February 1, 2006

Successful Slacking

As I've let you in on in the past, I'm a slacker. Hard work just ain't my cup o' joe. Well, not much other than frappuccinos rank on my joe scale, but that's not the point. The point is that I coast because I can.

Hard work is for people who haven't tried slacking or slacked unsucceessfully. I grew up in India--I used to work hard. I didn't know any better. But in America, the land of opportunity and second, third, even fourth chances I've come to see that the system is here to be worked. Pending you are smart enough to work it. No, I haven't been stealing water again (Tracey and Tommy!)--there was this incident where I didn't feel like waiting in line, so I just drank the bottle in the store, deposited the container in a recycling receptacle and respectably waltzed out of Whole Foods.

I'm referring to a work-related incident that transpired yesterday. In the weekly staff meeting I presented a proposal to the German Bank regarding their marketing campaign. I work on a team of dedicated professionals who provide training programs for employees across all divisions around the globe for bankers at our Bank. Having said this my proposal was neither innovative nor crafty. Since I am currently responsible for formatting and revising the bi-weekly e-mail, I decided this was best done by posting the information on the web and simply e-mailing out the address. On the plus side, since I am relatively illiterate in the computer tech domain I would have to outsource this to one of our preferred vendors. YAY!
Read: Someone else will do my work but I will still get credit for thinking up this great idea by which they will do my work.

So, I pitched this to my boss and co-workers as a potential best practice we could share with our divisional colleagues, globally. What boss doesn't want to set the standard and share a best practice? No boss...and certainly NOT my boss. I got the seal of approval and a pat on the back. That's right folks, it pays to shirk responsibility--shirk it by delegating it. As long as the work gets done, there is no reason for guilt or negative consequence. Yeah, management. Love it and live it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very nice. It's true -- if you're smart enough to work the system -- why NOT keep at at? If the system had ITS chance, it would definitely work you, so you might as well beat it to the punch. That old adage of "don't work harder -- work smarter" so often rings so true.