It's Not That I'm Lazy, It's That I Just Don't Care

So I was watching that old cult classic Office Space tonight on Comedy Central. The movie is a parody of corporate America, in which an anti hero, do nothing, worker drone gets “woke” and takes control of his own destiny through a series of strange coincidences.

Initially drowning in a state of existential angst, Peter Gibbons gets his mind altered by a psychiatrist hypnotist who dies before he is able to snap Peter out of his altered state. Peter and his friends subsequently develop a software virus that robs their companies customers, transferring millions of fractional pennies to their bank accounts over an extended period of time.

Much hilarity and chaos ensues, but ultimately, Peter and his small gang of co-conspirators win out and never wind up in “Federal pound me in the ass prison”.

Now I could go on and on about what the lesson to humanity is in this movie, but I would instead prefer to expound upon what I learned from this movie.

I learned that I essentially wasted the vast majority of my career getting fucked by “da man” whilst other far less talented suck asses were able to bamboozle the “Rulers of the World”.

One particular example comes to mind. I worked with one of our customers to develop a software solution to a jet engine inspection problem that they were having. We worked for about six months on the solution and deployed it across the customers business.

Later, while attending a business conference, some douche yo-yo climbed the stage to give a presentation on the software, whilst implying that he had developed the whole solution. He even used the Power Point presentation that I had created to describe the project. Meanwhile, I sat there with mouth agape whilst listening to this sleazel describe “his accomplishment”. He finished his presentation to a round of wild applause from the audience.

I said all that to say this - I had the wrong approach to life and instead should have adopted the “Peter Gibbons Philosophy of Life”. What is that you ask? Do Nothing. That’s right - Do Nothing. Do absolutely nothing and realize the joy that can be experienced by the lack of activity. The universe will work the whole thing out for you, so why would you want to interfere? Coincidentally, my son has adopted this philosophy to his entire life. It seems to be working out quite well to date, so apparently he is a far wiser man than his old pappy.

I always wondered how and why unemployed disability do nothings could be so joyful. Well, now that I am retired I am realizing that, indeed, the non-act of doing nothing is very joyful. My advice to y’all?

Do nothing, and you can do no wrong. You won’t do any good either, but you can’t be blamed for any of the faults or failures of this world. To quote Peter Gibbons - “Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be.”

A corollary to this theorem, also attributed to Peter Gibbons is - "It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care".