"Never Work!" - Situationism for the Bone Idle

Work. Not a fan. Even this, this fanciful malarkey is above my
station. I'd rather be lying idle right now than having to type this.
Ugh. It pains me to think that my hands could be resting contentedly,
maybe lying prone on a cushion or playfully sagging by my side.
Instead I'm rigorously pounding my digits into the keyboard, with no
respite, bashing, bruising, possibly scarring the remainder of my
fingerprints off for this godforsaken column. Aaaaghh! I think I
sprained my left index finger when over reaching for a lower case 'm'.
Dear God how can a man be expected to work in these conditions!

Okay so my plight isn't as bad as those small urchins forced to make
sneakers or cheap clothes but we're in the same boat. Labour, to a
work-shy like me, is a life-long struggle. At least child workers get
to look forward to an early retirement from their work at 13. Me? I'll
be spending the remainder of my days avoiding it, which is hard work
in itself.

I always had a penchant for the French situationist philosopher Guy
Debord, who brazenly scribed 'Never Work!' on a Parisian wall. Being
too lazy to delve deeper into in his thinking, I assumed he was just a
right dosser. I subsequently discovered he had formulated many
different theories and written many books on this situationist
philosophy. What a fraud! If he had being spelling out 'Never Work!'
on his bedside pillow with bits of crusty sleep that tumbled from his
eyelids, I may have had more respect for him.

Unfortunately one must work. Unless you win the lottery and then you
can do whatever you like. I think the people I mistrust most in the
world – more than despotic tyrants, more than beady eyed little
children, more than the beady eyed little children of despotic tyrants
- are people who go into work the day after they've won the lottery.
That's a hate crime right there: a sado-masochist slight at the wage
slave; "I work, and I don't even have to." A suitable punishment would
strip the offender of the lottery winnings immediately; use it or lose
it. As an added humiliation give it instead to someone undeserving and
force them to spend it irresponsibly.

People don't see my side of the arguments because they're always
looking at the bigger picture. "If we all stopped working, then
everything would grind to a halt,". Yada, yada, boring. What about
looking at the smaller, more personal, blinkered picture for a while?
The one that goes 'Sod it anyway, I don't care what happens but I'm
going to go to lie down and sleep right here, right now and that's
it'. I bet that when you wake up the world will be exactly as you
left it. Airline pilots are sadly exempted from this sagely advice.

I try to make the best of a bad lot. I work from home, which is the
probably the world's greatest invention. Other housemates toddle off
to their workplace, leaving me 'working' from bed till about noon.
They never know what goes on when that door closes – no one ever knows
what goes on with people who work from home. We are a byzantine puzzle
for you office monkeys, treated with a mixture of contempt and
jealousy. Sometimes, just to spite you outdoor types, I work from
illogical places in my house: the attic, the coal bucket, the dog's
kennel. Just. Because. I. Can.

Then you see those faded bill posters: 'Work From Home: Earn
Thousands", and get tempted. "This is it", you think, "a secret door
in that shady cabal of home workers." Next thing you find yourself
drowning in a sea of Jiffy Bags, phoning randomers about Cat
Insurance. Tsk, amateurs.

The added bonus of no one ever seeing you physically at work is that
they automatically assume that you must occupy your time with some
sort of work. "What else is there to do?", they logically calculate. I
know. One could, perhaps, pay a schoolchild to do this while I'm,
sorry, one is fed grapes and said small child's Dairylea Dunkers. Just
a thought.


The Zeitghost