If you work hard, your an idiot

I look at it like this. Laziness is just efficiency. The more time you are able to spend not putting effort in, the more you are succeeding in life.

People always say ‘hard work reaps rewards’ but that is ignoring the fact that the work was ‘hard’.

That is not to say that effort applied to an endeavour you decided to embark upon will necessarily be unpleasant. In fact, if you are not enjoying it, something is wrong.

If you are finding something hard it is because you have not applied yourself correctly. You may say you work long hours, but is that necessary? If you were more efficient you shouldn’t have to work long weeks, which you are spending mostly at the task of ‘work’ so unless is it a passion, you are basically torturing yourself for money.

Therefore, unless your work is fulfilling, the difficult aspects of the work you are enduring, be it long hours or intensive concentration and possible stress, this has to be balanced with hours in the week which you are in a state of satisfaction, rest, growth and reflection. Families and pursuits beyond your occupation surely are the reason you work in the first place, even if you don't consider it 'work'.

So if you work hard, it’s because you haven’t figured out how to work easy. Cheesy, but it works I think.

Depends on the job really. I'm a hustler, it's not what I consider doing hard work, it's because that's something of a side job I personally like doing. I have a good career, it pays the bills, only work 3 days, 12 hours shift, and I have the rest of the week off. But I sometimes like to make extra money on the side of things and no, not hard work, just something to do and I work smart.

Honestly, everyone works hard to get where their at now, that's not being an idiot.

Making excuses for your laziness then..........nothing to see here.

Yup. Let's hope he never owns a house: it'll fall down!

@davillain-: Everyone has their own definition of what 'hard' work constitutes. But everyone must be in their current position based on a response to their specific environment and the subsequent challenge of securing shelter, safety and freedom.

The benefits of sustained effort can be overstated based on relative monetary income when compared to the actual effort that was required.

No-one can just keep working without a break and if you have no need to work you get strange hobbies like fox hunting.

The emphasis that the effort you put in was substantial enough to call it 'hard' would depend on your definition. But I would argue that work really isn't that hard. That is unless it's manual labour.

But I would also say even professional builders don't even work that hard. They know exactly what to do and they look like amongst the most relaxed people of any profession at least in my experience.

It doesn't take that long to build a house and there's no need to break your back over it.

Life is about balance. If you haven't worked hard towards a goal in life, any worth while goal to you, you are probably missing out. Even if you fail, you learn and grow from it.

@LJS9502_basic: I don't consider myself lazy. For instance, I put alot more effort into my comment than you did.

Yup. Let's hope he never owns a house: it'll fall down!

Your missing my point. The house would go up more quickly and stay up longer because I used my brain, rather than my braun to get the job done.

I am saying professionalism is not taxing your resources unnecessarily. If your builders are not professional and organised and knowledgable and conscientious about the quality of their workmanship, the work will inevitably drag on longer with a worse result.

So the work of the individual man is not that much really if they know there job and the foreman is competent.

PS. @davillain- what is a hustler? Like in The Color of Money?

I've definitely used the 'laziness is just efficiency' line before, partially joking but there is some truth to it.

I think there are times for everyone where you want something, but to get it, you need to do something you'd rather not do. I guess that would constitute 'hard' work for most people, and if you want to get very far in life, you'll need to do some of it. I do agree that you should minimise this type of work but if you want to lead a meaningful life, there are times where you need to buckle down and do something tough that you might not 'feel' like doing.

This doesn't apply to everyone. I was born into poverty, lost my father when I was 15 so I was alone with my single mother who was bankrupt. I had to work 2 jobs to support her in addition to studying part time in college. No way, laziness would have helped me launch a business. Even now, as I have 15 employees I just like working hard. I don't like to be lazy, because I was brought up to work hard.

you're

Laziness is not "efficiency." Either there is a lack of product involved or someone else is picking up the slack which are both terrible.

Eh I do as much work as I need to do to get the stuff I want to do done by the time I want it done by.

The job is never finished. A house requires constant upkeep. It's not something you can smart away, weather and seasons do damage.

