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droid


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.