Garden leave_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Garden leave

The “six months” that Papermaster was forced to wait before joining Apple is essentially what a garden leave is all about.

You see, when someone as important as Papermaster wants to jump ship and join a rival firm, the original employer is naturally alarmed. Either out of fear, which is very real of course, that the leaving employee will act like a spy and offer company secrets to his new employer or out of vengeance (just to spite him, you know), the old employer often ask the quitter to hold on, wait for a few months, even a year, before letting him go.

This ostensibly gives the original employer time to make contingency plans and necessary deterring arrangements in order to limit the potential damage the said quitting traitor could cause the company when he does jump ship.

And, during this few months or up to a year when the said traitor is not allowed to work or leave, what does he do?

Here we come to the real point of the story.

Presumably he stays at home and tends to his garden.

Mowing the lawn, trimming roses and such like.

The British (who invented this term), you see, are very big on gardening. Every husband or wife picks up a bit of gardening work when they can find the time or if they can’t afford the service of a professional gardener, which is also very big in Britain. It is from this gardening culture that the term “garden leave” sprang into existence.