For anyone that didn’t know, I pretty much run all this shit, now. I’m kind of a big deal. There’s one guy that’s a bigger deal than I am, though. He’s in charge of me and all the other dickheads that put stuff out on this website every day all the big picture stuff for TFM. Because he is a grown man with a real adult life, he’s got a little bit of a different view on what constitutes a “productive work day” than I do. Here are some of the excuses I give my boss on a daily basis and what actually happened:
Boss (at 12:37pm):
Are you working on something? Haven’t seen you get anything out yet today and just wanted to check in.
Me (lying):
Yeah. I’ve been working on a real long form piece that’s taking me a while. I also had to call Becker and go over a few things with him. This should be done and posted within the hour.
What Actually Happened
I got really drunk last night, and despite still going to bed at a reasonable hour, I neglected to set an alarm in my intoxicated state. When I woke up at noon, I intended to get working right away to make up for the three hours I’ve missed, but instead I was forced to spend the first half hour of my day glued to the toilet. I only just now opened my laptop and have nothing ready to show for myself yet today, so I made up that part about a real long piece and my call with Becker.
I’ll spend the next forty minutes writing as many words as possible to make that lie seem legit, and if you call Becker to ask about the phone call, he’ll cover for me because the first thing I did was tell him that I would need him to lie for me if you came asking.
Boss (checking in on a very simple task he gave me):
Hey did you ever get that post out that we talked about earlier this week? What’s the status?
Me (bending the truth):
Yeah. I have it ready to go out, but I’m waiting until tomorrow at prime posting time to capitalize on views as well as make sure that it gets out on our best day to post, Wednesdays.
What Actually Happened:
I acknowledged the task when you gave it to me. After that it completely slipped my mind until you reminded me of it just now. I have no idea when our prime posting time is nor when our best day to post is, but because tomorrow is Wednesday I’ve declared it our best posting day and will now have to keep that lie going for the rest of my employment. If you fact check me and it comes out that I was wrong about all of this, I will play dumb and claim that it must have changed since the last time I checked. Whatever you throw at me, I will lie and lie because no matter how blatantly obvious it may become, I will never admit that it was a screw-up on my end.
Boss (simply doing his job):
*Gives detailed and incredibly helpful insight into things I should be focusing on, goals we should be shooting for, or operational changes that need to be made to improve TotalFratMove*
Me (bored by the message because I’ve ruined my attention span on TikTok):
Sounds good. Will get on it ASAP.
What Actually Happened
After about four seconds of examining that Bible-length message you just sent me, I realized that it was going to mean a lot of work for me. I’m sure I’ll get all that stuff done, but it’s not going to be as soon as possible. It’s not even going be all that soon. I’ll most likely spend more time figuring out how I can make all of these things you’ve asked me to do work for someone else than I will actually spend doing anything to get them done. I’m not doing this because I’m lazy – I am lazy, but that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it because I genuinely believe I am better than everyone else, and I don’t think I should have to do things that bore me.
I know that you will have to remind me about all of these things at a later date, but it’s at that point that I will find ways to blame the lack of completion on every other member of the team, clearing myself of any culpability. This whole process would be a lot more efficient if you would just give tasks to everyone except me because then I’d have a lot more time to do the things I enjoy, like not working.
Ethan, if you’re reading this, I apologize. I wish you did not find out about all of those excuses. I didn’t want you to know what actually happened. I’m not going to change my behavior, though.
