Vive La Loafing! 649
theodp writes "Bonjour Paresse, an anti-corporation slacker manifesto whose title translates as 'Hello Laziness,' has become a national best seller in France and made a countercultural heroine of its author, who encourages workers to adopt her strategy of calculated loafing in response to dimming prospects of success for rank-and-file employees. Could a translation find a Silicon Valley audience?"
Slacker Thee (Score:4, Interesting)
In english: reading/posting on slashdot (e.g. I should be working on X but wonder if CowboyNeal is mentioned in the latest slashpoll)
in response to dimming prospects of success for rank-and-file employees.
Got news for you, there was a terrific article in the Detroit Free Press back in the 80's regarding the epic scale slacking which contributed to the ills of the automotive industry. Overly strong unions and workers with an "I deserve stuff" attitude resulted in many of the anecdotes of redundant jobs and slacking where the line was already overstaffed (workers taking turns going across the street for a few quarts of beer and sitting on the roof working on tans and such.) I went to school with a lot of laid-off workers who recounted many tales which often even amazed them by the audacity of the perpetrators. Slacking is by no means unique or original to people in IT.
Could a translation find a Silicon Valley audience?
Dunno, when Silicon Valley finally hires a a worker I'll ask.
Work hard. Learn new skillz. Get sacked anyway
Re:Please follow her advice. (Score:3, Interesting)
she might lose her job... (Score:4, Interesting)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3935669.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Living in France... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm I wish... (Score:2, Interesting)
The U.S. Version has been around for decades... (Score:2, Interesting)
One of their early mottos: "Time is money, steal some today."
http://www.processedworld.com/ [processedworld.com]
Re:Ah the French... (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends on your definition of success. In Europe, "having the most money" is not the sole criteria for success.
The Stint (Score:5, Interesting)
Employers were constantly trying to make employees work faster. Most workplaces had a stint, and those who failed to maintain it by doing too much or too little were ostracized. Workers who upheld the stint despite the curses of their boss earned reputations as "good men" and trustworthy masters of the trade. The worker restriction of output symbolized "unselfish brotherhood," personal dignity, and "cultivation of the mind." One reason why the stint was important is that workers wanted control over the amount of time that they worked. Businesses at this time often ran factories around the clock and then shut down for months at a time.
Another interesting part of the workingman's moral code was having a "manly bearing" toward the boss. In the nineteenth century this popular expression was an honorific signifying dignity, respect, and egalitarianism. A person earned his honorific by refusing to work while the boss was watching. It is useful to reflect on the difference between only working when the boss is watching and not working when the boss is watching. They are both gestures of defiance, but one is about keeping one's job and the other is about keeping one's dignity. The first says, "I don't want to work, but I will, because you are watching." The second says, "I'll work because I want to, not because you are watchingThere was a time when factories ran around the clock and would then close down for months on end until all their stock was sold. The workers had a great solution to this problem called "The Stint," an agreed upon rate of production that no worker would go over. To quote Joanne B. Ciulla:
Employers were constantly trying to make employees work faster. Most workplaces had a stint, and those who failed to maintain it by doing too much or too little were ostracized. Workers who upheld the stint despite the curses of their boss earned reputations as "good men" and trustworthy masters of the trade. The worker restriction of output symbolized "unselfish brotherhood," personal dignity, and "cultivation of the mind." One reason why the stint was important is that workers wanted control over the amount of time that they worked. Businesses at this time often ran factories around the clock and then shut down for months at a time.
Another interesting part of the workingman's moral code was having a "manly bearing" toward the boss. In the nineteenth century this popular expression was an honorific signifying dignity, respect, and egalitarianism. A person earned his honorific by refusing to work while the boss was watching. It is useful to reflect on the difference between only working when the boss is watching and not working when the boss is watching. They are both gestures of defiance, but one is about keeping one's job and the other is about keeping one's dignity. The first says, "I don't want to work, but I will, because you are watching." The second says, "I'll work because I want to, not because you are watching."
Re:Please follow her advice. (Score:5, Interesting)
And companies don't so much care about your reviews. When it comes to layoff time, seniority plays more of a role than capability, productivity and work-ethic. That seems bizarre since a company that is having financial trouble should trim their belt by retaining only the few best people they can rather than ditching everyone based on number of years in the company, retaining some of the crappier, lazier, lesser qualified individuals simply because they've been at the company, skating by without notice, longer.
