Hi everyone, I heard today's phrase of the day when a woman was complaining about a difficult project at work.
She's a graphic designer, and she was trying to design a website for a client,
but the client kept moving the goalposts, so the project was never finished and the client was never satisfied.
To move the goalposts means to change the rules, conditions,
or objectives in a way that makes them more difficult to reach the goal.
Imagine a soccer game where the players were trying to score a goal,
but someone kept moving the goal side to side or further away.
That would certainly make it a lot harder to get the ball in the goal.
In the case of the graphic designer and her client, the client moving the goalposts
might mean the client kept changing their mind or requesting more and more extra features
so that it was hard or impossible for the graphic designer to actually complete the project.
Moving the goalposts is not a good thing.
It's considered rather unfair or even corrupt.
Let's say you've been working at a company for four years and your supervisor said you'd be promoted at five years.
But then when you reach five years, your supervisor changes the conditions
and says you also need to complete an advanced training to get the promotion.
After you complete the advanced training, the supervisor moves the goalposts
again and says you're not quite productive enough to be promoted and you need to produce 20% more.
The supervisor is moving the goalposts, changing the conditions for receiving the promotion,
and you'd probably be pretty frustrated by this.