In the four weeks between the end of season two and the start of season three of “The Apprentice,” the NBC reality show analyzed in my Trump-O-Nomics column, On The Job chronicles the cable television shows that have done the most to set trends for working Americans.

Last week, it was the Fab Five from Bravo’s “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy” series, as they continue to fab up working stiffs like us.

This week, it is HBO’s “Sex and the City.” And although SATC has run its course and now only appears in edited reruns on TBS and on DVD, the show’s six seasons (1998-2004) did more to push the boundaries of female workplace vocabulary and fashion trends than any other show in television history.

With episode titles like “The Post-It Always Sticks Twice,” themes were as work-obsessed as the show’s city, our very own NYC. And they never failed to deliver great office-chatter lines. My personal favorite has always been, “I like my money right where I can see it… hanging in my closet.”

To recap for those of you who are cable-challenged, the show starred four single working women in New York City: a newspaper columnist, a publicist, a lawyer, and an art gallery curator. The show’s protagonist, columnist Carrie Bradshaw, was played by Sarah Jessica Parker.

Throughout the show, Carrie narrates the characters’ insanely chic professional lifestyles and connects them to our otherwise painfully workmanlike work lives.

Over the course of 94 episodes, she gave America’s cubicle-dwellers four big gifts.

Gift Four: The Manolo Blahnik shoe…another reason for higher work man’s compensation insurance costs. SATC gave rise to this fact: The Manolo Blahnik high-heeled pump is the most dangerous item to be introduced to the workplace since the staple gun. For one thing, the shoe has a “Wizard of Oz”-style pointy toe that was first introduced by the Wicked Witch of the East. The toe tends to get stuck on furniture, in carpets, on curbs, on steps. It causes falls. The heel is high and has a hellishly sharp stiletto tip that finds its way into sideway gratings, elevator shaft gaps, subway door rail guides, and other inconveniently located potential trip hazards.

Sure, a newspaper columnist can still do her job with a broken ankle. But who is going to pick up the emergency room tab? Employers and workman’s compensation insurance companies, dig deep.

Gift Three: The SATC girls brought the martini back…and hangover-related office tardiness excuses too.

“I’ve got a touch of the flu,” is my personal favorite. Although a hangover feels potentially fatal at the outset, it is temporary. It is the toxic effect of a night on the town pretending you are Carrie Bradshaw, one of her girlfriends, or perhaps one of her aspiring man-objects. With their dine-until-you-drop lifestyle, the SATC girls brought the highball back from the grave and made it chic again. They helped fuel a designer vodka trend that started with just one label, Absolut, and now features thousands, from France’s best-selling Grey Goose to some exotic potato based blends from Long Island. And if you are wondering whether your boss will believe your story about the flu, the answer is that she will, but only if she has never watched this show.

Gift Two: SATC-related sexual harassment claims, from men.

You can see and hear stuff on cable television that you never could on the three major networks. This freedom has a downside. Namely, that double-edged sword of sexual harassment. At least one SATC line has been cited by a male employee as evidence that his female boss was sexually harassing him. The line is a pearl from actress Cynthia Nixon’s character, Miranda Hobbes: “A couple of hanging glands have nothing to do with making someone a man.” Readers note: Giggling at this gem is fine in the privacy of your own subway seat, but you must refrain from trying this SATC quote on the job, no matter how tempting it may seem.

Gift One: Boundary-busting at-work vocabulary.

Here are some favorites. Carrie calls her mysterious boyfriend “Mr. Big.” Her profession, a relationship columnist, is “sexual anthropologist.” For a particularly goofy outfit, she gets accused of being “fashion roadkill.” She distinguishes between “20-something girls” and “30-something women.” She contracts the words “friends” and “enemies” into “frenemies.” For a particularly appalling co-worker, she coined the phrase “the ick factor.”

And finally, she popularized the ever-popular, “just say yes.”

Next week, On The Job digs deep into another pop-culture phenomenon that has swept through America’s workplaces courtesy of cable television: “The Sopranos.” Stay tuned.

Mr. Whitehead is an international workplace specialist. He can be reached at TrumpOnomics@aol.com.