Derogatory term for a corporate employee

Question

I’m looking for a derogatory term for a person who works in a big, international business.

In Polish we have a few informal words for that, like korpoludek (“corpo little guy”) and korpoczłowiek (“corpo man”).

There are also offensive terms, like (for women only) korposuka (“corpo bitch”), but I’m not looking for equivalents of that.

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Edit after DevSolar comment:

I’m pointing at the following characteristics: boring, repetitious, and mindless work, and insignificance of the person.

However — just to be specific — the Polish terms I mentioned have broader meaning.

Answer 1

You could try drone:-

A person who does tedious or menial work; a drudge: "undervalued drones who labored in obscurity" (Caroline Bates).

if you wanted to emphasize the drudgery and hopelessness of the individual, or perhaps a wage-slave

A wage earner whose livelihood is completely dependent on the wages earned.

to emphasize the helplessness of the individual, or a droid:-

A mobile robot or automaton, especially one that resembles a human.

if you wanted to emphasize any mindlessness that might be involved.

(All these from the Free Dictionary).

Answer 2

As a British native speaker, I would have thought that "suit" or "corporate suit" would be a derogatory term to describe someone who works in a large international business corporation. Emphasizing that the person is instantly replaceable and anonymous, nothing more than the suit they are wearing.

Edit: Just thought, in the same vein, I've also heard "empty suit" in this connection.

Answer 3

OP seeks an answer that satisfies the following 4 criteria:

1. a derogatory term or expression

2. for a low-level employee ["insignificance of the person"]

3. of a large international corporation

4. whose work is boring, repetitious and mindless ["following characteristics: boring, repetitious and mindless work"]

MINION noun: plural noun: minions: a follower or underling of a powerful person, especially a servile or unimportant one.

synonyms: underling, flunky, lackey, servant, hireling, vassal, stooge, toady, sycophant

from Google link

common N. American minion

Answer 4

As was suggested in a comment by @DevSolar, consider cog

A subordinate member of an organization who performs necessary but usually minor or routine functions.

American Heritage

Oxford Dictionaries Online uses cog with this meaning as part of a phrase

a cog in the (or a) machine (or wheel): A small or insignificant member of a larger organization or system: copywriters have been seen as just a cog in the big advertising machine

Answer 5

Japanese has a great word for this "Sararīman" — salaryman.

The media often portray the salaryman in negative fashion for lack of initiative and originality. Because of this portrayal, communities may be less willing to help the salaryman with his emotional problems, which often leads to clinical depression or even suicide. —Wikipedia

Answer 6

You could consider wage slave,perhaps in a slightly less than literal sense.

Answer 7

Dogsbody :

• Chiefly British Slang One who does menial work; a drudge.

Slang word for employee from a Bad Boss:

• peon, slave, worker, inferior, staffer, gimp, blue-collar, laborer, subordinate, hand, wage earner, desk jockey, human resource, personnel, workforce, dogsbody, drudge, drone, foot soldier, plugger, grunt, grub, slogger, toiler, workhorse, coolie, porter, serf, lazybone, loafer, slouch, idler, slug, 9 to 5er, goldbrick, shirker, nobody, straggly, servant, bondman, insurgent, mutineer, revolter, chattel, thrall, indentured servant, domestic, lackey, handmaid, attendant, odalisque, helot, thrall, agnostic, discordant, fief, stooge, pillion, muppet, puppet, airhead, bimbo, derp, dingbat, doofus, clutz, nimrod, bozo, couch potato, creep, lush, mule, plank, pinhead, tool, twit, wasteman, minion, etc.

Answer 8

In programming, we have a specific term for the shmoes who are stuck with the simplistic, repetitive, insignficant and mind-numbing programming work. Code Monkey.

There's even a Johnathan Coulton song all about their daily dreary lives.

Answer 9

There are great answers above, but one possible choice that hasn't been mentioned yet is the noun-form idiom working stiff.

_ _ _

Macmillan Dictionary defines the term as:

an ordinary person who works in order to earn enough money to live, usually at a very boring job

— — —

Endangered Phrases by Steven D. Price offers:

A hardworking employee. First heard in the 1930s, this phrase describes your average guy or gal who works at a not-very-interesting-or-stimulating job and for wages that mean a paycheck-to-paycheck existence. “Stiff” might have come from muscle fatigues at the end of the day or week, but it’s just as likely to be the slang word for “corpse,” which would reflect the idea of a working stiff in a dead-end job.

— — —

Now here's something interesting. Despite the claim of Endangered Phrases and other sources that the term was first used in the 1930s, I found the following definition in What’s What in the Labor Movement: A Dictionary of Labor Affairs and Labor Terminology, which was published in 1921:

A nickname commonly bestowed upon “casual” and “migratory” workers throughout the West—particularly members of the I. W. W. [Industrial Workers of the World], who themselves often thus designate their comrades. Probably the term has its origin in the earlier etymological sense of “stiff,” as synonymous with “strong,” “lusty,” etc.

