, not any kind of pedestrian path designated for coders.
14. Analog Research Lab
Facebook’s not all online. Its “analog research lab” is what designs the motivational posters hung around campus.
15. Daily active people
Daily active users is a common metric in tech companies, but Facebook take it a step further to reinforce that its users are really people. You’ll see it as a reminder in posters and on Facebook’s corporate blogposts.
16. Vending machines
This isn’t really a code word, but these machines mean something a little different for Facebook employees. On Facebook’s campus, these aren’t traditional soda and candy dispensing machines. Instead, the “vending machines” give out computer parts like chargers or keyboards.
17. Purple Tie
A perk for Facebook employees is to get some of their laundry done (for a subsidized cost) via a company called Purple Tie. You can spot Facebookers who use Purple Tie because of the giant purple laundry bags they’ll carry around.