Idiom
asleep at the switch
Meaning
Neglectful of an important task, responsibility, or opportunity.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The manager was asleep at the switch during the crisis.”
“You are asleep at the switch if you miss this great job offer.”
“The project failed because the team leader was asleep at the switch and missed the deadline.”
“The security guards were asleep at the switch when the protesters walked right through the main gates without being stopped.”
“The board of directors realized the CEO had been asleep at the switch for months, allowing the company to drift toward bankruptcy without any oversight.”
Examples
simple
“The manager was asleep at the switch during the crisis.”
“You are asleep at the switch if you miss this great job offer.”
contextual
“The project failed because the team leader was asleep at the switch and missed the deadline.”
“The security guards were asleep at the switch when the protesters walked right through the main gates without being stopped.”
complex
“The board of directors realized the CEO had been asleep at the switch for months, allowing the company to drift toward bankruptcy without any oversight.”
Origin
Probably an allusion to the duties of a railway switchman, a figure responsible for the manual operation of track switches to prevent collisions. The expression suggests the consequences of a lapse in vigilance at the controls, though the specific era of its coinage remains unattested in the record. The image relies upon the high stakes of 19th-century rail transport, where a moment of literal slumber resulted in the catastrophic misdirection of a locomotive.
Key words
Related idioms
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