How to Get Through the Working Day

Barrah Jessica

Description

The slacker's mini handbook to skiving. Includes slacker slogans and a quiz to evaluate your skiving potential. Go on - turn up, log in, slack off!

Sujets

• Lifestyle
• Humour

Informations

• Publié par: Crombie Jardine Publishing Limited
• Date de parution: 02 mai 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781471699719
• Langue: English

Extrait

INTRODUCTION
 
 
As Dolly Parton would no doubt agree, working 9:00 to 5:00... what a way to make a living!

Doing no work at all between those hours is easy – if you want to get your P45. But this guide is dedicated those who wish to actually keep their job, whilst doing as little as possible to retain it.
 
There are jobs where it is really not feasible or ethical to idle away your time. Junior doctors in hospitals may sleep on the job, but only because it’s a 70-hour shift. Bus drivers: Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel!

Other jobs seem more conducive to skiving; Rome wasn’t built in a day, because all the builders were drinking tea, showing off rear cleavage and shouting sexist remarks at passing blondes in low-cut togas.
 
However, this book is mainly aimed at people based in an office, typically in a fairly menial job. Directors, having worked, networked, slept or bought their way up, will feel entitled to loaf around having power lunches and playing golf, and will not have to justify anything to the boss. They are the boss.

But it’s more difficult further down the pecking order. Many people may have lost any semblance of motivation they ever had, are bored to their back teeth, and clock watch for eight hours straight.

Find a new job, you may say. Do something you really want to do. Fair comment. But what if what you really want to do is nothing? What if you have come to realize that nearly all jobs involve a large amount of tedious tasks, and that Plan B (becoming a Top Gun -style fighter pilot) may not work out as you haven’t even managed to pass your driving test yet? Maybe all your ambitions revolve around being able to stay at home and watch Trisha .

You don’t want to get another job. There may be nowhere to go in the company except sideways, but it’s comfortable. Sideways can turn into horizontal, and you might be able to get a bit of shut-eye. You want to keep the job you’ve got, without actually working. You just want to get the working day done with as quickly and enjoyably as possible, and then get on with the rest of your life. Read on!
 
D.E.A.D. E.N.D
 
 
In the interview for your job, you probably said that you were a motivated self-starter who loved a challenge. Now you need to show those motivational, pro-active skills by dealing with the thorny problem of actually doing work. Just remember the following key words and repeat them as a mantra:
 
Divert
Evade
Avert
Duck
Elude
Negotiate
Delegate

To remember these key words, just think DEAD END .
 
Perhaps in that long-distant interview, dressed in your cheap suit and borrowed shoes, you admitted, shyly, that your greatest weakness was... yes, indeed... perfectionism!

Stifle that hollow laugh. This is your challenge, if you choose to accept it: Achieve the perfect zero. Nada. Zip.
 
Spend your day doing absolutely sweet Fanny Adams, without anyone actually noticing that you did nothing at all of any use to the company.
 
SLACKER GUIDE LINES
 
 
Before we really start in earnest, there are a few essentials to remember. You can refer to them as S.A.D . ( S tart as you mean to go on, A lways judge a book by its cover, D evelop ESBP).
 
1. START AS YOU MEAN TO GO ON

You may think that one of the easiest ways to shorten the hours you work is by arriving ten to twenty minutes late, blaming the buses/traffic jam/tube – although everyone knows you actually live within walking distance.

Always be either on time or early. This takes away suspicion, and if your superiors suspect you of slacking, they will watch you more closely. Never leave early, unless every person who counts has already left.
 
2. ALWAYS JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER

Always look smart and professional. Look more professional than you even need to. It creates the impression that you are eager, even if you are not. Don’t be the one coming in late, with greasy hair, smelling of beer. If you look the part, you can get away with so much more. Image is everything.
 
Always carry a clipboard, or at least an official looking piece of paper (for example a fax) with you when away from your workstation. When walking around the office for no purpose whatsoever, walk fast.
 
3. DEVELOP ESBP
 
Develop Extra Sensory Boss Perception, so that you know just before they pass behind you, so you can click off eBay and back onto the database.
 
Get to know their timetables, and listen to their phone conversations, so you know when they are likely to be out all morning for a meeting, or back within fifteen minutes. Then you’ll know when you can kick back and go for a nap in the stationery cupboard and when you need to have a few files open to create the impression of productive work being done.
 
OVERCOMING SCRUPLES
 
 
You may at first feel a little guilty about Extreme Skiving, but the Bible sanctions it (see RELIGION IN THE WORK PLACE):

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Luke 12: 27
 
See, even God doesn’t want you to work.
 
Keep in mind these touching lines:
 
Forget that Protestant work ethic
Ditch the Catholic guilt
You are a delicate lily
And toil may make you wilt

Even if you are of another faith, or of no faith at all, you shouldn’t feel bad about getting paid for doing next to nothing. If you were on the dole, you would be doing nothing and yet you’d still be supported by the taxpayer.