Australian English: smoko, bludge, chuck a sickie

Are you at work surfing the net right now while on a 'smoko'? ⏲️
Maybe you're just 'bludging'? ⏳
Or perhaps you're not at work at all because you've 'chucked a sickie'?🦘

Welcome to Australian work-related vocab about... not working 🐨

⚒️ 'Smoko' comes from 'smoke break', but in Australia it usually means any form of short break from work or study. In parts of rural Queensland, 'smoko' was even the term used for primary school recesses/breaks (!)

So when an Aussie suggests having a smoko, they usually don't mean they want to have a smoke 🚭. Also it's best not to bother Aussies when they're 'on smoko' (on a break).

Given that Australia has some of the world's strictest anti-smoking laws, and with cigarette packets costing on average more than AU$40 (US$25) each, the world's most expensive cigarettes 💸 – anything smoking-related, including the term 'smoko', has waned over the years. Australian 'tradies' (tradespeople) and construction industry workers still regularly use the term 'smoko', but not so much (or at all) in other Aussie settings.

🦥 Originally meaning 'to live off the earnings of a prostitute', 'bludging' is the classic Aussie term for 'wasting time at work or studying, when you should be doing something constructive'. It's what North Americans know as 'loafing'.

A person who 'bludges' is a 'bludger' (a layabout or lazy person), the worst of whom according to the Aussie tabloid media are 'dole bludgers' – supposedly work-shy people living off of unemployment benefits long-term and 'bludging off the system' 💸

But when a job or school project is described as 'a bludge', that means it's easy as, requiring little to no work 😎. Bonus!

🤒 Then there's that time-honoured ritual of feigning illness on those days you just can't be bothered going to work or school (think Ferris Bueller's Day Off). This in Australia is 'chucking a sickie'. It involves doing 'that voice'... you know, the 'near-death' croaky one, when calling your boss or administrator.

Chucking sickies used to be so rampant in Australia (hey, why be stuck in an office on a sunny day when the beach awaits 🏖️) that employers started demanding employees provide a doctor's certificate 📝 even for one day's absence. Nowadays things aren't as strict as there's a two-day limit until a certificate is required (compared to seven days in the UK – yes Aussies, you read right!)

However, it's extremely poor form in Australia to call in sick after a school night out on the turps (getting drunk 🍻) and you're nursing the hangover from hell 🥴 – you go to work and face the consequences as it's a case of 'self-inflicted, no sympathy'.🙎🏻

OK now, smoko over, enough bludging, back to work! 😁

If you want to make your text or copy shine for your Aussie crowd, then have a yarn (chat) with me. Email me at info@nicknasev.com and let's make things better for you!