More from the Simple Sabotage Field Manual… (Or how not to be a good consultant)

Part 11 – General Interference with Organisations and Production (Continued w/emphasis added)

(a) Office Workers

1) Make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders (or basically any other business process or work task) . Confuse similar names. Use wrong addresses.

2) Prolong correspondence with government bureaus (spend tons of time in email about non essential elements of the project).

3) Misfile essential documents.

4) In making carbon copies, make one too few, so that an extra copying job will have to be done.

5) Tell important callers the boss is busy or talking on another telephone.

6) Hold up mail until the next collection.

7) Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.

(b) Employees

1) Work slowly. Think out ways to increase the number of movements necessary on your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one, try to make a small wrench do when a big one is necessary, use little force where considerable force is needed, and so on.

2) Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can: when changing the material on which you are working, as you would on a lathe or punch, take needless time to do it. If you are cutting, shaping or doing other measured work, measure dimensions twice as often as you need to. When you go to the lavatory, spend a longer time there than is necessary. Forget tools so that you will have to go back after them.

3) Even if you understand the language, pretend not to understand instructions in a foreign tongue. Translating to what we do: Don’t bother to take the time to learn the other person’s “language” at all, for example the marketing speak, or the terms and language used in the Engineering or Logistics group

4) Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions.

5) Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing you from doing your job right. (and its not your fault)

6) Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker (A common tactic played by many under the guise of “job security” which is an oxymoron in today’s world)

7) Snarl up administration in every possible way. Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.

If possible, join or help organize a group for presenting employee problems to the management. See that the procedures adopted are as inconvenient as possible for the management, involving the presence of a large number of employees at each presentation, entailing more than one meeting for each grievance, bringing up problems which are largely imaginary, and so on.

9) Misroute materials (intentionally or through ignorance?).

10) Mix good parts with unusable scrap and rejected parts.

Part III tomorrow…