A gofer, go-fer or gopher is an

employee Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any other ...

who specializes in the delivery of special items to their superior(s). Examples of these special items include a cup of coffee, a tool, a tailored suit, or a car. Outside of the business world, the term is used to describe a child or young adult who is learning how to do tasks and is sent to fetch items. A similar job is that of

peon Peon (English , from the Spanish ''peón'' ) usually refers to a person subject to peonage: any form of wage labor, financial exploitation, coercive economic practice, or policy in which the victim or a laborer (peon) has little control over emp ...

in Commonwealth countries.

Etymology

Gofer is a linguistic simplification of the two words 'go' and 'for'. Simplified, in English, it means 'go for this' or 'go for that' and reflects the likelihood of instructions to ''go for'' coffee, dry cleaning, or stamps, or to make other straightforward, familiar or unfamiliar procurements. The term ''gofer'' originated in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

Career opportunities

Likewise, ''gofer'' may refer to a junior member of an organisation who generally receive the most vexing and thankless work. Law firms with a top-heavy management structure, having not enough junior lawyers to take care of menial yet necessary tasks, can be referred to as having "too many loafers and not enough ''gophers''".

In popular culture

In the 1953 movie ''

She's Back on Broadway ''She's Back on Broadway'' is a 1953 musical comedy-drama film in WarnerColor. It is Virginia Mayo's last musical film. Her singing voice was dubbed by Bonnie Lou Williams. The film was Mayo's unofficial follow-up to her 1952 musical hit '' She ...

'', at about the 11 minute mark, the word is used backstage at a Broadway show, with a clear explanation. In the first season (1976) of the television series '' The Muppet Show'', Scooter was given the stage manager job because his uncle owned the theater where the Muppets performed. The pun was that a gopher not only is an animal, like the Muppets supposedly are, but is a fast animal, collecting food and delivering it somewhere else. At some point in the Muppets series, Kermit the Frog suggested that he himself was a gofer, but probably didn't last long in the job. In the fourth season of '' Boy Meets World'', Corey gets a job as a gofer for two shady businessmen ( Buddy Hackett and Soupy Sales). Another example of a gofer is the fictional character of Salvatore "Turtle" Assante (

Jerry Ferrara Jerry Charles Ferrara (born November 25, 1979) is an American actor known for his role as Turtle on the HBO comedy series '' Entourage'', and starred on the Starz drama series '' Power'' as Joe Proctor. Life and career Ferrara was born in Broo ...

) on the

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

television series '' Entourage''. Chavo Guerrero was considered to be a gofer for his aunt Vickie Guerrero on WWE's '' SmackDown'' for most of 2008 (Vickie was ''SmackDown's'' General Manager at the time) when they were both part of the villainous La Familia stable. This would become a sporadic running joke on WWE programming as other superstars would mock Chavo for this reason. In the 2011 film '' My Week with Marilyn'', the protagonist, Colink Clark, is the third assistant director but describes himself as "a gofer, really. Go for this, go for that." In the '' Taxi'' episode "Alex the Gofer", Alex takes a part-time job as an assistant to Broadway producers. The term gofer is used in the anime '' Zombie-Loan''.

Brad Pitt William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. ...

's character Cliff Booth is a gofer for Rick Dalton ( Leonardo DiCaprio) in the 2019 movie ''

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ''Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'' is a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Produced by Columbia Pictures, Bona Film Group, Heyday Films, and Visiona Romantica and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, it is a ...

''.

References

Employment classifications Office work {{Job-stub