Seriously, reviews aren't worth the paper they're written on.
I put in 80 hour work weeks for seven years. I lived my work. I worked at work, then I went home and worked on work the rest of the night. Plus weekends. And holidays. That's assuming I didn't just live at work, which I did for weeks at a time. And all of my reviews were golden. But I didn't play the political game as much. Rather than kissing ass and talking big about myself, I kept my nose down and did the work that was being neglected by those who were spending their time ass kissing rather than working.
I neglected my health and social life and now I'm in very poor health (living in an office and eating crap food so you can spend more time working is a bad thing in the long run) and I have no social network. All I did was work. Day, night, weekend, holiday. Sometimes I would go home at 10pm and drive back at 2am because I got bored or wanted to get more work done, even though the work day didn't start until 9am.
Anyway, I was laid off a few months ago in favor of hiring a bunch of people in india. I noted that all of the people that were laid off had been there less tiem than those who were kept on the payroll, and many of those who were laid off were known company-wide to be far more talented and capable than those that stayed on.
One obviosly hasn't tasted India (Score:5, Interesting)
10AM - Crowd bundles up at the office
10:30 to 11:00AM - The staff arrives
11:00 to 12:30PM - Work!
12:30PM to 1:00PM - Closed for Lunch
1:00 to 1:15PM - Getting-all-the-gas-out break
Then it is followed by some work, lots of bribery, lots of chatter with friends while the common man waits for his turn and so on...
On paper, its actually 40-45 hr weeks, but in reality its much less. And thats the situation in cities. In villages its worse than anything. No work for days, and that too only thru bribery. And OTOH, the private sector employee works his ass off till night to make himself and country proud (and also to pay off those heavy bribes). Sad and sic!
Venality and slackness would kill Indian dreams.
One more outsourcing weapon (Score:2, Interesting)
And then we're complaining about loosing our jobs to India and other countries.
Re:Close, but misses the mark (Score:3, Interesting)
Spanish companies are bastards (and, as an sometime employee of Telefonica, I can say that with authority).
The Spanish management mentality is really stuck in the "People are meat" age. Bum on seat = position filled. If you can sack somebody and replace them with somebody cheaper, then do it. Experience counts for nothing. If you've got a degree, then that is what you are.
Efficiency means "sack people", business plan means "sell stuff". Its really a very simple way to look at the complex dynamics of a business.
Re:Close, but misses the mark (Score:5, Interesting)
"unemployment" is a bad measure. Tracking "per capita poverty" and "per capita productivity" is a much better measure. Or, heck, we could track "per worker productivity."
If your country and my country both have 100 people, and we both produce $1,000,000 in wealth per year, we have the same per-capita producitvity. If you employ 98 of those 100 while I employ 85, and those 2 non-workers in your society live in poverty while only 1 of mine lives in poverty, then picking statistics is even more important.
GDP: $1,000,000 you & me.
Per-capita: $10,000 you & me
Unemployment: 2% you, 15% me
Per-worker: $10,204 you, $11,764 me.
Poverty rate: 2% you, 1% me.
(if the conventional wisdom about socialsim and capitalism holds out, of course, your country would have a 1% poverty rate, while mine would be much higher--regardless of the rest.)
Re:Close, but misses the mark (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Caffeine (Score:3, Interesting)
We're tired all day because we've tuned our bodies to a life of sitting at a desk or on a production line for 8 hours. Then at the end of the day our minds are so fried that we just want to vegetate. When it gets to be "bedtime" our bodies aren't tired enough to sleep properly so we take pills or stay up late.
Then in the morning after not having slept well, if at all, we come to work ready for another day of doing not a whole hell of a lot. To stay awake we drink our coffee and it perks us up enough to get through the way we think we're supposed to do.
As long as employment continues to mean we sit more or less in one place for 8 or 9 hours then we really need to play harder. It'll make us sleep better which could even get us through the day better. Being barely awake enough to work and barely tired enough to sleep just doesn't seem to be cutting it.
Re:Close, but misses the mark (Score:4, Interesting)
In some "secure" industries, vacations are mandatory for this reason (and others). If you're gone for a week, it's harder to keep the books cooked.
Re:The funny thing is you have it backwards (Score:1, Interesting)
If you have X bugs to validate, verify, test and file - and you slack instead, your bosses will notice that you are not handling as many bugs as your fellow employees. And you will get fucked when it comes time to fire people.
