Seven Work Hacks for the Modern Office

Believe it or not, no actual work has been accomplished at this desk in over six months.

Let’s face it: you’re lazy as hell. You know it. I know it. You don’t want your coworkers to know it. But what’s your lazy ass to do, right? This is America. You  can’t climb the corporate ladder without sweating a little, right? Wrong. You don’t have to work harder to keep your job and get promoted. You just have to not work smarter. Follow these seven simple tips, and I promise you’ll be well on your way to achieving the American Dream of getting paid way more than you deserve.

1. Make use of the 80/20 rule. I’m not talking about the idea that 80% of your results come from 20% of your work. I’m talking about how 20% of the time you should make a big show of busting your ass, and then the other 80% you can do nothing. People are natural generalizers. It’s instinct. We try to notice patterns because it’s often inefficient to try to get to the truth of the matter by collecting enough data. You can take advantage of this by giving off the appearance of a pattern of hard work. Once people get that impression of you, you’ll have to fuck up pretty badly to get them to think anything else. As hard as this may sound, I’d recommend really doing a stellar job on your first project. Do way more than is necessary and in such a way that people really take notice. Make a presentation that wasn’t asked for. Stay in the office until everyone has left. Show up before everyone else. Then, after your reputation is established, come in late, leave early and do whatever the fuck you want. Now, I can already hear your objection. “Buhh…but I’m lazy. I don’t want to have to do that.” Not to worry. Where there’s a lack of will, there’s a prescription, which leads me to Tip 2.
2. You now have ADHD. Go to a psychiatrist and get yourself an ADHD diagnosis. It’s not hard and if your shrink doesn’t think it’s the right one, shop around. This is important for two reasons. First, it will get you an Adderall prescription. Adderall is the best. If they want to prescribe you some other drug or, god forbid, behavioral therapy, shop around. You might be able to weasel your way into the right drug by claiming allergies, but it’s probably easier to just go to another doctor. Adderall is useful for those times when you’re busting your ass to give the appearance of being a hard worker to establish a good reputation you can later take advantage of. You probably wouldn’t be reading this article if that sort of behavior came naturally, so why not make it come unnaturally instead? Trust me, this shit will make you a bionic work cyborg from the planet Allnightus. You’ll actually enjoy doing work. It will make even the most mundane, pointless shit seem impossibly interesting. Sound good? Good.
   

   The breakfast of champions.

   Now, the second reason you need ADHD is that it will give you a medical alibi for poor performance and may even get you some special treatment if you claim it as a disability. Have trouble getting the report done on time because the new Destiny DLC dropped? Sorry boss, it was my ADHD. I just couldn’t focus. I’m working real hard on it with my doctor. Just don’t feel like working today? Sorry boss, I’m trying but this ADHD is killing me today. Trust me, they’ll give you a pass. Disciplining you for a medical issue is a dangerous game. They won’t want to poke that hornet’s nest with a 20 foot pole. They’ll only do something about it if your performance gets crazy bad, and if that’s the case you can threaten to hire a lawyer and/or take your case to the media to try in the court of public opinion.

