Goose the Blog 2.0

"Oh, ha! Sarcasm: The last refuge of sons of bitches!"

10 commandments for the idle

by John at 8/24/2004 09:30:00 AM

From Bonjour paresse: De l'art et la nécessité d'en faire le moins possible en entreprise (translated to Hello Laziness: The Art and the Importance of Doing the Least Possible in the Workplace), a summer best-seller in France:

10 commandments for the idle
  1. You are a modern day slave. There is no scope for personal fulfilment. You work for your pay-check at the end of the month, full stop.
  2. It's pointless to try to change the system. Opposing it simply makes it stronger.
  3. What you do is pointless. You can be replaced from one day to the next by any cretin sitting next to you. So work as little as possible and spend time (not too much, if you can help it) cultivating your personal network so that you're untouchable when the next restructuring comes around.
  4. You're not judged on merit, but on whether you look and sound the part. Speak lots of leaden jargon: people will suspect you have an inside track
  5. Never accept a position of responsibility for any reason. You'll only have to work harder for what amounts to peanuts.
  6. Make a beeline for the most useless positions, (research, strategy and business development), where it is impossible to assess your 'contribution to the wealth of the firm'. Avoid 'on the ground' operational roles like the plague.
  7. Once you've found one of these plum jobs, never move. It is only the most exposed who get fired.
  8. Learn to identify kindred spirits who, like you, believe the system is absurd through discreet signs (quirks in clothing, peculiar jokes, warm smiles).
  9. Be nice to people on short-term contracts. They are the only people who do any real work.
  10. Tell yourself that the absurd ideology underpinning this corporate bullshit cannot last for ever. It will go the same way as the dialectical materialism of the communist system. The problem is knowning when...
From the Guardian:
The book... pledges to explain why it is in your interest to do the least work possible and will tell you how to damage the system from within "without appearing to do so".

An antidote to the recent rash of US-import, career-enhancing self-help books by business management gurus, it rails against corporate culture and preaches a philosophy of active disengagement.

It is an elegantly written call to arms to the "neo-slaves" of middle management and the "damned of the service industry", condemned to dress up as clowns all week and waste their lives in pointless meetings.

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