Maybe slacking works in service jobs where it is difficult or even impossible to quantify your work or productivity, but in a field (most tech fields) plastered with matrices and various statistical analysis of every bit of an employee's workflow, when you slack off - it is very evident.
Re:Slacker Thee (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Close, but misses the mark (Score:3, Interesting)
Having worked both in Germany as well as the US I can attest that this difference is not theoretical at all. The German business climate is more focused with much less small talk in the office and meetings tend to be more productive and shorter.
(What worries me much more comparing Germany to the US is that the infant mortality is so much higher in the latter [ucsc.edu]. In that category even Cuba outperforms the number one superpower of the world [ucsc.edu].)
Re:Please follow her advice. (Score:5, Interesting)
Back when I was putting myself through school working as a electronic/mechinical tech in a research lab, I had a terrific work ethic.
A lot of our time was wasted waiting around for some project mileston or some demonstration needed for a proposal. So, being industrious me, I made it my job to be useful every hour of every day. I checked the lab bays and made sure that all the appropriate safety equipment was in place and that there were first aid kits available and everyone knew where they were. I fabricated shelves and racks for things and made useful devices for moving heavy stuff around. I checked that all the equipment was inventoried and properly cleaned and maintained. I broke down useless old equipment for parts that we'd need, sorted and inventoried all the pieces. When there was nothing else I could think of, I swept the floor while the other guys sat around and drank coffee.
So, when a really cool project came along, who did the bosses turn to?
Right. Somebody else but me. I was already busy, the cool projects went to the guys who spent their time loafing. In fact, I'd trained everybody to think of me as their maid or their mom. I was useful as hell doing what I was already doing. Oh yes, and since the things that you do affect your job description, and the skill level of the things on your job description determine your compensation, guess who was in line for promotion and raises?
There was an important lesson in this situation for me. I just wish I knew what it was. Other than that bosses (even ones with PhDs) are stupid.
Re:Slacker Thee (Score:5, Interesting)
However, after putting in years of sweat and tears and relationship building and education and heart into a job for the last five years only to be laid off with a thirty second phone call one morning (not because I sucked - but because after a half dozen layoffs, I could no longer escape the axe and a few thousand more of us said goodbye), I've come to realize that all of my hard work and loyalty was for nothing. Here I am five years later, starting all over again.
People work hard and are dedicated and productive and happy when they know that progress and achievement can be theirs. But when they recognize that for all the toiling they put in, they could be axed due to budget constraints or politics (as opposed to personal ability) on a whim, they give up.
Would you run a marathon if you knew the finish line was going to be randomly extended and that you would periodically be grabbed and yanked back to the starting line all over again? After awhile, wouldn't you realize that the race itself is pointless and give up?
Re:Slacker Thee (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Please follow her advice. (Score:1, Interesting)
If you're salaried, you are not being paid per-hour and are expected to work however long the job takes. If you are hourly, you can still be fired for not putting in due effort to accomodate extra necessities.
You can't just "choose not to let them", unless what you mean is "choose to be unemployed".
I have no life. I've made work my life. I have not gone to a movie, party, vacation, dinner or anything else in over a decade. I work seven days a week, 14 hours per day while everyone else in my group works about five days a week, for 40 or 50 hours and does the regular family/whatever thing the rest of the time.
Having a "life" isn't all it's cracked up to be. For one thing, what's the point of having a "life" if you don't have enough money to have fun with your life? And second, there are a lot of shitty things that can go on in your "life". Like shitty relationships and such. I could invest my many hours into a relationsihp that will eventually end and all I'll have gotten out of it is some sex. Big fuckign deal. OR, I could put those same hours and that same effort into my job, where the return is cold hard cash, accolades and the respect of my colleagues, as well as a better resume. It's clear which one is the more productive choice.
Re:Nice try (Score:5, Interesting)
The parent brings up VAT (or AVT as it is known in France) which stands for Value Added Tax. He's right to point it out, because many luxury goods cost much more in Europe than they do in the U.S. In France, the AVT is 19% (imagine having to pay 19% sales tax on DVD players, TVs, etc.). It's a very valid point, however the basic cost of living is much cheaper here than in the U.S. Fresh baked loaves of bread can be had for 20 cents. Bottles of wine for 2 or 3 dollars. Going out, you aren't expected to tip the bartender a dollar for every drink, and you won't pay 8-10 bucks for a single drink at the bar. Top shelf resteraunts are just as expensive, but the quality of food you get at your average resteraunt blows away what you're used to getting in the U.S. And, to top it all of, as a way of subsidizing resteraunts in France, most employees get these vouchers called 'Ticket Resteraunt' that cost $4.50 each and have a face value of $9.00, which is just perfect for lunch at a resteraunt. Most resteraunts have lunch 'menus' (think of it as a gourmet version of McDonald's #2) that typically consist of something equivalent to a steak, a glass of wine, and an after dinner coffee at this price range. (For an additional buck or two, they throw in dessert.)
