work

The notification that reaches everyone, used by people who should not have it — '@channel does anyone have a charger' — as the record's entry for the broadcast as a crime. '@here' is the same for those currently awake, which is the same crime.

'I don't have the bandwidth' — time and energy, as a network metaphor — as the corporate way of saying no, and the record's entry for the word that made a person into a cable. Also 'capacity', which is the same with less engineering.

Doing as little as possible on Mondays, deliberately, to ease into the week. Named in early 2023 and adopted by people who had been doing it since employment was invented.

Arguing at length about something trivial because it is the only part everyone understands — bikeshedding — from a 1957 observation about a committee approving a nuclear reactor in minutes and a bike shed in hours. The record's entry for the shed, which every meeting has.

'Let's circle back' — to return to something later, or never — as the corporate phrase that ends a discussion without deciding, and the record's entry for the meeting's favourite verb. Nobody has ever circled back.

Going into the office long enough to badge in, get a coffee and be seen, then leaving to work from home. The return-to-office era's quietest protest, named in a survey and practised in every lobby.

Destroying an industry and calling it progress — disruption — from a 1997 business theory into the 2010s' most-said word at any conference, applied to taxis, hotels, juice and, in one pitch, sleep. The record's entry for the verb that every startup claimed and few did.

'End of day' — the deadline that means 'today', without saying which hour, and the record's entry for the acronym that has caused more late nights than any other. 'EOD' at 5:15 p.m. is a specific cruelty. 'COB' is the same for the older.