working stiff
Everyday wage earner
A working stiff is an ordinary wage earner—someone who works a regular job for modest pay, often in labor or routine office work.
The term carries a mix of solidarity and resignation: He's just a working stiff trying to pay the bills.
It implies someone without special privilege or ambition, grinding through the workweek like everyone else.
Manual labor workforce
- manual laborWork done bodily
- physicalOf body or matter
- toilStrenuous, prolonged effort
- sweatMoisture from skin pores
construction · factory · assembly line · warehouse · foreman · wages · union · hard hat
Compensation for labor
- salaryFixed periodic employment payment
- benefitsGains or helpful effects
- commuteRegular work travel
- overtimeWork beyond scheduled hours
nine-to-five · cubicle · office · colleague · supervisor · hire · fire · promotion
Regular sequence of actions
- monotonyTiresome lack of change
- tediumWearisome dullness
- burnoutChronic occupational depletion
- deadlineTime limit for completion
workload · punch clock · workweek · rat race · drudgery · hamster wheel · treadmill · slog
Standard, unremarkable
- regularOccurring at fixed intervals
- commonWidespread and unremarkable
- rank-and-fileOrdinary organization members
- salt of the earthFundamentally decent, reliable people
unsung · anonymous · faceless · masses · proletariat · workforce · taxpayer · little guy
blue-collar
Manual labor workforce
- manual laborWork done bodily
- physicalOf body or matter
- toilStrenuous, prolonged effort
sweat · construction · factory · assembly line · warehouse · foreman · wages · union · hard hat · tradesperson
paycheck
Compensation for labor
overtime · nine-to-five · cubicle · office · colleague · supervisor · hire · fire · promotion · timesheet
routine
Regular sequence of actions
deadline · workload · punch clock · workweek · rat race · drudgery · hamster wheel · treadmill · slog · grind
ordinary
Standard, unremarkable
- regularOccurring at fixed intervals
- commonWidespread and unremarkable
- rank-and-fileOrdinary organization members
salt of the earth · unsung · anonymous · faceless · masses · proletariat · workforce · taxpayer · little guy · grassroots
- workersemployee, employees, laborer, laborers, wage earner
- Everymanaverage Joe, everyman, common man, regular Joe, regular guy
- class labelsaristocrat, beggar, bourgeois, commoner, elite
- small frysmall fry, small-fry, pipsqueak, little guy, nobody
working stiffthe boss
Person in charge
CEO · executive · top brass · higher-ups · management
working stiffgentleman of leisure
Wealthy man who needn't work
lady of leisure · rentier · coupon clipper · trust funder · jet setter
work, stiff, worker, working, works, workers, worked, stiffen, workable