push paper

Idioms  

1. Do administrative, often petty, paperwork. For example, She spent the whole day pushing paper for her boss. [Colloquial; second half of 1900s]

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Example Sentences

The rest push paper with uninteresting colleagues and over time, you’ll become like them.

From New York Times

Let’s say Kansas’s Devon Dotson got to sit in a padded chair and push paper for his cut of $1 billion, while he suggested that Emmert and ACC Commissioner John Swofford should jiggle up and down the court, swapping potentially viral fluids and risking their health and futures?

From Washington Post

“What they can do in absence of a quorum is push paper around,” he said.

From New York Times

He hasn’t ruled out a return to coaching as an assistant if he “found a job where I could actually coach and not push paper all day.”

From Seattle Times

Glover plays Earn, an aspiring rap manager whose cousin has a song and a dream; Earn’s attempts to push “Paper Boi” to stardom, and himself to stardom-adjacent comfort, run up against the wall of reality.

From Time