71 Ways to Be "Fired"

. . . A list I started on 17 May 1984, the first time I got fired from a job. I also list below five euphemisms for "unemployed," and 35 truly horrid euphemisms invented by large corporations when they decide to fire lots of people and want to make it sound like a great idea. (A nod to Annabelle Gurwitch, whose documentary Fired! inspired me to post these old lists.)

71 Euphemisms for "Fired"

1. ankled
2. arseholed (Australia)
3. asked not to come back
4. axed
5. benched
6. best-shored (your job was given to someone overseas)
7. blown off
8. booted
9. bounced
10. burned
11. canned
12. cashiered (military term: demoted or discharged and publicly humiliated)
13. code fived (Domino's Pizza: fired without possibility of rehire)
14. contracted out
15. curtailed
16. degraded (same as cashiered)
17. discharged
18. discontinued
19. dismissed
20. downsized
21. drummed out
22. dumped
23. fired
24. flexibility (the right of a company to fire anyone for any reason)
25. forcibly retired
26. forty-eight-and-a-halved (short-order restaurant slang)
27. f*cked over
28. furloughed
29. given leave to go
30. given the sack
31. given walking papers
32. given your cards
33. gone
34. got the arse (Australia)
35. got the axe
36. got the bullet (19th century term)
37. got the gate
38. history
39. kicked
40. kicked to the curb
41. let go
42. lost your job
43. made redundant (UK)
44. offboarded (laid off)
45. organized out
46. ousted
47. out on your ear
48. outsourced (your job was given to someone overseas)
49. outta here
50. permanently laid off
51. pink slipped
52. pipped (from PIP = profit improvement plan)
53. purged
54. redundant (UK)
55. released
56. reorganized
57. restructured (UK)
58. retired
59. riffed (from RIF = reduction in force)
60. rightsized
61. ripped (from RIPP = reduction in personnel plan)
62. ritually dismissed (same as cashiered)
63. rotated out
64. sacked (UK)
65. selected out
66. sidelined (laid off)
67. suspended (laid off)
68. terminated
69. told to clean out your desk
70. toast
71. unloaded

Five Euphemisms for "Unemployed"

1. at large
2. at liberty
3. between jobs
4. (person) of leisure
5. on furlough

35 Euphemisms for "Downsizing"

Downsizing itself is a euphemism for a mass firing, also called layoffs (another euphemism). When the term comes from a specific corporation, I have listed that as well.

1. aligning operations
2. brightsizing (firing the brightest employees)
3. business process re-engineering
4. buying out (employee) contracts
5. career alternative enhancement program (Chrysler)
6. career-change opportunity (Clifford of Vermont)
7. career-transition program (General Motors)
8. cleaning the staff
9. downsizing
10. drawdown (US military term for withdrawal of part of a force from an area)
11. elimination of employment security policy (Pacific Bell)
12. focused reduction (Tandem Computers)
13. force management program (AT&T)
14. global workforce alignment
15. head-count reduction
16. involuntary separation from payroll (Bell Labs)
17. involuntary severance (Digital Equipment Corp)
18. normal payroll adjustment (Wal*Mart)
19. offboarding
20. outsourcing (firing US workers and hiring cheap labor overseas)
21. profit improvement plan (PIP)
22. rebalancing the level of human capital
23. redeployment (US military term for troop movement)
24. reducing duplication (Tandem Computers)
25. reduction in force, or RIF (Newsweek)
26. reduction in personnel plan, or RIPP
27. reduction in staff
28. release of resources (Bank of America)
29. repositioning (Stanford University)
30. reorganizing
31. reshaping (National Semiconductor)
32. rightsizing
33. schedule adjustments (Stouffer Foods Corp)
34. smartsizing
35. strengthening global effectiveness (Proctor & Gamble)

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