Idiomatic expressions add color and character to our language, often conveying meanings in a more vivid and engaging way than literal language. In the business world, idioms and slang words are frequently used to describe different types of employees and workplace situations, sometimes humorously or critically.
Understanding these expressions can enhance your communication skills, making your language more dynamic and expressive. This exercise will help you familiarize yourself with various idiomatic nouns and expressions used to describe people in a company and common workplace scenarios.
Idioms 1: There are a lot of informal, idiomatic and slang words that we can use to talk about different types of people who work in a company. Many of them are used in a humorous way. Some of them are not very complimentary, so you should be careful how you use them!
Read the descriptions of these different people, then match them with the idiomatic noun in the box at the bottom of the page that best applies to them. The first one has been done for you.
a boomerang worker * a digithead * an empty suit * a free worker * a goldbricker * a happy camper * a heavy hitter * a hip shooter * an idea hamster * a Man Friday * a moonlighter * a mover and shaker * a nethead * a pilot fish * a plug-and-play employee * a seagull manager * a self-made man * a spear carrier * a toxic employee * a whizz-kid * a workaholic * a yes-man
1. Alice enjoys her work, and has no grievances against her employer.
2. Brian is a brilliant young man who has quickly become very successful.
3. Clarice is an angry worker who is always spreading discontent in the office.
4. Daniel was brought in to deal with a big project, made a lot of fuss, achieved nothing and then left.
5. Elizabeth is a second-level manager who is responsible for carrying out commands and communicating messages from the top-level executives.
6. Frank works all the time, and is unhappy when he’s not working.
7. Gary is new to our company, but he didn’t need to be trained for the job as he was already experienced in his line of work.
8. Harriet is a junior executive who assists a senior executive, and is always following him around the building.
9. Ian is rich and successful because of all the hard work he has done.
10. Janine often moves from one job to another because she has skills that a lot of companies value.
11. Kevin is obsessed with the Internet, and spends all his time on the computer.
12. Louise is an influential and dynamic woman who makes things happen.
13. Martin always agrees with everything his boss says.
14. Nora secretly has a second job which she goes to in the evening, and which pays cash.
15. Oliver does a large variety of small jobs in the office.
16. Penelope always appears to have an endless supply of good ideas.
17. Richard is a senior executive who performs extremely well.
18. Sally left the company last year, but returned to work for us again last month.
19. Tom is an executive who dresses well and follows procedure, but doesn’t actually contribute much to the company.
20. Ursula is a lazy employee who tries to get away with doing the least possible amount of work.
21. Vic is very knowledgeable about technology and mathematics, but is not very good at relating to people.
22. Wendy always follows her instincts when responding to a question rather than considering it rationally.
Answers:
- a happy camper (the opposite is an unhappy camper)
- a whizz-kid
- a toxic employee
- a seagull manager
- a spear carrier
- a workaholic
- a plug-and-play employee
- a pilot fish
- a self-made man
- a free worker
- a nethead
- a mover and shaker
- a yes-man
- a moonlighter (the verb is to moonlight)
- a Man Friday (a woman who does the same thing is called a Girl Friday. We often say Person Friday to avoid sexism)
- an idea hamster
- a heavy hitter
- a boomerang worker
- an empty suit
- a goldbricker
- a digithead
- a hip shooter
Idioms 2: Choose the correct idiomatic word or expression in (a), (b), (c) or (d), for each of these sentences. You will find all the correct expressions in the Bloomsbury Dictionary of Human Resources and Personnel Management.
1. Boring and detailed work, such as examining documents for mistakes, could be described as:
(a) hammer and chisel work (b) nut and bolt work (c) bucket and spade work
(d) pick and shovel work
2. We sometimes say that people who compete for success in business or in a career are working for the:
(a) horse race (b) dog race (c) rat race (d) camel race
3. The practice of transferring a difficult, incompetent or non-essential employee from one department to another is known informally as a:
(a) weasel waltz (b) turkey trot (c) cat calypso (d) rabbit rumba
4. We might refer to a bad employer with a reputation for losing talented staff as a:
(a) people churner (b) people mixer (c) people stirrer (d) people beater
5. A job that is normally done by a woman, especially a young one, is sometimes referred to as:
(a) a pink-collar job (b) a woolly-jumper job (c) a fluffy-slipper job (d) a furry-mule job
6. If you do a lot of different types of work in an office for very low pay, you could be referred to as a:
(a) catsbody (b) pigsbody (c) ratsbody (d) dogsbody
7. When an employee telephones to say that s/he is not coming to work because s/he is ill, but in fact is only pretending to be ill, we say that s/he is taking or throwing a/an:
(a) unwellie (b) illie (c) horriblie (d) sickie
8. If an employee gets very angry at work because of something bad or unpleasant that happens, we can say that they are experiencing:
(a) office anger (b) work rage (c) shopfloor strops (d) workplace wobblies
9. If an employee is deliberately or accidentally excluded from decision-making processes, they might complain that they are being left:
(a) out of their mind (b) out of the blue (c) out of their head (d) out of the loop
