December 16, 2004

"The art and necessity of doing the least possible in a corporation."
posted by Argh 19 years ago
  • Oh the irony!
  • Another way: be Marx's son-in-law and pontificate on the Right to be Lazy. (But I hear Marx didn't like it too much that Lafargue married Laura)
  • It's been all over NPR the last few days that despite the "growing economy," companies are not hiring new workers mainly b/c of "increased productivity." (Read, people afraid of losing their jobs work longer hours for the same pay, making hiring help to ease the burden unnecessary.) So see, by slacking, you're really doing your part to help improve the jobs situation in the US of A. It's the patriotic thing to do. You know, for the greater good.
  • Another way: be Marx's son-in-law I'd rather be Petey Wheatsraw, the Devil's Son-in-Law. "I'm gonna get them silly son of a bitches. Let's make it."
  • Slack today? FIRED tomorrow! Bon jour yourself, le dickhead!
  • Let me rephrase: there are those of us in the corporate world who are ambitious, poltiically savvy, and lacking in ruth. We welcome slackers! because slackers are good. to. eat. Despite what you might see in the movie Office Space, one can only pretend to work for so long in the corporate world (unless, of course, one is senior management, whereat pretending to work sublimates into an art form), and there are lots of sharks who swim endlessly, seeking out the tiniest bit of blood in the water. They (we!) will seek out your slackinating ass by the hemorrhage of tanked projects, pissed off colleagues and missed deadlines you leave in your wake, bump you a few times to make sure you're wounded, then home in for the kill. Then it's a quick Friday afternoon talk with the boss followed by security handing you one of those boxes that paper reams come in. Nice stapler you got there... It will go nicely with the rest of my trophies mwhahahahahhahah
  • I prefer the "Scotty" method of slacking...if it's going to take 2 hours to get the warp drive engines online, don't TELL them it'll take two hours...tell them it'll take a day. Then deliver it in 4 hours and you look like a miracle worker. :) The true artistry of slacking is to slack without appearing to slack. Get paid as much as possible for doing as little as possible. If I knew latin, that'd be a good motto.
  • You didn't read the entire article, or you didn't understand its point, Fes. The point of the article was that the slackers DON'T "tank projects, piss off colleagues or miss deadlines." They make sure to meet all deadlines, get along with colleagues and complete projects successfully. They just do it with bare minimum effort. The point is to preserve their jobs while not being as productive as they could be.
  • Oh, and Fes, while you swim around gloating about all the fish you've consumed as a hot-shot shark, the author's point is that when you get near the top, you'll be surrounded by people who put in half as much effort and still got to the same level by looking just as busy as you.
  • If we start being efficient and productive, then the terrorists have won.
  • OK *shrugs*. So now, I've read past the first 6 paragraphs, and I still contend that looking productive will only get you so far before someone hungrily eyes your turf and goes about biting off sweet, fatty chunks of it. Especially when one starts approaching the vaunted, golden halls where hammerheads in pinstripes live, fight and take long lunches. Sure, appearance is strong, but ultimately it's just appearance. Veils are routinely pierced. gasbags deflated, ghosts exorcised. Also: this whole slacking thing is not a new idea. The term "empty suit" has been around for a few millenia, I think. To be one may be cheesely, but it's hardly subversive. Too many do it, eventually their company as a whole either implodes into it's own empty core, or some other company comes in, buys the client list and hard assets, and jettisons the payroll list. In many ways, this is the personal application of corporate bottom line thinking - if I make my numbers and my stock price remains good this quarter, I'm golden. But long term, the clock is always ticking.
  • Ah! But if you have no ambition to become a pointy-haired supervisor... Ah, never mind. I've done enough worrying about corporate stuff today. Time for a nap.
  • If you are going to work every day at a large company as a very small cog in a very big wheel, what exactly is busting you ass day in and day out going to get you? You may become a slightly larger cog, but you went to insert your state University, not Harvard. You aren't going to be senior management and when operations are shut down, there will be no golden parachute for you. So, enjoy your life, don't let your career define you, because then you have defined yourself as a cog! I think this is what the author is getting at. Yeah, show up every day, get work done and get along with your boss, but think of it as a 'day job'. This is a very reasonable point of view. I work at a small comany and I do NOT feel like a cog. That is the advantage that small comanies have. But, where we to be bought by a huge company, I wonder if my care-o-meter would go down...
  • With all respect to both sides: the article was written from Oz, about a European. Fes writes from the USA. There's a different business attitude in much of the USA. /gross generalization This is based on some time I spent in the nineties a multinational with Australian and French subs, and a small sample of Australians who've moved to the USA, Americans who've moved to Australia, and one Australian couple who moved to the US chasing a job, then subsequently split (b/c she didn't like the business zombie that he'd become as he clawed his way up the ladder).
  • Sounds like an interesting book. I'd read it but I'm too lazy.
