Fighting the good fight

As a reluctant member of the working masses, the Daily Grindstone’s author must assume the alias of Thomas Gradgrind to avoid detection from astute work colleagues and the ever watchful eye of ‘IT Support.’ Like an infinitely less effective version of Clark Kent, Thomas Gradgrind must denounce the corporate world under a veil of secrecy. Whilst few of us can afford to openly criticize our employers, each and every one of us can take an anonymous stand against the injustices of wage slavery.

Whilst 'being a hard-worker' may be seen as the perfect characteristic to complement intelligence, the two are in fact, mutually exclusive. As intelligence rises, the motivation to work hard declines in equal proportion. If you are blessed with the ability to process complex thoughts, it does not take long to discover that, when contracted to a fixed salary, doing less provides the same or greater happiness than doing more. The loafer can fill the time they have liberated from their employer by developing private interests or by harvesting knowledge from Wikipedia. The less enlightened worker will remain engaged in a fruitless quest to satisfy their employers hunger for productivity until sleep eventually calls time on the sorry process. Sticking it to the man can be as easy as simply… doing less.  In contrast to pasts protest where men have fought and died for change, bringing about a fairer deal for workers simply requires that you to take the time to do nothing.  

The humble tea break is our fore fathers finest legacy. Every day, businesses lose thousands to lost hours spent brewing hot drinks. Embrace this opportunity to remind your employer of the power you hold and take every opportunity to enjoy a long and drawn out vacation from your desk. When making a cup of tea, ensure that you always boil a full kettle (it is amazing how much extra time you can accumulate through doing this) and adopt an uncharacteristically generous demeanour by offering to also make refreshments for your colleagues (extra tea equals extra time). Whilst making tea is unlikely to feature highly on anybodies career wish list, there is little greater enjoyment than a mid afternoon daydream listening to the soothing tones of steam rising from a coffee cup. So get refreshed and get empowered.

When you have finished your cup of tea, take up smoking. It is not often that you will hear these words, but in the workplace, the smoker is a visionary and role model for the would-be slacker. For each tea break that the non-smoker can commandeer, the smoker can match this and ‘raise them one.’ Cigarette breaks have somehow entered the public conscious as being an immutable right, and even the most restrictive employer is reluctant to legislate their length and frequency. Exploit your employer’s cowardice and develop a taste for slow burning Cuban cigars. If you are particularly committed to clawing back your time (and have lungs made of asbestos), Shisha pipes can be made to burn for several hours.

Not every freedom fighter should be a long haired communist adorning the t-shirts of unwashed students, so begin your personal fight for freedom and commence the covert war against the atrocities of work. It is greater to be bright but lazy than dull but diligent.

As a reluctant member of the working masses, the Daily Grindstone’s author must assume the alias of Thomas Gradgrind to avoid detection from astute work colleagues and the ever watchful eye of ‘IT Support.’ Like an infinitely less effective version of Clark Kent, Thomas Gradgrind must denounce the corporate world under a veil of secrecy. Whilst few of us can afford to openly criticize our employers, each and every one of us can take an anonymous stand against the injustices of wage slavery.

Being “a hard worker” is often used to describe a man’s good character. Whilst it is held in the same esteem as intelligence, the two are in fact, mutually exclusive. As intelligence rises, the motivation to work hard declines in equal proportion. If you are blessed with complex thought processes, it does not take long to discover that, when contracted to a fixed salary, doing less provides the same or greater happiness than doing more. The loafer can fill the time they have liberated from their employer by developing private interests or by harvesting knowledge from Wikipedia. The less enlightened worker will remain engaged in a fruitless quest to satisfy their employers hunger for productivity until sleep eventually calls time on the sorry process. Sticking it to the man can be as easy as simply… doing less.  In contrast to pasts protest where men have fought and died for change, bringing about a fairer deal for workers simply requires that you to take the time to do nothing.  

