shiftless vs with hands tied

shiftless

adj
  • Untrustworthy as a result of being incompetent at the job. 

  • Destitute of shifts or expedients; lacking proper means. 

  • Lazy, unmotivated. 

with hands tied

How often have the words shiftless and with hands tied occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )