desk job

desk job (plural desk jobs)

1. (informal) An employment position in which one remains mostly seated at a desk, performing routine office work.
   • 1981, "Advice and Dissent," Time, 13 July:

     For 13 months in 1966 and '67 Corson served as commander of 3,500 men in 114 platoons spread out in hamlets across five provinces in South Viet Nam. . . . In 1968 Corson was reassigned to a desk job at the Pentagon.

   • 2006, Janet Novack, "Beach House Bummer," Forbes, 5 June (retrieved 21 Aug. 2010):

     "I really like working with the clients. Things break, but I've always been handy. And it sure beats a desk job," he says.

• bureaucrat, paperwork, pen-pusher, pencil pusher

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