A series of 26 posts featuring excerpts from Joshua Glenn’s The Idler’s Glossary (Biblioasis, 2008) and The Wage Slave’s Glossary (Biblioasis, 2011). Both books were coauthored by Mark Kingwell, who contributed entertaining philosophical-critical essays on the subjects of idling and wage slavery; and both were wittily illustrated and designed by the cartoonist Seth.

Human Resources departments no longer content themselves with new hire orientation; their goal now is to minimize the time before new employees are “onboard,” which in turn reduces new employee turnover. “Drilling new hires in the company’s values and priorities,” “instilling an optimistic attitude towards the company,” “helping new hires identify with their employer” — all these bland HR euphemisms mean the same thing: “getting new recruits to drink the Kool-Aid.”

ALSO: Alienation | Big Rock Candy Mountains | Corporation | Dawdle | Employee of the Month | Flazy | Greybearding | Hobo | Inemuri | Jack of All Trades | Knock Off Work | Lazy | Micawberish | Nobbing It | Pink Slip | Quitter | Robot | Stakhanovite | Time and Motion Study | Unemployment | Volupté | Wage Slavery | Xerox Subsidy | Yakuza | Zero Drag