If you’re contemplating slacking, or as I prefer to call it ‘workload reduction’, you may have some initial concerns. Your biggest fear is likely: “what if I get caught?”. In most people’s minds, this fear is greatly overblown compared to the actual likelihood of being caught. Most organisations have a very difficult time accurately measuring performance, either good or bad. I’m sure you can think of a time when you worked your ass off and saw no tangible benefit for it. The inverse can just as easily be true: you can do very little and see no tangible consequence. While the chances of you being caught are already low, if you follow these 3 simple rules you can make it almost impossible to ever get completely caught out.
- Don’t tell any coworkers what you’re doing! – Oversharing should be a bad idea without me explaining why, yet there is still often a temptation to brag to a coworker about how little work you are doing. Don’t do it! A minor problem may be that your coworker copies your techniques, which will reduce their effectiveness. A major problem may be that the information gets reshared to the wrong person and you get fired. Once you become an experienced master slacker there are certain advanced slacking techniques you can perform with a partner in crime, but leave it to the experts when you’re just starting out!
- Leave no hard evidence you did it – You should always have a viable explanation for anything you did (or more likely, didn’t do because you were slacking). You could be confronted about something at any time, so you should always have an excuse prepared and ready to go. The explanation doesn’t have to be 100% believable, it just has to be plausible. So long as no one can produce hard evidence that contradicts your explanation, it should be good enough to avoid being fired. You should only have to use these excuses very rarely. If you’re frequently being confronted it means you’re getting sloppy, which leads to the third rule…
- Always keep your reputation good – When starting out, its important you not try to go too hard, too fast in reducing your workload. It is much easier to get away with doing very little if everyone still thinks you are a good employee and much harder if they already have reason to be suspicious of you. Workload reduction is something you increase gradually, as you experiment over time to see which techniques are effective in your workplace and role. Don’t try several new techniques at once, gradually phase them in over time.
By following these 3 critical rules, even a newbie slacker should have very little chance of ever being caught. As always, knowledge is power, so don’t stop with just these 3 rules. Read our comprehensive free e-book on the corporate personality types, browse our other articles, check out our Tips of the Week, or say hi on our 1000+ follower facebook page.