get the short end of the stick

Example: “The newest employees always get the short end of the stick when it comes to vacation days.”

Origin: The usual explanation is drawing lots: sticks or straws of unequal length are held so the ends look level, and whoever pulls the short one takes the bad outcome — a method valued precisely because it removes human choice from an unwelcome decision. There is a competing account with better documentary footing, however. A coarser version of the phrase, using an unprintable adjective in place of "short," is attested in English from the 1800s and refers to a stick used for a sanitary purpose where one end is decidedly worse to hold than the other. A number of etymologists regard the polite "short" as a later replacement for that word rather than an independent origin, which would make the drawing-lots story a plausible-sounding reconstruction attached to the phrase after the fact.