The Illusion of Work

This piece is an attempt at demystifying the art of “Illusion of work”. There have been multiple attempts at presenting works of fiction around the concept. This piece hopes to present a simple guide to maximizing return from the minimal effort you put into your current profession. If you belong to the vast number of people, who hate their job, read on. This will help.

Performance at work can typically be measured on the basis of two types of parameters:

• Results
• Effort

Results based measurements can be dangerous for slackers. Let’s face facts – we don’t deliver results. Hence the foremost aim of the slacker is to maximize effort projection and minimize focus on results. Sounds complicated? Not to worry. Let’s try to categorize activities / performance measures for a clearer understanding.

Type 1 Measures	Results	No of sales closed Sales achieved
Type 2 Measures	Effort	# of customer visits # of opportunities currently pursuing

As you can probably make out the focus should be on avoiding discussions on Type 1 Measures and communicating more Type 2 Measures (refer to my previous blog entry: The art of procrastination for a live example on application of this concept).

Now we’ll try to look at the instruments of the art / tricks of the trade in greater detail:

• Meetings: Meetings are a wonderful way of faking work. The best kinds of meetings are when there are no "Action Items" assigned to you after them. This can be achieved by skilfully attributing work to others during a meeting. Offer to make the minutes and you will be able to document the "Action Items" and assign work to others with deadlines. It’s a win-win, others do the work and you look like a god.
• Travel: The more you travel, the less you work and the more you gain seniority, the more you travel. The more you gain seniority, the less you work. QED.
• Business Planning: This one is only for the pros. If you aren't prepared well enough, you might end up with more work after this exercise then before it. The objective of this exercise is to communicate to your peers and seniors the amount of hard work you've been putting in (By projecting Type 2 Measures). This is a key step to creating the perfect illusion.
• Con-Calls: Con-Calls are god-level. It is essentially a meeting where you can eat sambhar-rice on the side. What’s not to like.

Who can use this art?

• Anyone in sales: Because of the travelling nature of their job, salesmen can practice this art to perfection.
• Government officials: These are the revered lot suspected to have created this art and perfected it over the years. If you want a mentor, catch one.
• Anybody remotely associated with government business: The government officials practice this art to such sublime perfection that anyone in remote proximity automatically finds himself/herself practicing it.
• Anyone in the B2B industry: The B2B industry works incredibly slowly. Ages can pass before work painstakingly transitions from initiation to completion.