a Blue Screen

A phrase used to describe any half-hearted effort, where there’s evidence of will but little of commitment. Derived from situations where, given the chance to meet with people in face to address an issue, a person decides to phone it in instead.

Example 1: Beth has an employee who enjoys wearing a “F-ck you” T-shirt. She’s intimidated by this employee, so instead of addressing the employee directly, she sends him an email extolling the merits of clothes without hard core swear words embroidered on them.

Example 2: Jeff’s client complains of network outages during the Memorial Day weekend. Jeff has had two Coronas and a chili dog, so he decides to open a web browser to the company website. Upon successfully loading, he thumbs an email back to his client on his Blackberry stating the corporate website is fine, so all network issues have been resolved.