What does 'Sitting in bench' means

[Karthik Jayachandran]

I work for a med-sized startup and was always busy in some tasks from development to release mgmt, documentations etc for the whole day sometimes working in late nights and weekends too.
It is only recently I've heard about the term 'people sitting in bench' in MNCs. Does it mean they sit in some isolated place (away from team) doing some r&d work or learning some language/frameworks. What exactly does it mean?

[Ulf Dittmer]

A quick google search found this: http://www.accenture.com/us-en/blogs/canada-consulting-careers-blog/archive/2010/11/22/spending-time-on-the-bench.aspx

[Karthik Jayachandran]

Thanks Ulf Dittmer. I found a few of such articles too. Just thought of asking fellow ranchers here as some may have experienced it.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Karthik,
I haven't experience it, but I've seen a good number of posts about it here over the years. I did a search and there were 290 hits on the word "bench" in this forum.

[Henry Wong]

I always thought "bench" is a sports related term. Obviously, the whole team can't be on the field (or court) at the same time, so some have to sit on the bench. It doesn't mean that they are not important -- it just means that at that moment, they are not directly contributing to the team.

Also, when you are tired and start making mistakes, you get "benched" -- to allow a rested player contribute.


To a consulting company, a player that is on the bench is not directly contributing at that very moment. It doesn't mean that the player is not important, it just means that they are not needed, or can be used, at that moment.

Henry