<abuse> (From "android", SF terminology for a humanoid robot of essentially biological (as opposed to mechanical or electronic) construction). A person (especially a low-level bureaucrat or service-business employee) exhibiting most of the following characteristics: (a) naive trust in the wisdom of the parent organisation 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 paralysing 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 mind-set behind this behaviour.
Compare suit, marketroid.
(27 Sep 1995)