flip burgers

flip burgers

1. Literally, to cook hamburgers, typically but not always as part of one's job at a fast food restaurant. (Cooking hamburgers often includes flipping them on a grill or flat top to ensure each side is cooked.) I spend all day flipping burgers, so I'm never in the mood to eat them when I'm not at work. Joe's out back flipping some burgers on the grill. If you're hungry, I can tell him to throw another one on.
2. By extension, to work at a job that is low-paying, monotonous, has few opportunities for advancement, and is below one's potential. If the phrase refers to a hypothetical job, it does not have to be limited to fast food. However, this phrase is not usually used to refer to an actual job if that job does not involve fast food or literally cooking hamburgers. I know you need cash, but I think you should focus your energy on finding a solid job rather than picking up a few bucks flipping burgers. A lot of people look down on flipping burgers, but that's where I started, and I've worked my way up to regional manager.
See also: burger, flip
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

flipping burgers

tv. cooking hamburger patties in a fast food restaurant as an occupation that school drop outs end up doing. (An occupation that offers practically no opportunities for advancement.) Do you want to spend the rest of your life flipping burgers! Do your damn homework!
See also: burger, flip
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • flipping burgers
  • burger flipper
  • burger-flipper
  • flipper
  • field grounders
  • literally
  • in (one's) glory
  • in glory
  • in one's glory
  • in your glory
References in periodicals archive
The chef being egged on to flip burgers faster needs to have the confidence that the floor manager is aware of how long the burger needs to be grilled before being flipped.
It knows when to flip burgers and places them on buns when ready."
During this year's competition, we have seen the candidates flip burgers, decorate a hotel room, programme a robot, entertain guests at Wembley Stadium, buy a birthday present for Lord Sugar, take tourists around Bruges, make a car advertisement, clean up dog mess, create a new recipe kit and sell clothes.
This robotic burger connoisseur is not only able to flip burgers but also put them in buns.
Green shouted "You flip burgers", adding "who has the best job?" Police traced Green to her home in Ffordd Edwin, Northop.
Flip burgers often - once every minute for meat burgers - to help prevent burning or charring.
Stake is an all-in-one barbecue tool that transforms from spatula to fork to tongs so consumers can flip burgers, grip chicken legs, and spike hot dogs more easily, say officials for the New York-based company.
HUDDERSFIELD University chiefs have hit out at claims that graduates should be prepared to flip burgers as competition for jobs hits a record high.
What really matters in the battle of Obama versus McCain is this: With whom would you rather flip burgers? As posted here by Mark Memmott at USA Today's On Politics, it appears that "people would rather barbecue burgers with Barack than munch meats with McCain." According to this year's AP/Yahoo!
WHILE I understand much of what AS is saying, the truth is that many who enter higher education do so in order not to flip burgers.
"This is really good because I can show the other parents at school that I don't just flip burgers, I do proper work and nationally recognised qualifications show that.
The sitealso includes an E-Me Fashion Show, where children can submit their E-Me outfits to be rated by other site users, along with various interactive backdrops allowing E-Mes to dance and flip burgers. An E-Me and closet can be saved from session to session and no personal information is requested from users, the company said.
While the former is happy to flip burgers all his life, his sibling dreams of becoming an actor, so they head to Hollywood.
MORE and more apprentices are chucking their jobs to flip burgers in McDonalds because the pay is better.
Flip burgers, lady, don't throw your writing to the dogs ...