Če ste imeli več opravka z državno upravo, ste to “prazno aktivnost” nedvomno zaznali. Tako pri nižjih kot pri višjih uradnikih. Toda tudi v podjetjih ni nič drugače. Povsod se najdejo “umetniki”, nameščeni nekje v sredino hierarhične lestvice, ki se delajo, da so blazno zaposleni in zelo pametni, toda iz njihovih rok nikoli ni nobenega outputa. Celo življenje uspevajo v pretentavanju šefov in sodelavcev, medtem ko v praksi ne delajo ničesar. Sedijo v pisarnah za računalnikom, vendar berejo časopise ali gledajo oglase za nepremičnine ali avte. Hodijo od sestanka do sestanka, s kave na kavo, najraje po sestankih v tujini. In počasi neopazno lezejo navzgor po plačni lestvici. To se imenuje umetnost eskiviranja. Skiving.

The Economist je nedavno objavil priročnik za izmuzljivce. Trik je v tem, da je treba prikazovati veliko navidezno angažiranost ob dejansko minimalno vloženih naporih. Nekaj pravil je spodaj.

The first principle of skiving (or shirking, as Americans call it) is always to appear hard at work. This is the ancient jacket-on-the-back-of-the-chair trick: leave a coat permanently on display so that a casual observer—a CEO practising “managing by walking around”, for example—will assume that you are the first to arrive and the last to leave. The skill of skiving is subtle: ensure you are somewhere else when the work is being allocated.

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The second principle is that information technology is both the slacker’s best friend and his deadliest enemy. The PC is custom-made for the indolent: you can give every impression of being hard at work when in fact you are doing your shopping, booking a holiday or otherwise frolicking in the cyber-waves.

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The third principle is that you should always try to get a job where there is no clear relation between input and output. The public sector is obviously a skiver’s paradise. In 2004 it took two days for anyone to notice that a Finnish tax inspector had died at his desk. In 2009 the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration discovered that some of its employees had spent three-quarters of their working hours watching internet pornography. In 2012 a German civil servant wrote a farewell message to his colleagues, on his retirement, confessing that he hadn’t done a stroke of work for the past 14 years.

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The final principle of skiving is that you should not allow your preference for leisure to limit your ambition. […] It can be hard to begin your climb up the greasy pole without making some effort: the trick is to be brimming over with clever ideas for other people to execute. But when you become a manager your problems are solved: you can simply delegate all your work to other people while you spend your days attending international conferences or “cultivating relationships with investors”.

Vir: The Economist