(Heavy Lifting is an annoying business term and is just one of the 212 Most Annoying Business Phrases Managers Effuse, Confuse, and Overuse detailed in the hilarious must-have guide for every workplace: The 30,000-Pound Gorilla in the Room. Available right now on Amazon.)

Heavy Lifting

Your annoying boss – as is true with all annoying bosses – believes he’s superhuman; he believes he’s the most important person at the company; he believes the entire organization would fold without him.

He tells you this on an hourly basis. Not directly, of course; he thinks he’s too sly and sophisticated to openly express these thoughts.

He believes his actions and results speak for themselves. Unfortunately for this jerk, he gives himself away with every irritating utterance.

One of his favorite annoying phrases includes heavy lifting; as in, “Well, I can’t do all the heavy lifting.”

Of course, he certainly believes he can do all the heavy lifting – he’s always believed this – however, in this case, he’s passively-aggressively asking one of you peons to step up and take some of the load off this overworked superhero.

The funny part about those who claim they cannot do all the heavy lifting, is that they never seem to do any of it. They’re only good at delegating because they’re both egomaniacal and lazy.

A combination, of course, proven to create annoying managers.

Replacement phrases: No replacement needed; just describe the situation in direct terms with no passive-aggressiveness, please.

See also: Stay in Your Lane

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The 30,000-Pound Gorilla in the Room is available on Amazon