Phrase used by sadistic managers (particularly in IT) to describe any moment of spare time their employee(s) might have.

The implication is that the employee is like an old mainframe computer, and should be put to work for every second of the day or else corporate value is lost.
> Boss: "Hey, Bob has some spare cycles, he can do these 29 extra tasks."
> Bob: <grunts incoherently and shuffles closer to complete mental breakdown>