  • Fes, I think it's also a little different in the ad/marketing world where it seems like "overhead" (HR, tech support, accounting, etc.) runs leaner. When I left college I got a job in the loan processing department of a horrible and now sued-out-of-existance captive finance company. To process a loan you needed clean contracts, a non-usurous interest rate and complete title info. But everyone knew the process was faster and easier if you ignored usury laws, bad contracts and missing titles, and passed off all legal headaches to the loan maintenance people. The folks who got promoted were the ones who processed bad loans, because they produced More. And More is Good. Although the people who tried to follow the rules worked harder, they got laid off because they weren't producing as much. In that case the people who did as little work as possible were rewarded.
  • everything evil comes from marketing. Sometimes sales. But mostly marketing.
  • Fes, just curious. Do you happen to know what your blood pressure reading is?
  • 110 over 75, something like that. Why?
  • oh, I was just being an ass. I have to say, your cut throat attitude about "slackinating ass" turned me off. Then again, you are in that world, and I'm not. We are both probably in the right places for ourselves. Good luck and don't hurt anyone undeserving
  • Are these people really "slackers" if they meet deadlines, don't let colleagues down and don't tank projects? Or are they just smarter about surviving in corporate America?
  • Ah, in truth, I may have overstated my own willingness to feed on the weak, as well. But I am a manager, and I like to think that I'm an effective executive, and I take a measure of pride in my work. It's one thing to reconcile yourself to the idea that what you do is not necessarily who you are, but I dislike the sort of willful nonproductiveness endorsed by this book. Sure, the corporate world can be stupid, ugly, cheap and predatory - but why not try to make it better IF ONLY for the sake of saying, hey, I tried to make it better? To say, I produced value for my stockholders, and made a living doing it. I fixed some things that were wrong, I took an inefficient thing and made it better, I spent my time doing something of worth. Any job - even an evil corporate marketing job like mine - has the capacity for creating something of value. To purposefully hang back, enjoying the fruits of others' labor and contributing nothing, is both unfair and unethical. It's stealing, in my book. When I leave for the day, I want to know - for my own self - that I put in a day's worth of work for my pay and that, even if my boss, and his boss, and his, couldn't give two shits about it? I can go home with secure that I did my duty regardless of whether that duty is appreciated. I can't say I do that every day, but every day I give it a shot. My personal (creedo? self-image? honor?) demands that I try. That being the case, I have little tolerance for lampreys. If it comes between two people, one of whom is a prick that does his job forthrightly, and the other is a nice guy who follows the precepts of Bonjour Parisse? I'm going to shank the slacker. Not only because it's the right thing to do from a corporate standpoint, but because I expect my people to work as dilligently as I do, they expect it of me, and I expect it from my superiors, if for no other reason than simple personal integrity.
  • Fes, I believe you are slacking right now. very well put, though...
  • Doh! Busted! *bolts*
  • I have no idea how anyone could function in a corporate environment. Run. Run far and fast. Live your life on your own terms.
  • I fled Industry because I couldn't stand being a cog. Unfortunately, I fled to Academia. Doh!
  • I have no idea how anyone could function in a corporate environment. In the US, at least, it has a lot to do with fear of dying or financial ruin if you're unfortunate enough to get sick... That's my motivation, anyway.
  • i have friends currently "trapped" in corporate situations because they are trained for it and have no other way to make a comparable amount of money, no matter how much they have found they dislike the situation, with serious drastic changes to how they live their lives and make their living being too extreme and disruptive for them to consider any time soon. Changing places helps little as the newer one is, the less responsibility they are allowed. That people change jobs so often, that it use to be the norm-- it's changed things all around in how places function-- i've found many a situation, corporate or not, when to going above and beyond the base requirements is frowned upon by co workers and superiors, making one suspect (not unlike schoolkid type dynamics) personally, i find many people who bother swimming these seas admirable for being able to tread water but in the end think any work situation that doesn't actively detract from one's life to be worth it (liking your coworkers, security, etc.) if one doesn't have the drive to actively try and change or advance whatever system they are in <--and how many people honestly do, esp. once they realize what it would take? i also find people who really hated it will still take it for a Lllooonnng time before they make the leap out, just because they are use to it and thinking only within those perameters, unless something else triggers them to make the change.
  • What pikestrider said. Slacking off was way harder before these internets.
  • I'll keep pretending to work as long as they keep pretending to pay me.
  • 9 times out of 10, in the real world, the nice slacker beats the hard-working asshole (I should know, I'm an asshole). This book tells you how to get by in low-skills jobs: by cultivating the skills that matters -- social skills.
  • I have no idea how anyone could function in a corporate environment. Most of us don't function.
  • In the US, at least, it has a lot to do with fear of dying or financial ruin if you're unfortunate enough to get sick... Yup. Going it alone is not an option for many of us, because of corporate insurance dependence.