Freelance Design tricks - How to get away with murder in the workplace
Every large design company, be it a multinational branding corporation or a regular editor of crappy magazines, needs to fill the gaps in the workforce. If the astute freelance designer plays his cards right, he can win a nice sum while basically lounging around at home. That's how...
Have a handy repotoire of excuses lined up
Everyone has heard of the line 'the dog ate it...' or 'I left it in my jeans when it went into the wash' to avoid handing in an assignment but how often do we actually use them? Some of these old well worn excuses are due for a renaissance period. A boss is far more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt when you use one of these old dogs as they will question your sanity for attempting to use such an audacious excuse. Reverse psychology. Use it to your advantage
Backstabbing - Is it so wrong?
A favourite trick to pull on another member of staff is to sow the seeds of doubt in the rest of the full-timers minds about your chosen fall guy. Office politics can play a huge role in screwing with their heads. Why not try surreptiously planting somebody elses scissors or staplers in the victims drawer and asking to borrow them. When they can't find them say you saw so and so using them earlier. Sit back and watch the tension build.
An apple a day...
Being a teachers pet can sometimes work wonders when you haven't bothered to layout those pages that were given to you 3 weeks ago. Coming into the office armed with a nice rich chocolate gateau for everyone will smooth over any resentment for your tarde lackadaisacal attitude to work. Another good idea is to be the coffee gopher at regular half hour intervals. When you're gone they'll really miss you and because of the caffeine withdrawal will be snapping at one another.
Outsource and reap the rewards
Everybodies doing it so why not you? If you've landed a hefty long term design job that is a regular payer, why not bump your rates up and get somebody in India or China to knock out the work for you. Unethical? Perhaps but since when did you consider the plight of individuals in far flung places? You can explain away the discrepances in language and grammar by claiming you've been working all hours
Getting away with murder
There comes a time and a place where, despite your best efforts to cover your butt and blame others for your laziness and ineptitude, you will be discovered. At this stage with disgruntled colleagues lining up to speak ill of you, there may be no choice but to use the failsafe rear-guard action to kill someone. This will have the effect of distracting attention from your less-than-honest approach to delivering graphic designs on time. It's probably best to avoid assassinating the boss as questions are likely to come up and the newly appointed editor may not see it as part of the new team format. No, pick one of the more replaceable staff members, like Ian the deputy editor, the resulting fight will give you plenty of time to work on some new scams at another organization.
So go, use these tips when you think they can benefit you. But be careful, the police are sometimes very interested in suppressing genocide in the office; use this last option only under extreme duress.