The humble tea break is our fore fathers finest legacy. Every day, businesses lose thousands to lost hours spent brewing hot drinks. Embrace this opportunity to remind your employer of the power you hold and take every opportunity to enjoy a long and drawn out vacation from your desk. When making a cup of tea, ensure that you always boil a full kettle (it is amazing how much extra time you can accumulate through doing this) and adopt an uncharacteristically generous demeanour by offering to also make refreshments for your colleagues (extra tea equals extra time). Whilst making tea is unlikely to feature highly on anybodies career wish list, there is little greater enjoyment than a mid afternoon daydream listening to the soothing tones of steam rising from a coffee cup. So get refreshed and get empowered.

When you have finished your cup of tea, take up smoking. It is not often that you will hear these words, but in the workplace, the smoker is a visionary and role model for the would-be slacker. For each tea break that the non-smoker can commandeer, the smoker can match this and ‘raise them one.’ Cigarette breaks have somehow entered the public conscious as being an immutable right, and even the most restrictive employer is reluctant to legislate their length and frequency. Exploit your employer’s cowardice and develop a taste for slow burning Cuban cigars. If you are particularly committed to clawing back your time (and have lungs made of asbestos), Shisha pipes can be made to burn for several hours.

Not every freedom fighter should be a long haired communist adorning the t-shirts of unwashed students, so begin your personal fight for freedom and commence the covert war against the atrocities of work. It is greater to be bright but lazy than dull but diligent.

No sleep 'till Monday

So it’s Saturday and your plans for a slow and dozy recovery from last night’s excesses have gone sadly awry thanks to your inability to sleep past half past eight in the morning. Even as the last week fades into the annex of your biography, your very being remains firmly in the clutches of a merciless master. But is doesn’t have to…

The weekend is a green and fertile pasture which you must defend from foreign invaders. Nurture it with fond memories of debaucherous nights out, fine feasts, and tales of silliness and it will carry you through the week like a chauffeured and sound-proofed limousine. Fill it with worries and it will sink into a sea of neglected memories like an over laden rowing boat.

Never be tempted to contaminate the weekend with left over work or the writing of reports. If it was not-important enough to do in your employer’s time, then it is certainly not important enough to do in your own time. Even the mighty creator (be that evolution or god) didn’t bother to finish everything he started. If he had, bankers would have been blessed with a moral compass and we would not be closing down public libraries to a soundtrack of champagne corks popping in Canary Wharf.

Stay up late and sleep in. Only a few years ago you would have seen in the weekend by watching the sun rise over a can of Stella Artois. Ignore the callings of sleep and make up the thirty five hours that you have lost during the week. Just because you have promised your employer that you will be in the office at 9am on Monday morning, it doesn’t mean that you have to be productive. There is no greater pleasure than earning money whilst a hangover works its way out of your pores.

Most importantly, stop reading this post and pick up the phone to your friends. The weekend has landed and you must board the train of hedonism and stick two fingers up to Monday morning.

Office do's....or don'ts

Even the most intolerant amongst us should possess the social skills that, for eight hours a day, allow us to rise above the character flaws of our colleagues and smile politely as they recount yet another "crazy weekend." The problem arises when we are forced against our will to spend an evening of 'fun' with these people. Sure it's not obligatory, but the stigmatisation you will receive for failing to embrace the office party is almost worse than the party itself.

The torment of the office party will be dragged out for the longest time possible by Janet (a single, socially inept creature with wiry hair and an almost endless supply of crazy anecdotes about her time spent travelling across the Yorkshire dales). For Janet, the office party is the highlight of her social calendar. It is the ambassador’s party, the royal wedding, and the school disco rolled into one. Her excitement buzzes through the office like static on an electricity sub-station. Each day will begin with the same question, “Have you decided what you’ll be wearing yet?” Instead of telling her that, quite frankly, if she doesn’t shut the hell up, you’ll be wearing her skin like a bathing suit, you politely reply that you, “haven’t really thought about it yet.” This cruel ceremony will continue until Janet either explodes in a shower of entrails and happiness, or the moving of time takes pity on you and allows the special day to arrive.

Not all aspects of the office party are negative. On the day of the party, you will usually be allowed to leave early in order to 'get ready.' This is a great opportunity to prime your soul for the onslaught that is about to commence. It is the time for a comforting dram of whisky before you face the social firing squad of your drunken colleagues. Use this time wisely, for the next eight hours you will have to maintain an air of friendliness and joviality, and for this reason, will be taking an extended vacation from your true personality.