10. Work that offers the same money for less effort than another similar job is often known as:
(a) a cushy number (b) a doddle (c) a pushover (d) child’s play
11. When somebody is dismissed from their job, we can say that they have:
(a) got the shoe (b) got the sandal (c) got the boot (d) got the slipper
12. If you criticize somebody in writing, we can say that you ________ them.
(a) pencil-smack (b) pencil-thrash (c) pencil-punch (d) pencil-whip
Answers:
- (d)
- (c)
- (b)
- (a)
- (a) (this is a rather sexist expression, which you should avoid using)
- (d)
- (d)
- (b)
- (d)
- (a) (in the USA, it is known as a gravy job)
- (c)
- (d)
Idioms 3: Look at these mini-dialogues, and complete each one with an idiomatic expression from the box. You do not need to use all of the expressions.
cherry pick * dead wood * dress-down day * dumbsizing * ear candy * exploding bonus * eye service * glad-hand * graveyard shift * helicopter view * kiss up to * leaky reply * marzipan employee * mushroom job * shape up or ship out * sweetener * three-martini lunch
1. A. Oh no! Elaine sent me an email complaining about Mr Jones, and I wrote her a reply. I agreed that I thought Mr Jones was stupid and incompetent, and I’ve accidentally sent it to him!
B. Oh well, don’t worry. We all send a __________ now and then.
2. A. I’ve told Tom that unless he improves his performance at work, he’ll be fired.
B. Good. It’s about time somebody told him to __________.
3. A. A lot of our factory employees are happy to work at night because the money is good.
B. Yes, working the __________ can be a good way of making more money.
4. A. The only way to get promoted in this job is to flatter and be very attentive to the senior managers.
B. That’s terrible! You shouldn’t have to __________ people to get ahead in your job.
5. A. We need to get rid of some of our older and less productive staff.
B. I agree. The __________ has to go as soon as possible.
6. A. Ms Rigden met a lot of people at the conference, didn’t she?
B. She certainly did. I think I saw her __________ almost everyone there.
7. A. On Wednesdays, we’re allowed to wear informal clothes to work.
B. Us too. Our __________ is Friday.
8. A. My boss always compliments me and tells me how well I’m doing, but he never offers me a pay rise.
B. Well, I suppose a bit of _________ is better than nothing.
9. A. A lot of people in out company only do any work when the supervisor is watching them.
B. It’s the same in our company. In fact, __________ is more common than you think.
10. A. We need to reduce the size of the company but we need to make sure it doesn’t become unprofitable or inefficient.
B. That’s true. __________ is something we need to avoid at all costs.
11. A. Alan says he’s thinking of leaving the company to work for someone else.
B. That’s not good news. Offer him a _________ and see if he can be persuaded to stay.
12. A. Do we need to look at all the problems in detail?
B. No, not really. A _________ should be enough for now. We just need the main ideas.
Answers:
- leaky reply
- shape up or ship out
- graveyard shift
- kiss up to
- dead wood
- glad-hand (= to shake hands with people)
- dress-down day
- ear candy
- eye service
- dumbsizing (an idiomatic word derived from downsizing – the act of reducing the number of employees in a company. Dumb has a similar meaning to stupid)
- sweetener (for example, a salary increase, more perks, etc)
- helicopter view
- The Seven Types of Pronouns and Their Uses
- 200 Essential Questions for Practicing One-Word Prepositions (With Answers)
- Understanding Nouns – The Five Types and Their Uses
- Top 9 Essential Tips To Help You Speak Clearly and Confidently
- Commonly Confused Words – A Guide to Clarifying Misused Terms
- Similar Words with Different Meanings – A Guide to Avoiding Common Confusion
- Learning French Nouns in Foreign Language Training
- How to Understand Basic Spanish – A Beginner’s Guide
- Mastering Prepositions – Practical Sentence Completion Exercise
- Mastering Common UK Abbreviations – A Practical Exercise