Elsewhere in the same book, the I. W. W. (Industrial Workers of the World) is described as:

. . . a union of unskilled workers in large part employed in agriculture and in the production of raw materials. . . . [I]ts significance does not lie in organization or numbers, but in its aspect as a social phenomenon and in its power of enlisting the sympathies of the lower classes of workers in times of crisis.

While this reference suggests the term originally referred to unskilled physical laborers, it's easy to imagine how the meaning could've shifted gradually over the past century to include low-status office workers. A variation of the term that makes this more explicit is corporate stiff.

Answer 10

I worked for a company once that let me put whatever I wanted on my business card, so I put down as my job title "Replaceable Engineering Unit".

Answer 11

I'm surprised nobody's yet mentioned pen-pusher: ^{(or pencil-pusher in the US)}

• a person who has an office job that is not interesting

• a person with a clerical job involving a lot of tedious and repetitive paperwork

• un-needed, bureaucratic employee not making any difference and hampering efficiency

Answer 12

"Paper pusher" would work too. Merriam-Webster defines it as "someone who does boring or unimportant work in an office."

Answer 13

"Company man"/"Company's man" is a term I've heard used dismissively - as in: "Ask a company man a question, get a company answer" or "There's no point asking him, he's the company's man". Basically the meaning is someone who is hopelessly biased and unable to think for themselves.

Answer 14

"Corporate Monkey" is one that I have used/heard used quite a lot.

It comes from the term "circus monkey" which (obviously) came from the use of monkeys or chimps in the circus, performing tricks for the masters in order to get treats.

It has been adapted into the workplace, generally referring to people who are attempting to climb the corporate ladder, "performing tricks for the masters (the boss man) in order to get treats (raise/promotion)"

Answer 15

In the '90s Dilbert, among others, popularized^{1 2} the term cow-orker.

n. fortuitous typo for co-worker, widely used in Usenet, with perhaps a hint that orking cows is illegal.

Answer 16

How about a "corpo nobody"? Nobody(noun): a person of no importance, influence, or power.

Answer 17

The terms trog (short for "troglodyte") and pleb (short for "plebeian") can be useful here. They're derogatory terms used by higher-class individuals to refer to those in a lower class. When corporate structure turns into an office's social structure, it's very similar to the class-based systems found in larger-scale society.

Answer 18

Depending on the way it's going to be used, shill can be useful.

This is used in the context of an online forum, for example. If I work for MegaCorp Ltd then I might contribute to a programming forum by saying "solve your problem by installing XYZ product!" but if I don't mention that I work for MegaCorp, then I'm a shill.

Answer 19

Does "office plankton" fit your definition? Very common term in Russian, not sure if it exists in English (though UD knows about it):

A typical office worker, which usually has certain tasks assigned to them without hopes of getting a promotion or achieving something in his field.

Answer 20

Two that I didn't see on here yet: pencil pusher and bean counter. Usually the later referring to someone doing accounting or finance work. But I think both imply tedious underling work. Someone might refer to their CPA as a bean counter, though the position may pay well. But someone from another profession may still look down on the work as being mindless and tedious despite the pay (so beneath them for other reasons).

I think bean counter could also be used to distinguish underling roles at a large company from roles with more decision making power. For example those who are spending the companies money vs those who are adding up those people's receipts.

Answer 21

I have once asked a similar question (having in mind a Russian expression 'office plankton') and got several answers from native English speakers.

I guess the following have not been mentioned here:

gopher, dead wood, clock watcher, slacker, bottom feeder, office monkey, dilbert, desk jockey, cube dweller, chair warmer.

Link to exactly how those people replied is here.

Answer 22

dirty-white-collar can be used for the same. Refer to http://wordspy.com/index.php?word=dirty-white-collar

Answer 23

Also "cog" as in "a small gear in a large machine".

Answer 24

a wally or pointy hair from Dilbert

Answer 25

The first thing that came to my mind was

Lackey

"a servant, especially a liveried footman or manservant."

It doesn't exactly match the definition, but I think the "servant" aspect works quite well :P

It also has a nice derogatory ring to it!

Answer 26

The word ‘jobsworth’ might be appropriate (depending on the context), as in:

He is a jobsworth

From Wikipedia:

A jobsworth is a person who uses the authority of their job in a deliberately uncooperative way, or who seemingly delights in acting in an obstructive or unhelpful manner. It characterizes one who upholds petty rules even at the expense of effectiveness or efficiency.

Answer 27

In South Africa we would call them a "Brass-knob" or "cracker"

btw: A lot of the answers given above arn't answering the original question. The question was for the person at the top or above you as the slave driver. Not the 'minion' or 'dogsbody' which refers to the employee being driven.

Just a thought.

Answer 28

You are referring to ...

A suit.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=suit

Answer 29

The term yuppie comes to mind:

A yuppie (short for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional") is defined by one source as being "a young college-educated adult who has a job that pays a lot of money and who lives and works in or near a large city". This acronym first came into use in the early 1980s.