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Jumping to Conclusions

ANSWER: TIRE

Author: Jeremy A Conner

All of the clue answers are seven-letter words. The four-letter words on the mat are the results of jumping to the concluding parts of the clue answers, skipping a trigram in each case. Use the parenthetical numbers after each clue as an index into the trigram:

ClueAnswerMatWordTrigram
Actress Jennifer who portrayed Joanna (2)ANISTONANONISTS
Bill Lumbergh's company (1)INITECHINCHITEI
Computer display (1)MONITORMOORNITN
Disregards (3)IGNORESIRESGNOO
Ennui (1)BOREDOMBOOMREDR
Milton has a red one (3)STAPLERSTARPLEE
Navy vessel (2)FRIGATEFATERIGI
Often unproductive work event (3)MEETINGMINGEETT
On fire (1)BURNINGBINGURNU
One of the Bobs (1)SLYDELLSELLLYDL
Peter with eight different bosses (2)GIBBONSGIBSBONO
Recovers from a system crash, in a way (3)REBOOTSREBSOOTT

The extracted letters, when placed on the mat, yield the final phrase:

SOL
UTI
ONT
IRE

The solution is TIRE.