Talk:office plankton
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The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
The quote that's in the entry doesn't scan, and is thus worthless, imo. I don't see other convincing hits on GB, except for this one, maybe: "But how can you invent a distinction if you feel you are part of ordinary office plankton? What if this is how the people around view you?". Canonicalization (talk) 15:49, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
- I think the whole book that is quoted in the entry was written by the alpha version of Google Translate, using a Macchiavellian pseudonym. Still, it is a use. The term occurs five times in the book linked to above, written by two Russians (or maybe the beta version of Google Translate). There is a kind of definition on the first page of Chapter 31. Apart from the fact that two cites is not enough, do they mean the same? It is hard to tell what they mean at all, but in the pseudo-Machiavelli the office plankton are like lumpen office workers, members of the precariat. For the two-Russian book, they are organization men; the issue is that they are indistinguishable from each other and thereby unnoticeable, but if you want to fight your way to the top you have to stick out. The indistinguishabilitry issue is independent of their economic situation, so this seems to be a whole nother sense than in the other book. --Lambiam 19:59, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
- cited. I think we can get rid of the Macchiavelli brothers as a not-very useful quote. From what I can see, it is not so much that office plankton lack motivation and contribute very little, so much as that they are indistinguishable cogs, anonymous white-collar workers. Kiwima (talk) 22:22, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
- Good cites. Dump Due. Does the metaphor ever explicitly include baleen whales? DCDuring (talk) 22:37, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
- cited. I think we can get rid of the Macchiavelli brothers as a not-very useful quote. From what I can see, it is not so much that office plankton lack motivation and contribute very little, so much as that they are indistinguishable cogs, anonymous white-collar workers. Kiwima (talk) 22:22, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
RFV-resolved Kiwima (talk) 21:52, 12 December 2019 (UTC)