3. Wear a tie or whatever it is snappy dressers of your gender wear in your workplace. Make a little effort on something you don’t have to do and people will assume you put effort into the things you do have to do. It’s a well known fallacy of the business world that well-dressed people work harder. Maybe some of them do. I don’t know. What I do know is that people will assume you work hard and give a shit if you dress like a boss.
4. Don’t worry about getting written up. Write ups are the currency with which sanity is bought in the modern office. Large corporations are bureaucracies as byzantine and arbitrary as the federal government. It’s not a question of private vs. public that makes companies efficient. It’s a matter of size. The government becomes bureaucratic because it’s massive. Get enough humans involved in any type of organization and it’s pretty much inevitable that it will become chock full of random, pointless rules only the most anal retentive employees care about. You’ll find that the more time you work in the place the more you start to care, too. This is called insanity. Don’t fall into this trap. Getting written up doesn’t matter one goddamn bit so long as it doesn’t affect your ability to get promoted. I mean, for fuck’s sake, you think when Coca-Cola interviews a new CEO it gives two shits that Joseph in Accounting wrote him up for improper tabbing of his folders? Fuck that. The only people who care about that shit are the sort of lower level administrative employees who’ve been stuck in the same stupid job for 25 years and have nothing better to do than get in a huff about petty shit.
5. Memorize popular buzzwords and trendy business concepts, then spout them off to your coworkers to make it sound like you know what you’re talking about. We’re talking about the latest pseudo-scientific concepts, “lifehacks” and trendy business methods, as well as the classic empty bromides and corporate speak. We’re talking your disruptive innovations, your synergies, your butter coffees, your burning passion for fucking everything, your leaning in, your doing more with less. Any of that bullshit will do. Talk about how you try to have a personal relationship with your Lord and Savior Steve Jobs and go on and on about how he revolutionized literally everything you do, from taking a shit to making coffee into the beautiful, magical, made in Califuckingfornia experience it is today. The purpose is to create a smoke screen of value around the fact that you’re actually doing nothing. Your whole career is going to be like one of those false second stories they used to put on the front of buildings in the Old West. Trust me, that’s what you want even if you think you don’t. If you didn’t want that you would have gone into a real profession like science or teaching or medicine or something. Only tools and aimless, lazy shits like you and me go into business.
6. Never admit you don’t know the answer. Honestly, if you’ve been at your job for more than a year you should know this by now, but I include it because people still manage to make this mistake. People wouldn’t ask you the question if they knew the answer, so how are they going to know if you’re wrong? Nobody in the business world really has any clue what they’re doing. They’re all either lying or deluded. In fact, usually you start your career lying and by the end of it you’ve started to believe your own bullshit. That’s called personal development. Business is all about appearances. The appearance of confidence is far more important to success in the corporate world than actual competence. That’s called leadership.
7. Delegate, delegate, delegate. You don’t have to be in management to delegate. Anyone can delegate work to someone else so long as that person is willing to do it. This is a high risk, high reward strategy, mind you. It can easily garner you a reputation for “pawning shit off” on other employees, so be careful. I recommend biding your time, taking careful stock of the personalities and habits of your coworkers. What you need to find is that classic combination of workaholism, self-importance and spinelessness: the sort of person who thinks their dumb job actually matters, busts their butt all the live long day and won’t fight back no matter how much shit they get stuck with. It shouldn’t be a problem finding one of these little turds. Big companies love them because they’re willing to sacrifice practically anything for the same price as a regular employee. A good place to start is to keep an eye out for the sort of person who seems like an adult version of Butters from South Park. A key indicator is an aversion to profanity. Listen for expressions like heck, darn-it , rats and, if you’re really lucky, drat or fiddlesticks. Also look for frequent, overt expressions of gratitude, talk of “getting stuff done” on the weekends, an unusually high interest in lawn maintenance, a tidy haircut that wouldn’t be out of place in 1956, excessive patriotic zeal and someone who doesn’t drink caffeine, let alone alcohol. You’re basically looking for a Mormon, in other words.

Coworkers All Agree Their Town Has the Craziest Weather

     It was sunny just this morning.

At 2 PM last Thursday, coworkers at a town beverage distributor gathered by a window just as it started to rain.

“Yup, that’s this town’s crazy weather,” remarked assistant sales manager Al Wiggins after noting he had seen mostly blue skies that morning. “You never really know what’s going to happen in this crazy old place. You know how many times I’ve woken up to a perfectly warm, sunny day, forgotten to check the weather report, and then gotten stuck in a rain storm without my umbrella?”

“You assume the weather guy would have called it right,” said Joel LaCroix, chuckling. “With this town’s crazy weather you might as well flip a coin.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” agreed Sherry Harper, another coworker with a serious distaste for Mondays and storm clouds. “I tell you, we’ve got the wackiest weather in this town. You know this one summer I woke up to sunny and 70 only to have it hail that evening. Can you believe it? Hail, in summer!”

