TPS report

noun

An abstract item of corporate bureaucracy.

Meanings

nounTPS report (plural TPS reports)

plural TPS reports

  1. informalAn abstract item of corporate bureaucracy.

    I was sitting there last Tuesday working on your typical TPS report when a series of events unfolded that made me realize that I needed a change.

    2007 07, Joe Scartz, Bicentennial Baby:generation X and Y: Be, iUniverse, →ISBN
    5 more examples

    Bill Lumbergh: Hello, Peter. What's happening? Ah, we have sort of a problem here. Yeaaah, you apparently didn't put one of the new cover sheets on your TPS reports? Peter Gibbons: Oh, yeah, I'm sorry about that. I forgot. Bill: Mmmh, yeah. You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out. Did you see the memo about this? Peter: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I have the memo right here. I just forgot. But it's not shipping out 'til tomorrow so there's no problem. Bill: Yeaaah. If you could just go ahead and make sure you do that from now on, that would be great. And I'll go ahead and make sure you get another copy of that memo. M'kay? Peter: Yeah, no, no, no, I have... [Bill walks off.]

    1999, Mike Judge, Office Space

    To promote reuse, the date_required variable holds the day the TPS reports are due. With this, you can reuse the script for any time the reports are due. The pithy_statement variable holds a pithy statement to end the message.

    2005 April 1, Eric Foster-Johnson, John C. Welch, Micah Anderson, Beginning Shell Scripting, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 182

    Spending all of your time doing one thing, be it video games, filling out TPS reports, or anything else, the human brain literally can become one-dimensional.

    2009 June 8, Neils Clark, P. Shavaun Scott, Game Addiction: The Experience and the Effects, McFarland, →ISBN, page 81

    Supervisor: “I need you to remember to file the TPS report by 5:00 p.m. Friday, because Ms. Smith will be returning Monday and will need access to them in order to meet her end-of-day deadline on Tuesday. […]”

    2013 May 20, Dave Delaney, New Business Networking: How to Effectively Grow Your Business Network Using Online and Offline Methods, Que Publishing, →ISBN, page 175

    In general, a business to business, B2B, approach has a longer sales cycle. For example, if you worked at a software company and your job was to fill out TPS reports, you might suggest using an outside service to help fill out the reports.

    2017 June 21, Todd Kelsey, Introduction to Social Media Marketing: A Guide for Absolute Beginners, Apress, →ISBN, page 4

Origin

Coined as a reference to the 1999 film Office Space, written by Mike Judge, who later claimed the initialism stood for "Test Program Set".

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

TPS report. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/TPS%20report

MLA

“TPS report.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/TPS%20report. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “TPS report,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/TPS%20report.

Source: TPS report on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.