The Groom of the Stool helped a king with toiletry, excrement, and other messy bodily functions. This was simultaneously one of the most repugnant and sought-after duties in the English royal castle. The Groom of the Stool was well-paid to keep the king's secrets. Although the duties were literally wiping shit off the king, the position was not considered a lowly one. The Groom of the Stool could pass secret messages to and from the king. One word from the Groom of the Stool was enough to change the fortunes of anyone in the royal court. He could act as a gatekeeper to grant access to the king in private.
H. R. Haldeman was chief of staff in the Nixon white house. He was a Groom of the Stool in that he kept Nixon's secrets and did some of his dirty work.
That chief of staff we hired last month is a real Groom of the Stool. He spends all his time cleaning up after the CEO and knows the secrets of every director. Never cross him or your ass is out the door.
when you're holding up your phone and making faces at it, as though you are taking a selfie, but you're really taking a picture of the person across from you or the wall or anything else that seems interesting but you don't want to be caught dead taking a picture of.
This action is often made more convincing by wiggling the eyebrows or opening the mouth, to pretend you're trying to get a Snapchat filter to work.
The grindset is a contemporary ideology of self-exploitation disguised as strength, deeply tied to the aesthetics of the “sigma male” and to new digital forms of patriarchy. It promotes the idea that human worth depends on productivity, economic success, absolute emotional control, and the ability to work endlessly, turning vulnerability, rest, community, and tenderness into signs of weakness. Beneath its rhetoric of discipline and power often lies a profound inability to relate healthily to pain, fragility, and human interdependence.
“That’s the grindset, brother. While weak men sleep and complain, sigma males stay disciplined, work in silence, suppress emotions, and build power while everyone else wastes time chasing comfort.”