By Edward Ball
It’s amusing how slick, crafty, cunning, clever, wily, and ingenious people think they are. The real amusement doesn’t come simply from people thinking they are slicker than a can of oil, it’s the times they choose to be clever. For example, people come up with, what they think are, ingenious ways to not do their job; I can see them now with that grin suggesting they pulled the wool over the eyes of their bosses. However, the laugh is on them because no one wears wool wigs any longer and their bosses see and hear more than they think.
The problems that come with thinking you are slicker than snot in the workplace include:
- More work that is less valuable
- Glass ceilings
- Less pay
- Inability to add value
Being Slicker Than a Can of Oil Outcome No. #1: More Work
It’s been my experience that people in the workplace who are attempting to be slick are doing so with getting out of work as their goal. However, all they end up doing is creating more work for themselves and others.
The slicksters spend their entire days working extremely hard not doing their jobs to their full potential. How much time and energy does it take hiding out, sneaking on the phone, covering up, and making up lies and excuses? It’s far easier to do the work you were hired to do and do it with zeal.
By soldiering, sneaking, covering up and who knows what else not only is more work created for the person involved in such activities work is increased for their coworkers and managers. The people the slicksters work alongside have to pick up their slack and be subjugated to the reactionary rules put in place by management. Management has to investigate to find out why things aren’t going as planned or how they should if everyone is doing their job. In addition, management has to come up with ideas, rules and other measures to get things on track and keep them there, often forced to play a cat and mouse game with people who swear up and down they are slicker than an entire can of oil.
Being Slicker Than a Can of Oil Outcome No. #2: Glass Ceiling
Let’s be honest, how far can a person who engages in soldiering go? All the excuses, leaving coworkers hanging, and tying up managers with the cat and mouse games will only put a ceiling in place.
Don’t get me wrong, a person can huckster their way to some success. However, that success fall shorts of the potential success they could achieve by using their time, skills, wit, ingenuity and all the other resources and skills to do what they were hired to do. You can’t imagine how many brilliant people I met in prison. They would come up with the most luminous ideas for the most nefarious purposes. Imagine if those ideas were utilized in a manner that wasn’t under threat of being snuffed out by a prison sentence and later disenfranchisement (glass ceilings)! Just like a convict, ex-con, or a future convict whose glass ceiling is crime, prison, or a criminal background a workplace slickster has similar barriers to success: their ideas and ingenuity are wasted, they are imprisoned in their current position, and their workplace background gets doors shut in their face.
Being Slicker Than a Can of Oil Outcome No. #3: Less Pay
If it wasn’t so sad it would be comical seeing people working overtime to not work, while expecting favor in the form of better positions, pay raises and other perks allotted to hard workers. Some even attempt to use their potential to work hard as blackmail. For example, I have seen people shuck and jive in the work place not doing their job, instead doing what they want. Then they exclaim “Pay me more for my current position or give me a promotion and then I will do what I am supposed to!” WHAT!!! Who does that make sense to? Needless to say their pay increases are non-existent and marginal at best. If they aren’t willing to work hard for $1 they sure aren’t going to work hard for $3.
Being Slicker Than a Can of Oil Outcome No. #4: Inability to add value
Getting paid to do a job that doesn’t get done correctly or doesn’t get done at all extracts value as opposed to adding value. It’s that simple. Time and other resources are poured into hiring and training a person along with paying that person to contribute to getting a product or service to the customer. If that person does not do what is expected value is severely lost.
If an individual can’t or won’t add value to an organization how can he or she add value to his or herself? Look, if a person doesn’t value the time they spend preparing to go to work, getting up and making their trek to work, all the time getting trained and physically being at work they don’t value themselves or the company they work for. Consequently, value can’t be added to something that isn’t valued.
Being slick is more work than not trying to be slick. Believe me I know, I thought I was sly as a fox until I ended up in prison. Now I have to work extremely hard for less than half the reward. To make matters worse I face glass ceilings as a result of my past cleverness. Needless to say my earning power within normal corporate settings is limited as well. The entire time I was thinking I was getting over I was laughing my butt off, however, the joke was on me the entire time and I found out that I couldn’t say or do anything slick to a can of oil. I wasn’t adding value prior to going to prison. I was too busy using my talents and time to commit crime and avoiding arrest and conviction.
The one lesson I hope you learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of those slackers you work with, is that being slick doesn’t do anything but make you unable to stand firm on your feet and you eventually waste your talents slipping into a pit that you have to work extra hard to get out of. That pit is covered with a piece of glass that is too thick to break through and you won’t make enough to pay someone to help you break it. So work hard whatever station you are in, whatever the pay, and whatever the title. Doors will open, someone somewhere will recognize you, and doors will open for you.