The coworkers all shook their heads in amazement.

“Never seen anything like it,” Harper added, failing to disclose that she had never lived anywhere else in her life.

“You guys talking about this weather we’re having?” asked Joe Mangio, the director of human resources, as he stopped by to see what all the fuss was about. “Yeah, that’s classic this place. Some people like to talk about how they have hurricane season or blizzard season where they’re from. I tell them that’s every season in this crazy town!”

“Yeah,” said Higgins. “It doesn’t matter what time of year it is, I usually bring a coat and sunscreen!”

The group laughed in unison, staring off into the distance thoughtfully at this, their lives.

13 Weightlifting Tips for Real Men

By Todd “The ‘Cep” Brock, guest contributor

Bro, let me ask you something: you wanna get huge? Sure. Who the fuck doesn’t? But it’s hard, right? What with all the bullshit promises and clickbait and infomercial junk, how do you separate what’s gonna get you sleeve-ripping slabs of lean muscle and what’s just gonna get your wallet lean? Well fear not, Todd is here to help you separate fact from fiction and get you ripped out of your fucking skull. Below are my top tips for anyone looking to step up his game and become a real man. Every last one has been critical to forging my award-winning, 28” biceps (no, that ain’t a typo, bro). If you want pythons like these you best absorb every last tip into your brain bucket and implement daily. Trust me. The days of you getting swirlies will be done. Soon you’ll be administering your own swirlies to all sorts of pencil-necked nerds, not to mention dipping your dick in more strange than you know what to do with.

TIP 1: Cold hard fact: steroids are good for you. This tip is fundamental to my whole system, so don’t ignore it. ‘Roids make you huge like God intended and help get rid of disgusting fat. Big Fitness doesn’t want you to know that, though. They want you to keep wasting your time and money on worthless personal trainer sessions and protein shakes, so they spread this propaganda about ‘roids being bad for you. I’ll give you the only personal training session you’ll ever need right here, for free: get some fucking ‘roids. There. Done. You’re gonna be scary big, bro.

TIP 2: Chicks dig enormous, disproportionate biceps. Sick biceps are the currency of love, bro. Exchanging goods for services, know what I mean? I’m talking the sort of ‘ceps that look like you’re smuggling bowling balls in your arms. Write this down, bro: at least 80% of your workout should be bicep work. You hear all this talk about the 80/20 rule on the internet lately? Yeah, that’s what they’re talking about. And that’s at a minimum. I actually do a 90/10 workout. And believe me, it works. They don’t call me The ‘Cep for nothing. Also keep in mind, even if you have a lot of time to work other areas after putting in a couple hours on your biceps, don’t overdo it. If you look smaller in other areas it will make your biceps look bigger, sort of like shaving your pubes makes your dong look bigger.

TIP 3: Spotters are for pussies. They make your mind weak. When you know your spotter can help out, you won’t fight as hard. You gotta feel like an antelope running from a goddamn lion, bro. Knowing you’re gonna get seriously injured if you fail is the greatest motivator there is, particularly when you’re maxing out. Asking for a spotter screams newbie, so ditch the training wheels.

TIP 4: Negative self-talk is critical. You want to get crazy huge? Half the battle is in the gym. The other half is in here (I’m pointing to my head). Telling yourself you can’t do it will motivate you to prove yourself wrong. Telling yourself you’re lazy and worthless is an effective way to inspire a worthless piece of shit like you. I like to look at myself in the full body mirror in my bedroom every morning. I just sit there and tell myself I’m a skinny little twig. Try phrases like “Nobody is ever going to love a disgusting piece of shit like you” and “You’re human garbage” and “Worthless weaklings like you don’t deserve to live.” Those are just examples, though. The sky is the limit. This is something you can really spread your creative wings with. Anyway, I keep repeating stuff like that until I actually see myself as skinny and worthless in the mirror. That’s right. Like not just imaginary, bro. You gotta actually see it. That’s when I’m really ready to tear it up in the gym. Keep in mind this ain’t easy. It might take you a couple hours the first go, but in time you’ll find it’s a part of you. When that happens, just looking in the mirror in the gas bathroom will send you into a frenzy of motivation. Don’t half-ass this, though, bro. This step is critical. You need to be positively ashamed to be alive. That’s how you learn to really want it. That’s important. You gotta want it more than anyone else. That’s how champions are made.

