Working in a Knowledge Management Department and interacting frequently R&D, we are not the "cool" kids of the company. While well respected for our work and contribution, if you are looking for those to spice up your party people from our department are not at the top of that list.
Now we enjoy each other's company immensely and are very content to create our own protected social circle. Hence we are "cool" to ourselves that is enough. We embrace the brainy, data-oriented, researchy image assigned to us.
As we strive for knowledge and understanding, we work very hard to make sure define ourselves correctly. We used to throw around descriptors such as "dork" or "geek" at random, assuming they meant a simple affinity with scientific and technical pursuits at the sacrifice of social popularity.
Last year R&D hired a naturalized citizen from Croatia, whose first language is Croatian. He expressed some concern with the labels we had assigned our team. His unwillingness to adopt them made us question the meaning. Well upon further investigation we discovered what those words truly mean. It is humbling to have a non-primary English speaker teach you your own language.
I have included links to dictionary.com with the definition of each word.
Dork
Dweeb
Geek
Nerd
I can handle the "dweeb" and "nerd" as they match the original intent of our jest. I'm probably not going to use "geek" or "dork" again in the near future. While old habits die hard, I want my message to be clear.
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