I worked for a large company (in the US) a few years back, and they're in chipmaking so it's common to staff up / down based on market conditions. So what the

I worked for a large company (in the US) a few years back, and they're in chipmaking so it's common to staff up / down based on market conditions. So what the management would do is, keep a list of people to eliminate in the next 'RIF' (reduction in force), and next time a RIF came around they'd clean house. Nobody was ever fired from that company. Of course, as these things go, it became an verb in management speak. "Yeah, remember so-and-so? He was ok but didn't really get it so we RIFfed him last year".