in a professional context this phrase means to generate, at once, an oppressively large quantity of work that will result in extreme discomfort and/or prolonged, excessive toil for those so thrown, as in “the partner just made them redo the entire presentation the night before the meeting, he really threw the team under the bus”; often done in ignorance or with callous disregard for the effects of one’s actions; can also be used in a more general sense, in which to throw a particular individual under the bus indicates an unjustified act of disloyalty or scapegoating; implies that all parties involved are contentedly riding on the same vehicle together, until one person is unceremoniously ejected into the path of travel