adminopause

Used to describe the groups of middle-aged women who run the administration in most institutions and corporations. Origin: Admin + menopause. Administration/bureaucracy is thought to have been invented during the middle ages by crusaders and explorers to ensure their wives' fidelity while they were gone, by keeping them busy with useless paperwork, e.g. "I'm going to rescue the Holy Land darling, by the time I get back I want you to alphabetize this list of the serfs and cross reference it against a list of our debtors, graphed against the last ten years' harvests, etc. etc." These tasks would keep the wives so busy they had no time for lovers. By the time the men came home, the women were so engrossed in the admin they kept doing it and passed it on to the next generation, believing this made up work to be of vital importance, an attitude which persists to this day.