TIP 5: Wiping down the machine after use is for pussies. If you’re always using wiped machines you’re never gonna develop the proper immunities for when you go to a real man’s gym. It’s sort of like how you’re only susceptible to Giardia if you never drink river water. The gym is where real men lift solid chunks of iron and troll for booty, not where they play house and clean up after themselves. Fuck that. Leave it dirty. If you don’t like it go to Curves.

TIP 6: Vomiting is an indispensible skill. It’s almost as important as ‘roids in my book. Why? Two reasons. First, it’s a sort of workout speedometer that lets you know you’re working hard enough. That’s key. You gotta know you’re pushing it or how do you know you’re pushing it? If you’re not puking your guts out you can’t really call it a workout. I recommend taking seven or eight servings of a high-caffeine, pre-workout mix like N.O.Xplode or Jack3d to help this along.

Second, if you’re currently taking a break from ‘roids or lost your connection (it happens to the best of us), you’re gonna need a little more help staying thin. Vomiting will help you cut calories. When I’m not juicing, I’ll probably vomit 10 or so meals a week. This is what fitness pros and nutritionists call Intermittent Regurgitation or IR. It speeds up your metabolism and turns your body into a fat burning furnace. Hell, even when I’m on the ‘roids I’ll still vomit a few days a week to make my abs really pop.

One last point: patience and practice. Vomiting is both a skill and an art. It’ll take some time to get good at it and you’re never gonna be perfect. You’ll probably have to jam a finger down there for awhile, but as your esophagus and stomach become more limber you’ll be able to do it on command, hands free. That’s when the real gains start, bro.

TIP 7: Warming up is for pussies. ‘Nuff said.

TIP 8: If you’re going for your one rep max, start at your max weight. This goes along with the last tip. Seems like common sense, I know, but I constantly have to correct people on this. They all add weight progressively like they see in the fitness maggies written pussy marketing execs with microscopic biceps. If you want to lift as much weight as possible you cannot waste half your strength building up to your max weight. Just be a man and fucking go for it cold, bro. Cold muscles are tighter, which makes you stronger. Don’t believe me? Which rubber band snaps harder, a tight one or a loose one?

TIP 9: Get a little drunk before maxing out. Remember earlier when I said half the battle is in here (I’m pointing to my head)? Well, when I’m going for a one rep max, half the bottle is going to be in here (I’m pointing to my stomach). Fear is your greatest foe when it comes to pulling off beastly lifts, bro. Alcohol lets you cut through that motherfucker like Valyrian steel through a Stark neck. It takes that whiny little voice in your head saying “I can’t” and beats him into a bloody pussy pulp. For max gains you gotta be pretty drunk, though, so I recommend vodka. It’s the most athletic of the hard liquors. Pure and clear like water. How do you think those Russian weightlifters won so many gold medals?

TIP 10: Weight clips are for pussies. If you can’t handle the heat get out of the kitchen.

TIP 11: Chicks love a guy who checks himself out in the mirror. Make sure to wear the most revealing shirt the gym will allow (this tip applies to chicks, too, lol) and flex away. I’d go shirtless if it wasn’t for the Nazi behind the desk at Gold’s.

TIP 12: Chicks at the gym want you to stare at them. They may act like they don’t, bro, but that’s just a shit test. Don’t look away. Don’t apologize. Just keep staring. They love it. I mean, they’re there to work on their bodies so men will find them more attractive. Are you not a man? They aren’t wearing skin-tight shorts that look like they were painted on their asses and sports bras that pinch together their chest meat like two ripe melons to pick up the kids at soccer, are they? They’re doing it for men. Men like you. You don’t get a much clearer invitation than that. If they didn’t like it they’d go to Curves.