Don't be fooled by the promise of free drink. Although the drink will cost you no money, there is a hidden price that must be paid. By setting up a bar tab, the company is saving on professional entertainment and banking on the drunken antics of a naive employee to satisfy the blood lust of the social vultures that you work with. Your dignity and reputation are not for hire, so don't make the mistake of drinking too much from this poisoned chalice. Instead, capitalise on your bosses "drinking prowess" and spur them on to greater and greater levels of intoxication. With a bit of patience and a dash of luck, it won't be long until they are revealing embarrassing truths that can be wheeled out whenever they decide to wave the P45s about. 

At the end of the evening avoid the temptation to join them in going on to a nightclub. Not only may you see people who will associate you with these desperate, balding, middle aged, lechers, but there will also be increasing pressure to act like a teenage boy drunk on testosterone. Return home instead and pour yourself a drink (you've earned it), fire up the cigarette that you ensured people you didn't smoke (Judas!), and finally bask in the happy knowledge that now you have showed your face at one, you will never need go to another. 

Why work when you can talk?

The hardest lesson for any new entrant to the labour market, is that doing a good job, isn't good enough. Not only are you expected to put in long hours and surrender your dreams, but you are also expected to throw off the shackles of common decency and recreate yourself in the image of an aggressive bull elephant with a penchant for cocaine. Trumpeting loudly and regularly about your achievements is as much a necessity of work as feigning interest in Linda's latest photomontage of her children dressed as Christmas elves. If you wish to reach the dizzying heights of "Sub-team Junior Office Manager" then you must carefully observe, and lovingly recreate, this absurd ceremony.

The first rule of “Work Club” is, ‘Always talk about work club.’ Nobody likes a shrinking violet or a modest mouse, so “career advancers” will ensure that they talk regularly and loudly about their daily endeavours. The occasional sigh or a well placed mopping of the brow helps to maintain the illusion that every part of their being is dedicated to the pursuit of hard labour. What’s that you say? Can’t the quality of their work speak for itself? How charmingly naive you are. Actual work is practically redundant in the modern workplace. An aging relic of the past, work has been superseded by the flexing of vocal cords and the “CCing” of important figures into the obligatory daily ‘update’ email. Remember, talk is cheap, so there is no need to employ your intelligence if it is easier to just talk about it.

The second rule of “Work Club” is, “Don’t listen when you can talk.” In order to secure the position of ‘Alpha-Employee,’ career advancers will ensure that they take every opportunity to air their ill-informed opinion. To ensure that there are no challenges to their position, they will continue to spout drivel until one of two possible outcomes has been achieved. The first outcome is that all life within the room will eventually diminish as oxygen is converted into a toxic mixture of carbon dioxide and unadulterated bile by the career advancer’s lungs (many offices now install foliage to redress the oxygen/bile balance through the process of photosynthesis). The second outcome is that the tactic will pay off and thanks to time constraints preventing other people from speaking, the career advancer will appear more involved and more committed than any other employee.

The final rule of “Work Club” is, “What’s boring for you is news worthy for others. This is a rule that many first time career advancers fail to grasp, and for this reason, many fail before their careers have even begun. It is best to illustrate this rule by means of an example. Let us imagine that, in response to being unable to find your stapler, you decide to reorganise your desk. This may seem like a fairly mundane task to you, but for the career advancer, this represents an opportunity to broadcast details of the essential and important work that they have been conducting in the field of workplace layout management. Having arranged a team meeting and prepared an eighteen page PowerPoint deck, they proudly talk you through their new desk layout. The rationale behind this is to show their employers that, not only is every aspect of their job stimulating, but, since nobody else had previously undertaken workplace layout management, there would be nobody to drive forward these advances should they be made redundant.

Whilst “Work Club” may seem like a strange and alien place now, with practice and commitment you will gain the confidence to stop working and start talking. As British X-Factor winner Joe McElderry says, “Never give up on your dreams!”