But, of course, for the geeks who want to know about the gadgets. I just bought a 120GB hard drive and it cost me 80 Euro. Blank DVDs are around 50-60 cents a piece (as opposed to the 25 cents thats starting to be common in the U.S.) SFF computers will run you about 320 Euro, and yes, these all include tax, and are all a little bit more than you pay in the U.S.
Music is much more expensive (unless you shop iTunes Europe), and DVDs definitely run a little more expensive, though the bargain bins get to be as low as 3.00 each. All in all, I make less then I did in the U.S., but I live as comfortably, and I travel a lot more. (I've been to Spain, Ireland, and Italy already this year.)
Well, that's France for you... A bit off topic, but maybe of interest to see what it's like to live over here...
Re:Nice try [OT] (Score:1, Interesting)
Sad, but then again, is it really that bad to let the Americans think they're the best? Let them stagnate in their hubris, the world can and will progress without them, perhaps in a much more peaceful environment.
Re:Slacker Thee (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't try to blame the rise of the Japanese Automakers on the unions.
The primary reason is that the Japanese thought for the long term and the American auto makers thought for the short term.
Ever heard the term "planned obsolescence"?
American cars were absolute shit for a number of years *by design*. Their thought was that if the car broke down sooner then the customer would have to buy a new one sooner. Obviously, they would buy a new American car because the Japanese cars were crap.
Well, lo and behold the Japanese cars were no longer the peices of crap that they once were.
That is why there was a crisis in the US auto industry, and that is why the Japanese auto industry rose.
This short term thinking is rampant in this country and it is almost universally negative for the country. It does make a few people very rich in the short term. At the expense of everybody else and with no long term benefit to anybody.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slacker Thee (Score:1, Interesting)
so you're too lazy to fight (Score:1, Interesting)
Sure, you could be angry at the French for their success. Or you could be angry at yourself and your own countrymen for your failure to follow up on anything since the Boston Tea Party.
It's seems to me similar to people who get all angry at the unemployed for receiving welfare or unemployment benefits - "soaking up my taxes". Then they go off to their jobs to work themselves absolutely to exhaustion, doing the work of two people and earning two people's "honest day's pay" - contributing to the shortage of jobs, by helping their employer to keep their payroll rosters low, and unemployment high.
Re:Slacker Thee (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not. I fully blame the decisions made by the auto manufacturers -- they had a choice. Although, I *may* end up blaming the unions on the failure of US Airways, if and when it happens. Don't get me wrong. Unions have done a lot for workers, and not every union is "evil." However, I contend that there are a number of unions that abuse their power in much the same way the wealthy companies do.
The primary reason is that the Japanese thought for the long term and the American auto makers thought for the short term.
No. The primary reason is that Japanese cars were being sold for significantly less than American cars. By the time people realized that the Japanese autos were much more reliable, most of the damage had already been done. The reliability factor just helped to keep the dominance of the Japanese manufacturers firmly in place after the prices of their cars rose.
By the way, you mentioned "planned obsolescence" and short-term thinking as the primary reason for failure. However, surely you must realize that American consumers suffer from the same short-sightedness, right? This weakness in our society is what I blame most for the declining power of the union.
Re:That's the goal (Score:5, Interesting)
amen, brother.
what's sad about it from my perspective (my hair grows grey and my knees aren't quite what they used to be) is that so many bright, energetic young people just don't recognize this fundamental truth.
it's like reverse-idealism: in their optimistic prime, young people are more willing to spend their days, nights and weekends wading around in the shit their corporate masters pour on them, because they earnestly believe that *they* are special, and that *they* will be the ones who succeed, and they're therefore willing to accept a labor environment that's unjust and socially primitive overall.
as time goes on, you realize how much of your life and soul you've devoted to making other people rich and comfortable, and you resent the means they've used to get you to do that... and even if you've accumulated some material wealth in the process, the balance sheet looks questionable.
the current economic system has produced some miracles to be sure, and perhaps it may be the best that human beings can do - but don't fool yourself: an enormous price has been paid by a great many, while a relative few have paradise handed to them as a result.