TIP 13: Drink as little water as possible. Being dehydrated helps your abs pop and builds mental toughness. Frank Herbert knew it. I know it. Now you know it. Trust me bro, you don’t want to see some tight little shorty watching you curl and then realize you have a temporary water gut from chugging a gallon of river water on the way over. Drink vodka or drink nothing.

Todd Brock is a fitness consultant, motivational speaker and mixed martial artist living with his dog Bulldozer in Jersey City, New Jersey. He gives frequent lectures on the topic of “being a real man and not a pussy in this wussified society of ours” at his local Gold’s Gym.

17 Homemaking Tips for the 21st Century Male – Part I

So you’ve managed to bag a wealthy, careerist wife, squeezed a few kids out of her, and now she wants you to be a modern, stay-at-home dad. Great! You’re living the dream, buddy! Countless generations of men have yearned to have unemployment count as a respectable occupation, but until recently few had succeeded. Now that it’s possible, though, a problem remains: after millennia of oppressive male gender roles, you might find that you haven’t been raised with the skills necessary to become an effective homemaker. Well don’t you fret your pretty little head, doll. Just follow some of these ingenious tips and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a regular Martha Stewart’s husband.

IN THE KITCHEN

1. Yard Trimmings Can Easily Be Passed Off as Exotic Lettuces

With all the crazy lettuce varieties you see in grocery stores nowadays, consumers are becoming increasingly unable to differentiate between commercially grown lettuces and random leaves. I mean does anyone besides hippies even know what the fuck mesclun lettuce is? Take advantage of this trend by serving yard trimmings and leaves at your next party, or even to your family for dinner. Just sweep the shit up into a bowl and pour a little Kraft Zesty Italian over it. The trick is particularly effective if you get some tree and flower leaves in there rather than just pure Kentucky Blue grass. Just make sure they’re non-toxic (Wikipedia can be a big help with this). What you want to call your magical lettuce mix is up to you. I typically say it’s a blend of Siberian Arugula and African Savanna Kale. The key is to make sure you add exotic locales to the name of an already trendy lettuce-type. People will just assume it’s some gourmet new breed they hadn’t heard of yet.

2. Don’t Waste Good Blood

Ancient Mongolian horse archers used to use a survival technique whereby they would carefully make an incision in the shoulder of their horse, fill up a container with blood and then chug that blood. These hearty souls knew what many modern peoples seem to have forgotten: blood is a nutritious, energy rich food. My mentor, Dr. Franklin von Stugaart, used to down a glass of blood from a “cherubic Caucasian male child” every morning in order to “reinvigorate his humors.” The man had the energy of a horse and lived to the ripe old age of 102 despite the fact that he drank like Mr. Ed. In any case, don’t waste good blood. Next time you cut yourself in the kitchen, don’t just rinse nature’s iron-rich protein shake down the drain, collect it in the glass until it stops bleeding and then enjoy a refreshing glass of blood afterwards. Alternatively, learn the Mongolian draining technique and perform the procedure on your pets. I can tell you from experience that cat blood has a sweet tang you’ll learn to crave (though admittedly you’ll lose a few felines in the process of learning how to make the incision). Blood can also be mixed with other food for added nutritional kick or passed off as other things to save money. I myself mix blood with corn starch and sugar and serve that to my guests as “country ketchup.” With the skyrocketing price of ketchup in these troubled times, how can you afford not to?

AROUND THE HOUSE

3. A Green Lawn Will Suck the Green from Your Bank Account

Every year Americans pump billions of dollars into making the land surrounding their house look like a green shag carpet. This is pointless, time consuming, and wasteful. Some of these costs can be defrayed by reusing yard trimmings as salad, but to save the real benjies you need to do away with lawn care altogether. The easiest solution is just to let it die. No fuss, no muss. One of the more convenient traits of grass is that it hangs around looking like normal grass long after it dies. The only problem with this is that it turns brown after the transformation, which the anal retentives at your local homeowner’s association usually frown their compulsively groomed little faces at. Fortunately, we have this thing called paint nowadays that can turn stuff any color you want it. You can even take a blade of your current grass down to any paint store and have them make a paint that matches the color exactly. Your homeowner’s association won’t have a clue!

