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2How to Idle Your Way to the Top – Preface
Ever feel like your manager is a moron and you sit with brown-nosing, hopeless workaholics? Pretty sure your career is going nowhere but don’t have the guts to quit? Rejoice-help has arrived! What you’re doing is working too hard. Bookstores have long been packed with self-help tomes about how to work harder, get ahead, blah blah-essentially, how to be a better Dilbert-but a small-yet-growing segment teach you how to slack your way to the top. Sure, they’re a little tongue-in-cheek and a lot subversive, but if a little “demotivation” goes a long way, who are you to argue?
3How to Idle Your Way to the Top – Perception Is Everything
“It isn’t what you do in the office, but what others think of you at work that matters,” said K.P. Springfield, author of “The 5 Habits of Highly Successful Slackers.” Convincing others that you are the hardest working guy in IT while you’re actually watching a ballgame is the cornerstone of his prescribed slacker habits; get this down, and success will follow.
4How to Idle Your Way to the Top – Dont Be a Slave to Technology
Mark Saltzman, author of the “White Collar Slackers Handbook,” teaches workers how to wield technology to their advantage. “First, turn off those telltale messages, from ‘Sent From My BlackBerry Wireless’ to ‘Idle’ messages on IM. That’s none of their business! Then, use your Outlook times to automatically send e-mails after-hours, like at 11p.m.: ‘Hey Boss, just got that project done! See you in a few hourse!'”
5How to Idle Your Way to the Top – Immunize Yourself from Workplace Drama
6How to Idle Your Way to the Top – To Beat Them, Join Them
7How to Idle Your Way to the Top – Idle Hands Are the Successfuls Tools
8How to Idle Your Way to the Top – Keep Your Head Down
9How to Idle Your Way to the Top – Avoid Promotions Like the Plague
10How to Idle Your Way to the Top – Beeline for the Most Useless Positions
11How to Idle Your Way to the Top – Look and Sound the Part
That old saying about not dressing for the job you have but the job you want goes a long way for slackers, too. Wear jeans and old t-shirts, you give yourself away too easily. Jargon works, too: Speaking only in tech-ese will make people suspect you really know what’s going on, plus keep them from asking you too many questions.
12How to Idle Your Way to the Top – Smart Slackers Finish First
Most importantly, realize that there is a difference between the stereotypical slacker and the successful one. “The traditional slacker is lazy and reclusive and doesn’t want to do anything. The successful is actually a motivated person who wants to be successful, but the understand the concept of futility and don’t want to waste time and effort on unproductive work,” said Springfield. This person always gets ahead.