job backwards

Definitions

To reassess one's original decisions (e.g. investments) with hindsight, determining how they might have been better chosen.

intransitive

Examples

“They maintain⟳ that Sir William has "jobbed backwards"; that people who invested in the mines were indulging in a speculation, and that because the speculation has failed the whole matter⟳ has been considered by Sir William as if it concerned […]”

“[…] it would seem necessary to undertake⟳ a series of ex post⟳ studies, selecting present⟳ major science-based industries and jobbing backwards so as to relate⟳ their present⟳ value to the network of scientific discoveries judged essential to them.”

CEFR level