play musical chairs

to move people from one organization or job to another The teams play musical chairs at that position - all of the top punters have played for at least two teams.

Usage notes: also used in the form a game of musical chairs: Buckley was reassigned in a game of corporate musical chairs Thursday.

Etymology: based on the children's game in which there is one more player than there are chairs and the players walk in a circle around the chairs until music stops playing, at which time they hurry to the nearest empty chair

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
ŚWiĘTosŁAw	shvyen-TAW-swahf	Polish (Archaic)
Linos	-	Greek Mythology, Ancient Greek
Muhammad	mu-HAHM-mahd (Arabic)	Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, Bengali, Tajik, Indonesian, Malay
Tycho	TIE-ko (English)	Ancient Greek (Latinized)
Klas	KLAHS	Swedish
&Thorn;ÓRleifr	-	Ancient Scandinavian