The Job Interview mating dance

Whilst we may all talk of "sticking it to the man" and spending our days looking for the meaning of life in a hammock, with the advent of landlords, credit cards, sports cars, and the QVC shopping channel, we all need a little money to oil the cogs of capitalism. However, before setting sail and embarking on your journey through employment, you must first navigate your way through the troubled waters of, ‘The Job Interview.’ Given the necessity of such a ritual, it is surprising and refreshing to learn that the ‘The Job Interview’ is as inefficient and incompetent as the potential employees it hopes to wean out.

The reasons behind ‘The Job Interviews’ shortcomings can be traced back to simple economics. You see, in a perfect world, each player (the potential employer and the nervous, sweating, employee) would have full knowledge of the other's potential moves (in a game of poker, this would be equivalent of each player laying their cards down on the table). However, in this gloriously imperfect world, both parties can chose which information to surrender, which information to fabricate, and which information to hide. With this is mind, you need to abandon your 'nice-guy' persona and play the job interview like a snake-eyed outlaw - as Kenny Rogers put it, "You gotta know when to hold 'em [and] know when to fold 'em." Over the next few paragraphs I will explain why you should always lie at job interviews.

Job interviews can best be thought of as a courting dance. You wish to attract your employer and, believe it or not, they wish to attract you. Now imagine the same situation in a sweaty nightclub. You have just met the girl of your dreams and amazingly, through her vodka induced delusion, she wants to take you home and 'make you a man.' Now in this situation, would you voluntarily surrender the fact that your last girlfriend had dumped you because you were an incompetent, moaning, train-wreck of a man? No of course you wouldn't, you would tell her that you were a retired astronaut who had recently given up a career as a racing driver because you had torn a muscle saving a family of kittens from a burning office block. So why oh why would you ever consider telling the truth at a job interview?

Now let us turn the tables and imagine that we are said dream girl. You've just met Mr Right, whose charm and intellect effortlessly distract you from the beer and curry stains with which he has thoughtfully decorated his new white shirt. Despite his chiselled jaw and chocolate brown eyes, you can't help but feel a little underwhelmed by the fantastic joke he has just shared with you. At this point do you a) laugh like a punch-drunk hyena or b) roll your eyes and inform him that actually, his rather sexist joke wasn't that funny? Did we all go for option a? Of course we did and whilst we are at it, it is probably best if we gloss over our tendency to be a little needy and turn up at people's doors threatening to swallow broken glass because they didn't return our text message.

When you enter a job interview, you are taking part in exactly the same ritual. Like a twisted version of the 'Prisoners Dilemma,' the best possible strategy for winning this game is to ensure that you lie just as much (and preferably more) than your employer does. For each time they tell you that the office is a "laid back environment where everybody just...you know...gets on really well," add another fictional talent to your repertoire. Make up funny anecdotes that 'happened to you,' tell them that you were a professional darts player that gave it all up to work as an office clerk, tell them whatever the hell you want but just make sure that you go the distance with each and every lie. Finally, when you come out of the interview having secured the new job, don't feel guilty, feel proud. You won the game, not because you cheated, but because you knew the rules better than anybody else.

[This article is meant for entertainment purposes only. I do not condone the fabrication of qualifications, past work experience, referees, or key skills that may wrongfully prevent other applicants from securing a position. I do condone small ‘white lies’ and imaginary anecdotes that can help to improve your chances]

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Time: You can't buy more, so why give it away?

In almost all aspects of life, punctuality is seen as, at very least, a fairly desirable quality. So why is it that the modern workplace employs such confusing etiquette when it comes to personal time keeping? A fly on the wall in almost any British office, could easily be forgiven for thinking that the working day started at 9am and continued on until six, seven, eight, and in some cases, nine o'clock at night. When the fly, lets call him Brian, eventually called it a day and returned to his family, one can only imagine their disbelief as he recounted this tale of super-evolved apes, dressed in the finest "corporate casual" clothing, working from sunrise until the very depths of night.

