Happily it only took me less than a minute to figure out what would be the next tip for us slackers. I don’t think I will necessarily always be going in a direct line if most important topics and then less and less. It will probably bounce around and back and forth from a big one to a small one. But hopefully when it all comes down to it they will coubt and help my fellow slackers when they need it.

It seems obvious that if you have come to terms within yourself about your hatred of work and your position and you want to make it as good as possible then you have to make that happen externally as well. In that way understanding the environment you are in is crucial for cultivating idle-spaces where you can get away from work and retreat from you’d aching back or what have you.

What do I mean by enviornment?

Well quite a few things actually.

First off, the physical space you are inhabiting. If you don’t know what corners, path ways and locations are best for slacking then all of the fucks you give won’t really help you out. You won’t have anywhere to actually apply those fucks toto begin with. They will be useless. So know the bosses turf and how to exploit its vulnerable points to the maximum point possible.

That, by the way is a good way of thinking about the job site: your bosses turf. Unless you are fortunate to somehow own the means of production then you are only using and occupying given parts of the store in very very loose senses. And they are all able to be displaced by the boss on their word. Keep that in mind and try to use it to your advantage if possible.

For example, if the boss tells you that you need to move from one spot to another (let us presume you are not forced to work with another) consider the advantages of the spot you are moving while you are walking there. It is easier to think about this stuff without drawing as much possible attention then doing it while at the job site if you do it just standing around and poking around.

Of course to some extent it will be nigh-impossible for you not to examine the area or have brief looks around. This is especially true if you are new to the area or the job. Make these brief looks count and try to make it so almost all of them give you some new and relevant information that can help you outwit your boss and any kissass coworkers who would rather see you get punished for slacking than show solidarity.

Another sense that I mean environment is the external enviornment. That is, the spaces outside of your job site. What is the nearby community like? The stores? What impact (if any) does this have on the store. Sometimes having a poor clientele (wealth wise) means that higher end retail stores don’t care as much to keep up appearances or sometimes it doesn’t. But it helps to gear your expectations not only by the conditions inside the job site but also the things outside it as well.

For instance the store I work at is literally a few blocks away from the ghetto as well as near a going out of business grocery store and is inside of a mostly failing mall (McDonald’s recently closed as well). What has this meant for my working standards? Well for me anyways it has meant much lower expectations than I think most places would have. But in the larger context, it makes sense.

It seems to me at leas that, unless you have a rapidly shifting area outside where your job is that the second type of knowing your environment should be easier than the first. Understanding your work place is always going to be full of reevaluations and reconfirmations of premises and conclusions. And this is because you are a lot more notable and central to how this enviornment may be shaped than the other. At least within the context of everyday normal activities.

In the workplace you will have different bosses and different coworkers and different shifts and times that you are and are not on break. And even if none of this changes or changes much there can still be plenty of variety pending on the size of the store and how the individual actors play their parts.

For my own part I have most of the store that I work at down. I know (offhand) a few decent spots that I could do and hide out at. They aren’t perfect by any means but they typically do the trick. And whenever I have been caught it has mainly been by customers and they typically don’t really care or if they do don’t usually know what to say.

Then again, the store I am in now is fairly large and has many nooks and crannies to go into, not to mention an entire back section for loading and receiving. So my experience is obviously fairly based on the size of the store and if I was still working at Walgreen’s which was much smaller my tactics would have to change.

So that is my second tip for you slackers. Get to know the physical spaces both inside and outside the workplace. Make sure you know the good places to slack off and experiment as much as you can safely do. Slacking is risky basis but can be seriously rewarding when done right and really feel like you have screwed over the boss even if it is sometimes only in minor ways.

That reminds me, I have been typing the latter half of this post while on the clock at work. So I better get back to work before someone notices where I am sitting.

Happy slacking folks!