Enfiler des perles

Literally: To thread pearls

Example: “Pendant que la direction enfile des perles, les clients partent à la concurrence.” — While management spins its wheels, customers are leaving for the competition.

English equivalent: To spin one's wheels

Origin: Long before Barbie, Lego and video games, threading beads into necklaces and bracelets was a thoroughly popular way to pass an afternoon. Seen from where the men were standing it was unproductive and trivial, fit for keeping children occupied and for the women who also spent hours at it — and that judgment, not the activity, is what the figurative sense preserves. It turns up in Rabelais in the 16th century, in Gargantua, already with a note of contempt, and the usual modern form is a rebuke: nous ne sommes pas ici pour enfiler des perles, we are not here to thread beads. It gets used of praying too, of fingers running along a rosary, and more recently of someone who will not stop saying stupid things — that last by way of perle in its other sense, a howler.