Sadly, Brian's inferior intellect (prior to his days as an office observer, he had spent his time vomiting on faeces and insufflating it through his nose) had prevented him from understanding that what he had seen the previous day, was only part of the sorry story. You see, not only were these super-evolved apes working through the night, but once the hour hand had passed five o'clock, they were actually doing it for free. But why would anybody choose to work for free when they could spend the time with their family, or learning to play the banjo, or even forging meaningful relationships with their neighbours. The obvious answer would be that they are unable to tell the time and therefore work until they are tired. Amazingly, the answer goes a little deeper than that. Not only can they tell the time but they are actually choosing to work for free in order to show the world what a very committed worker they are. Why should you want a life outside work when you can gaze morosely at a computer screen in grateful servitude to your masters? It has become like a nuclear arms race, with each employee competing to dedicate more and more of their leisure time to a faceless corporation, in the futile hope that this will go noticed by the powers that be and they will secure one more step up the greasy pole of employment.

The biggest crime of all is that, whilst you can sell your time, you can never, ever, buy it back. All those hours spent "working late" can not be redeemed like Clubcard points when you come to life's final checkout. So I say to you, buy a watch, set an alarm for 5pm, and when that alarm rings, leave your place of work and don't look back until 9am the next day. Embrace punctuality and reclaim your birthright of leisure time.

Why jobs are like used cars

Very few people, myself include, could say that in all honesty, they have never started a new job without even the slightest bit of enthusiasm. Most of us view a new job as a new start, the opportunity to finally find a career that fulfills our creative desires and satisfies us both intellectually and financially. Sadly, this optimism tends to decline as the weeks go by until it eventually abandons our psyche in a mass exodus that leaves us head down at our desk weeping uncontrollably. For this reason, a new job is very much like a used car.

When you are in the market for a new car, all memories of the last 'dream machine' that almost ruined you, are forced to the darkest recesses of your mind where they are joyfully recycled into fond memories of summer days with warm winds gushing in through the sun roof (which, by the way, used to let in more water than an open sluice gate).

With these cheerful memories to hand, you take yourself to the nearest used car dealer. It is here that you see it. Sparkling away in the sun, alloy wheels refracting light like the window of H.Samuel, is your new car. It's recently been waxed, and with the smell of your friends admiration and jealousy tickling your nostrils, the seduction is complete.

Having handed over your hard earned cash (or your credit card details if you live in 'Borrowing Britain') you smugly drive away from the forecourt full of pride and enthusiasm. It's at this point that you notice that the interior light fails to illuminate when you open the door. Oh well, nevermind you say, you never really use it much anyway and you can always fix it in a few weeks time.

A few weeks have passed and, unsurprisingly, the interior light still remains suspiciously dark when you open the door. Sadly, the interior light isn't the biggest problem you have anymore, a strange knocking noise fills the cabin whenever you change gear. Nevermind you say again, the MOT is due in a few weeks and you're sure it'll be an easy fix for the mechanic.

The day of your MOT comes and the list of necessary repairs is really quite long. In actual fact, your shiny and sweet smelling new car is now a pile of bolts, rubber seals, and interior light bulbs, with a distinct smell of burning. Thankfully the burning fumes are masked by an overpowering smell of disappointment and you can barely see your car through the smoked glass effect created by your tears.

In the same way that your new car seduced you, only to end up crushing your heart between it's oily cogs, your new job will eventually reduce you to a smouldering pile of crushed dreams, broken aspirations, and crumpled P45s.

It's a shame to end it here, but annoyingly, I have an interior light bulb to fit!

Why I write...

Thomas Gradgrind was the cold hearted headmaster from Dickens's Hard Times. Mercilessly dedicated to the pursuit of profitable enterprise, his teachings attracted many disciples though-out the corporate world.

Whilst I can make no claim to ever having been particularly dedicated to hard work, as an idealistic graduate, I was once guilty of fostering ambitions of 'career building.' In the same way that a few years of neglect can leave a city in ruins, several years of the British labour market had left my aspirations smashed and smouldering. In a display of unbridled savagery, 'Work' had torn down my metropolis of ambition and had salted the earth to prevent any further growth.

Edmund Burke once said that evil would triumph when good men did nothing, despite being, at best, a mediocre man, The Daily Grindstone is my protest against the greatest lie ever told. It is neither sweet nor fitting to die for your employer!