box checker

Noun

box checker (plural box checkers)

1. (derogatory) A person who follows instructions to the letter and avoids taking any risks.
   • Unfortunately, appearing to just be a box-checker is a very common occurrence in today's fire service, and this results in a number of candidates actually failing an event, particularly the emergency simulation exercise.2021, Steve Prziborowski, 101 Tips to Ace Your Promotional Exam, page 81
   • For the box checker, reorientation is seen as overreach. For the box checker, originality is seen not looking before leaping.2021, George David Miller, Reinventing American Jurisprudence, page 2
2. A person who strives to live up to the expectations of others; a person who follows the rules and strives to achieve the conventional definition of success.
   • Sometimes we feel like we have to be the box-checkers of our lives. We make a list, and we don't stop until we check off every box. We strive for perfection.2017, Joy Mangano, Inventing Joy: Dare to Build a Brave & Creative Life, page 250
   • I was a box checker, marching to the beat of effort/result, effort/result.2021, Michelle Obama, Becoming
3. One whose job consists primarily of administrative work indicating tasks that have been completed.
   • Then the box checker would say, " Yep, has a Schedule B," and by the time somebody read it, they'd understand there was nothing in it.1992, Record - Society of Actuaries - Volume 18, Issue 1, page 397
   • We apply these methods because we need tools and there are management demands for status and progress reports, but the project manager is relegated to being a 'box checker' at best and a task master, similar to what I imagine were employed in the construction of the pyramids, at worst.2017, Timothy Tuohy, Healthcare Information Technology Integrated Project Delivery
4. Someone who is counted in an organization as representing a minority ethnic group but who is so assimilated into the dominant culture that their ethnic status becomes meaningless.
   • Today a box checker may escape detection by claiming Hispanic origin at the outset of a hiring, contracting, or admissions process. Would-be box checkers realize that having a Spanish surname is not a necessary condition of being “Hispanic,” so they need not call attention to themselves by changing...2003, Kevin R. Johnson, Mixed Race America and the Law, page 309
   • The seventy-plus so-called box checkers remained a mystery to the active students. They wondered, "Why would someone check a box on an admissions application but not participate in activities that are relevant to the community they are representing?"2012, Carolyn Kenny, Tina Ngaroimata Fraser, Living Indigenous Leadership, page 182

   Synonyms:

   high-cheekboner

5. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see box, checker. Someone or something that checks boxes.
   • Examples of the types of jobs the women worked at are fast food attendant or cook, box checker at a department store , housekeeper, dietary aide, beautician, bakery shop clerk, assembly line worker for a manufacturing company, child care aide, hot dog stand attendant, cashier, waitress, hostess...2004, Mark Pogrebin, About Criminals: A View of the Offender's World, page 91
   • Well, there I was, at age thirty-two, an official box-checker. DIVORCED. Don't believe me? Look at the box.2020, Holly Parker, Back on the Market: A Realtor's Guide to Love and Life