gone by lunchtime

English

Etymology

A reference to a sudden termination of employment, when an employee is told to pack up their belongings and be "gone by lunchtime".

Phrase

gone by lunchtime

1. Removed or cancelled right away.
   • 2017 April 8, Audrey Young, “Long list of people glad to see Murray McCully gone”, in New Zealand Herald:

     Foreign policy could not remain with Lockwood Smith who told visiting US Senators that New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy would be "gone by lunchtime."

   • 2017 September 6, “Editorial: Poor are the biggest losers in high-stakes political game”, in The Dominion Post:

     It's a meaningless race to the bottom of populist politics that undermines the complexity of tackling poverty as an endemic, intergenerational issue; that reduces it to something comfortably dealt with in the space of an electoral cycle – gone by lunchtime, perhaps?

   • 2018 October 9, “Katya Jones and Seann Walsh to be booted off Strictly by lunchtime, claims BBC presenter”, in Irish Mirror:

     And the BBC's own Nicky Campbell has queried if the pair will be "gone by lunchtime" following allegations from the comedian's ex-girlfriend Rebecca Humphries.

   • 2018 October 29, Dan Satherley, “Immigrant drug lord Karel Sroubek should be 'gone by lunchtime' - Simon Bridges”, in Newshub:

     I'll tell you what the Aussies would do - this guy would be gone by lunchtime.

   • 2018 December 12, David Williams, “What Canterbury's water-bottling case tells us”, in Newsroom:

     Kaikoura District Council chief executive Stuart Grant said the group wanted “ECan gone by lunchtime. This is a chance to gut the organisation. If water is staffed by ECan, it is doomed.”