Re:Ah the French... (Score:3, Interesting)
My amateur theory on that difference is that Europe has a history of powerful people hoarding the wealth of society and justifying it using red herrings such as "divine right" and "noble blood". That was back in the time before people understood that sustained economic growth and wealth creation were possible; eg, throughout most of human history the only known way to get wealth was to take it from someone else. Hence the constant European wars, and Colonialism.
When Industrialization rolled around, initially it was the wealthy nobles and landed gentry - the bourgeoisie - who used their historically ill-gotten capital to invest in factories, mills, mines, etc. and to hire/exploit workers. Yet they still used their power to maintain control over society's capital, drastically curtailing the class mobility that we Americans so take for granted. Marx was instrumental in critiqing this system and providing an intellectual antithesis to it, and his concepts of socialism and class struggle have dominated Europe to this day.
On the other hand, America was formed with no aristocracy during the Industrial Revolution, and though we've had our share of colonialism, our social concept of wealth generation is based more on wealth-creation rather than on wealth-acquisition and hoarding. Whereas Europeans generally assume that the rich have gotten that way by screwing someone else, Americans generally assume the rich have gotten that way by creating something new and brilliant and selling it for lots of money - the American Dream - hence the general admiration of Bill Gates (/.'ers aside), and other successful entrepeneurs, inventors, and business people.
This reminds me of an old parable: An Irishman and an American are walking down the road, and they pass a grand mansion inhabited by a wealthy businessman. The Irishman says, "One day I'm going to get that guy." The American says, "One day I'm going to be that guy." I think a lot of Americans look down on Europe's attitude toward the wealthy, but it helps to understand just why the European "proletariat" distrusts the wealthy. Given their history, it's not without reason or justification.
Re:That's the goal (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup.
I'm really lucky in that right now, I work for a company that is well managed.
We got a great kid, wet behind the ears, fresh out of grad school. After a couple of months, he asked me if I had any advice.
I told him he needed to take it easier.
I learned this lesson at my last job. I kinda felt I was a lazy worker, so when I got the last job offer and they told me I'd need to work hard, I went with it. We all worked ridiculous hours, and the company failed.
What I learned from that experience was that I got more done working a 40 hour week and enjoying my time outside of work than working 60+ hours and working weekends. I actually got more accomplished that way, because my head was clear.
This new company recognizes that, too. We're all lucky that they do; not only are we happier, it increases our odds of success. And now that I've got a position of some leadership, I want to pass that wisdom along to my co-workers.
It's one thing to work 60+ hours a week for a brief couple of weeks to meet a deadline -- it's something else to do it all the time. Eventually, the return on investment drops to below what you had before.
'Just' society philosophy (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm... I suppose quality of life and life expectancy just aren't enough anymore, eh? That we eat more, enjoy our time off more (our current buying power is unparalleled), and live longer than any other human beings in the history of civilization is apparently not sufficient proof by your standards that the current system works.
Let's pass laws to stop the greedy bastards who are living like kings, so that we're all equal! That is a very novel and just idea (especially since we're inherently equal). Profit incentives can be replaced with state mandates! Why haven't we tried this before?
Or maybe... JUST maybe... we don't realize how good we've actually got it? Perhaps life in the idyllic past was actually more brutish and short than we can remember? And perhaps, just perhaps... the recent century's progress away from those abhorrent standards of living can be traced somewhat to the advent of industry and worldwide trade?
Nah, you're right. Life sucks, things are inevitably getting worse, and the greedy bastards are keeping us down and away from the success that we deserve because we are members of society.
No, it's not (Score:3, Interesting)
And ask any one of those rich fucks that's sending jobs overseas: you've never got it so good that you couldn't have it better. And besides, most of the rest of the world still has those abhorrent standards of living. You see what's going on the the Congo lately? How about any part of Africa? And wait till the oil runs out in the Middle East and they're suddenly worthless lumps of dirt again.
Life doesn't suck, but it's going to. Dear God, is it going to. Maybe not for you and me, but for our children certainly. The worst thing is, anyone with half a brain and an internet connection can see it comming, but _nobody's_ doing a damn thing about it.