4. Needing to Separate Laundry is a Myth

Here’s everything you need to know about laundry: set the washer to cold, jam whatever the fuck you want in, throw in a capful of detergent, and start the machine. Seriously. Everything you own that isn’t dry clean-only will get clean just fine using this method. In fact, even some dry clean-only shit will get clean just fine with this method. The notion that you need to separate out darks and lights and use different temperatures is a total scam perpetuated by Big Utility so you remain a slave to hot water in order to fatten up its bottom line.

ENTERTAINING

5. Cough Syrup Can Provide Added Kick to Watered-Down Liquor

A good way to defray the costs of entertaining is to water down your liquor. That’s just common sense. Any homemaker or barkeep worth his salt knows this. The problem is when you have some real boozers for guests and they can tell they’re not getting as drunk as they should be. Well never fear. A good way to combat this issue is to add a bottle of cough syrup to each 1.5L handle of liquor you have. It works best with non-neutral spirits, but if all you have is vodka then mix it in there with some other shit and call it “Jungle Juice.” Make sure the cough syrup is one with “DM” on the label as this is the magical ingredient. Also, make sure it doesn’t have acetomeniphan as this stuff is hard on the liver and should not be combined with drinking. You know, for your health.

6. Mint Mouthwash is Totally Drinkable

Another good way to cut down on your party’s booze bill is to add a few tablespoons of sugar to minty mouthwash and call it “Peppermint Schnapps.” The illusion is particularly effective if you pour it into a real Schnapps bottle rather than just serving it in the mouthwash bottle. Look on the back of the mouthwash bottle to ensure it has alcohol in it. A good mouthwash will have 21-26% ABV. Not schnapps strong, but certainly enough to get your party guests the buzz they crave.

7. Cockfights are Making a Comeback

With the revival in raising chickens among hipsters and the local food movement, there has also been a recently renewed interest the ancient art of cockfighting. Chickens can be fierce little devils that provide endless hours of top notch entertainment if you know what you’re doing. They’re also inexpensive, young chicks often going for a few bucks apiece. More importantly, their soulless, reptilian minds do not feel pain like dogs do and it is therefore morally acceptable (perhaps even morally imperative) to fight them and, if you’re a public figure, you don’t have to worry about any media backlash. Raise a pair in your backyard or garage, set up a little ring in your living room, and have them fight to the death. It’s as simple as that. Your guests will be impressed at the retro-chic entertainment you provide, and you will be able to recoup a substantial portion of your party costs by collecting a vig on the money your guests bet. If you want to continue the blood sport theme you could also buy a few bettas, aka Siamese Fighting Fish, another soulless creature according to the Vatican Council of does it really fucking matter?, and take bets on them as well.

LIFE

8. Reuse Condoms to Cut Down on Your Sex Bill

Kids are expensive, but not having kids can be nearly as expensive, particularly if you’re paying full price for brand new, name brand condoms every single time you want to bone. Thing is, that’s totally unnecessary. Just turn the used condom inside out, thoroughly rinse, and then run it through a cycle in the dishwasher. Optionally, you may add some lubricant to the cleaned condom once you’re done. I just keep doing this until the condom has visible holes, at which time you can throw it out or attempt to tape them up if you’re really thrifty.

9. Teach Your Kids Pascal’s Wager and the Importance of Diversifying Your Religious Bets

With all the whacky, suspiciously convoluted religious beliefs in the world, it can be a terrifying prospect to think that one of them may be right and if you choose wrong you may end up in an eternity of limitless torture. Teach your kids the importance of sucking up to as many gods as possible on the off chance that one of them is the one true faith and that god will be tricked into sparing your immortal soul because you went through the motions of professed belief, which every religion seems to say matters more than following the philosophy of the religion itself for some reason.