Ever been accused of being lazy when you were simply efficient?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Yep. I’ve gotten in mild trouble at a couple of jobs in the past because I finished work too quickly. I had to learn to be conventionally lazy and fuck around in order to meet expectations.

At my current job, I’ve had similar problems, but that’s because the Japanese expect everyone to be absolutely miserable all the time. They don’t want you to be efficient, they want you to show your dedication by working hard. Gods forbid you actually finish your work “early,” (i.e. on time) because your lack of overtime just proves that you’re not looking for more work to do.

I’ve seen people take 3 hours to finish a job I’d have done in one. I’ve been forced to work long enough hours because of bullshit meetings and taken enough crap for going home on time that I ended up just taking on massive amounts of stuff to do so that I’d be almost as busy as they pretend to be. My workload is probably twice that of most of the other people by now, and that doesn’t even count the extra prep time I have to take because of language issues.

And I still get shit because I go home before 7:00 or 8:00.

22

No, it is the hole in the floor aspect, acts as a chimney for the flames and possibly igniting the next floor up.

23

I used to work for the USPS (Postal Service) for 15 years. In my work area (they called them “Pay Locations”) we would get containers of mail to sort called “Floats”. Doesn’t matter what they were for this story, other than the parcels could be any size, but, on average there were a set number of pieces per float (several hundred to a few thousand each.) We counted the number of floats worked to determine productivity.

I worked the Night Shift, from 9PM to 5:30AM. The Afternoon Shift, from 3:30 PM to Midnight, were a lazy bunch, and usually left me with a ton of work to do before the final dispatch at 5AM.

One time, the Shift Supervisor for the Afternoon Shift came into the operation. I was thinking, “Great, maybe he’ll ream these goof-offs a new one!” My jaw dropped when he congratulated them for doing so much work the previous day, 35 floats of mail by 8 workers in 8 hours! I grumbled about this to a few cow-irkers, and it eventually got back to him. He shows up in the area a few days later, with the Night Shift Supervisor. He says, “I understand you feel left out that I didn’t include you. It seems awfully petty, but here’s your congratulations.”

I demurred, “Oh No! They did all the work, and deserve all the credit! The problem I had was that, last week, after they went home at Midnight, until 5AM dispatch, I did 35 floats of mail by myself in 5 hours’ time. Eight of them, in eight hours is 64 work-hours to do 35, and me, in 5 work-hours does the same output—almost 13 times the productivity. They get a pat on the back, and Ms Shift Supervisor standing here tells me I’m ‘The slowest worker in the Pay Location’, and my immediate supervisor says, ‘DHMO, you’re a lazy fuck and you don’t do shit!’”

At this, he got all huffy, and demanded I apologize to Ms Supervisor for using such language. I said, “I’m just quoting what YOUR supervisor said TO ME!” After he continued to insist, I turned to her and said, “I’m sorry if you’re offended by the language your supervisor uses.” At this, he turned on his heel and stormed off, but she stayed there. I told her, “You had him demand an apology from me, but I’m the one the insult was directed at, and I’ve never received an apology.”