droid
[from `android', SF terminology for a humanoid robot of
essentially biological (as opposed to mechanical/electronic)
construction] n. A person (esp. a low-level bureaucrat or
service-business employee) exhibiting most of the following
characteristics: (a) naive trust in the wisdom of the parent
organization or `the system'; (b) a blind-faith propensity to
believe obvious nonsense emitted by authority figures (or
computers!); (c) a rule-governed mentality, one unwilling or unable
to look beyond the `letter of the law' in exceptional
situations; (d) a paralyzing fear of official reprimand or worse
if Procedures are not followed No Matter What; and (e) no interest
in doing anything above or beyond the call of a very
narrowly-interpreted duty, or in particular in fixing that which is
broken; an "It's not my job, man" attitude.
Typical droid positions include supermarket checkout assistant and
bank clerk; the syndrome is also endemic in low-level government
employees. The implication is that the rules and official
procedures constitute software that the droid is executing;
problems arise when the software has not been properly debugged.
The term `droid mentality' is also used to describe the mindset
behind this behavior. Compare suit, marketroid; see
-oid.
