DCHP-3

joe job

DCHP-2 (May 2016)

Spelling variants:
Joe job, Joe-job, joe-job, Jo-job

n. — informal

a task or job that is dull and menial.

Type: 5. Frequency — The term is not frequent in the US, the UK, or other non-Canadian newspapers. A frequency chart is, however, not possible due to lots of noise in non-Canadian domains, but a semantic sample (see fist note) indicates its frequency in Canada.
See also COD-2, s.v. "joe job", which is marked "Cdn", Gage-3 and Gage-5, s.v. "joe-job", which both label the term as "informal" but not as Canadian, which is an oversight.
A frequency chart for this meaning is impossible because a spamming technique by that very name clouds the picture. However, reading the first 50 hits for the sense 'menial task' showed that it is more common in Canada than in the UK; 150 hits for the term revealed only one example in the US.

.ca - 11/50 hits; .uk - 3/50 hits; US - 1/150 hits (2 Feb. 2016)

Most hits in this sample referred to the spamming technique.

Quotations

1948
Many men in to-day's business world have been knocked about, given every joe job, been tied down, pushed aside or fenced in.
1950
As the coordinator of UBC she has transformed this hitherto "Joe-job" position into an extremely valuable executive post.
1965
One of its lumbering Lysander aircraft was doing the humble Joe job of towing a drogue target for some anti-aircraft batteries when a squadron of Italian Air Force planes approached on the only air attack that country ever made on Britain.
1972
My beef in this matter mainly concerns the dismal fact that whenever man sets out to educate an animal, it's always to do some arduous or dirty joe job he doesn't like doing himself.
1985
"It's not an elitist or snob thing," she says. "Professionals working a 'joe-job' may tend to overwork and be percieved as a threat by other workers."
1990
In a study last year, K Division found that native special constables "were perceived by themselves and other members as anything but special." Their names usually appeared at the bottom of a shift list and their files were usually found at the back of the filing cabinet, the report said. Too often, native constables were assigned to joe-jobs.
1994
So, when he's not being a famous underground rock star, badminister is working a nine-to-five-Joe-job. "Actually, it's shipping and receiving for me. Yep, that architecture degree is really paying off."
2003
The overwhelming majority of those employees are young, transient and stuck on the frontlines of the industry for lack of an applicable skill set. Christa Lehmann was a member of the "One in 13 Club" for five years. She was a server, reservation taker and a tour co-ordinator. At age 23, she decided to turn her Jo-jobs into a career.
2009
Look, I've never had to get a joe job. I've been a comedian here and there...
2013
I dream of the day when I can give up the Joe job and spend my days grant writing, tour planning, recording and composing.
2016
I was the best lawnmower ever. Within two weeks I became this guy's assistant, next thing I'm driving the station van around, I'm doing every joe job you can imagine at the radio station, and by the time I was 18 and finished high school, I was the music director.

References

  • COD-2
  • Gage-3