Thread by @startupdaemon

Please Don’t Use These 43 Sabotage Tactics Created by Real Spies to Deal with Jerk Bosses & Incompetent Coworkers

Good news, everybody!

It’s Friday.

Which is a great day to be extra productive at work and make more money for your boss and your owner.

I'm sharing this because I'm sure it would NEVER cross your mind to use these techniques to deal with annoying coworkers and jerk bosses.

And you've probably NEVER seen any of these forms of sabotage implemented as corporate policy and everyday decision-making.

These are 43 real sabotage tactics designed and declassified by your spy friends.

For your benefit and entertainment, I’ve excerpted the juiciest bits in today's email. You will have a laugh – and learn something.

Sign up here to get the full email > startupdaemon.net/signp/

What follows are direct quotes from the manual.

Hat tip to longtime subscriber Jorge, who tipped me off about the declassified content!

I'm in no way suggesting you should use the tactics to deal with rude bosses and pesky coworkers.

"Simple sabotage does not require specially prepared tools or equipment; it is executed by an ordinary citizen who may or may not act individually"; and it is carried out in such a way as to involve a minimum danger of injury, detection, and reprisal.

His arsenal is the kitchen shelf, the trash pile, his own usual kit of tools and supplies. The targets of his sabotage are usually objects to which he has normal and inconspicuous access in everyday life.

A second type of simple sabotage requires no destructive tools whatsoever and produces physical damage, if any, by highly indirect means. It is based on universal opportunities to make faulty decisions, to adopt a non-cooperative attitude, and to induce others to follow suit.

Making a faulty decision may be simply a matter of placing tools in one spot Instead of another. A non-cooperative attitude may involve nothing more than creating an unpleasant situation among one’s fellow workers, engaging in bickerings, or displaying surliness and stupidity.

The potential saboteur should discover what types of faulty decisions and non-cooperation are normally found in his kind of work and should then devise his sabotage so as to enlarge that “margin of error”.

Simple sabotage is often an act which the citizen performs according to his own initiative and inclination.

He frequently needs pressure, stimulation or assurance, and information and suggestions regarding feasible methods of simple sabotage.

It should be pointed out to the saboteur that he is acting in self-defense against the enemy, or retaliating against the enemy tor other acts or destruction. A reasonable amount of humor in the presentation of suggestions for simple sabotage will relax tensions of fear.

Once he is encouraged to think backwards about himself and the objects of his everyday life, the saboteur will see many opportunities in his immediate environment which cannot possibly be seen from a distance. A state of mind should be encouraged that anything can be sabotaged.

Various media may be used to disseminate suggestions and information regarding simple sabotage.

1. Always be profuse in your apologies. Frequently you can "get away" with such nets under the cover or pretending stupidity, ignorance, over-caution, fear of being suspected of sabotage, or weakness and dullness due to undernourishment. [Low blood sugar, anyone?]

2. After you have committed an act of easy sabotage, resist any temptation to wait around and see what happens. Loiterers arouse suspicion.

If you commit sabotage on your job, you should naturally stay at your work.

3. Insist on doing everything through “channels”. Never permit shortcuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.

4. Make “speeches”. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.

5. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration”. Attempt to make the committees as large as possible – never less than five.

6. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration”. Attempt to make the committees as large as possible – never less than five.

7. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

8. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.

9. Advocate “caution”. Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

10. Be worried about the propriety of any decision – raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

11. Demand written orders.

12. “Misunderstand” orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.

13. Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don't deliver it until it is completely ready.

14. Don't order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.

15. Order high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don't get them argue about it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work.

16. In making work assignments, always assign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.

17. Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw. Approve older defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye.

18. Make mistakes in routing so that parts and materials will be sent to the wrong place.

19. When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.

20. To lower morale and with it production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.

21. Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.

22. Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files.

23. Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.

24. Apply all regulations to the last letter.

25. Make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders. Confuse similar names. Use wrong addresses.

26. Prolong correspondence with government bureaus.

27. Misfile essential documents.

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

29. Tell important callers the boss ls busy or talking on another telephone.

30. Hold up mall until the next collection.

31. Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.

32. Work slowly. Think out ways to increase the number of movements necessary on your job.

33. Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can. When you go to the lavatory, spend a longer time there than is necessary.

34. Even if you understand the language, pretend not to understand instructions in a foreign tongue.

35. 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.

36. 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.

37. Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.

38. 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.

39. 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.

40. Give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned.

41. Act stupid.

42. Be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible without getting yourself into trouble.

43. Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks.

This is the selection from the manual, which has much more and brutaller.

Now catch your breath and consider this.

Don't these sound like they're already official policy at your corporation?

Like I said, I’m absolutely not suggesting that you use these tactics to deal with workplace nuisances like rude bosses and pesky coworkers.

If you’re an owner and supervisor, however, you can use the list in an unexpected way.

You can make a checklist out of the 43 tactics and use it to identify employees, suppliers, and even customers and business partners who are sabotaging your business.

Remember: intentions don’t matter, results do.

Then sign up for FREE DAILY emails >>> startupdaemon.net/signp/