I think two people could accomplish the same task using different methods but have the same end result, where one person puts in way more effort but in a stupider way. lets say its some kind of data processing task.

one person could buckle down and do it manually, the other person could look up some code on stack exchange that will automate the same process. the 'lazy' option would be the more efficient and clever one in this case.

Lol wtf?

Work sucks unless it's a passion job other then that you're just tolerating it breaking back for pennies is ridiculous.

No, laziness is not "efficiency". Efficiency is "work smarter, not harder". Finding the fastest and least resource-intensive way of accomplishing a goal. Efficient workers are the hardest working, because they aren't just engaging "auto-pilot" and doing what they are told to do, but going about their day thinking constantly about ways to improve what they are doing and becoming more valuable employees.

Laziness is "that's not my job" or "I don't get paid enough to do that".

EDIT: Also the "oh, you need help? I'm on my union-mandated break right now, I'll be back later".

TL;DR Pretty efficient?

I understand what you are communicating, but your use of the word 'laziness' is impeding discussion. Work/life balance is a factor. Does one work to live? Or live to work? If you love what you are doing then your perspective of how hard that work is may be different than someone who is doing the same thing but doesn't love doing it.

I also understand your point that dislike is also a primary motivator for innovation and change. I wouldn't call that laziness though.

Still, we forged tools and plows, then attached them to horses, then scrapped the horses and went for tractors to escape the manual labor in agriculture....to earn a living and make a life. At the same time, some people tend a small patch at home or part of a community garden to improve a life, but not necessarily earn a living.

I'm actually a big fan of "laziness", but I call it something else: efficiency. A lot of people at my job feel like they need to do certain things right away, like it has to be done.

For example, they do four tasks separately in the span of 30 minutes because they can't do those tasks all at once due to timing. This requires them to walk out somewhere, do something, come back, do something at the place they just left earlier, then they have to go back outside, then they have to go back inside.

Me? I wait ten minutes, work on some paperwork (and extra, fifth task), then I spend five minutes doing those four things because they're all ready to be done at the same time, and in the same area.

People think it's lazy because I am sitting down typing for most of that time when others are walking around all over the property, but the truth is I do more than them, do a better job (because I am good at it), and use less energy doing it.

So, yeah...laziness efficiency is where it's at.

Remember: if you do something right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

The problem is in the US we have this culture, at least at blue-collar or labor jobs, that the harder you work, the more you sweat, and all that nonsense you put into a job, it means you're getting a lot done...that's the assumption, at least. You could problably accomplish a lot less than someone else who more efficient, but if your boss only saw how much you were running around and sweating and the long [wasteful] hours you were putting in--but did not see how little you were doing--you'd probably be rewarded for it more than the guy who does more work in less time with greater quality.

You hear it a lot when people don't get their way, they're like "Oh man I deserve that raise, I work so hard" and I often want to say "Yeah, but...what did you actually do?"

*found this little gem that echoes my sentiments quite well.

Gilbreth studied the methods of various bricklayers—the poor workmen and the best ones, and he stumbled upon an astonishing fact of great importance and significance. He found that he could learn most from the lazy man!

Most of the chance improvements in human motions that eliminate unnecessary movement and reduce fatigue have been hit upon, Gilbreth thinks, by men who were lazy—so lazy that every needless step counted.”

Another important thing Gilbreth noted was that the so-called expert factory workers are often the most wasteful of their motions and strength. Because of their energy and ability to work at high speed, such men may be able to produce a large quantity of good work, and thus qualify as experts, but they tire themselves out of all proportion to the amount of work done.

That explains why we have such high turnover haha. They may not be lazy, but they're quitters. Which is kind of lazy, isn't it? :D

@mrbojangles25: They may not be lazy, but they're quitters. Which is kind of lazy, isn't it? :D

It's classic tortoise and hare stuff.

If you tell me you're working hard I know you are a blow hard.

Laziness is "that's not my job" or "I don't get paid enough to do that".

Yeah but it's not dumb to be lazy.

I used to work at a small publisher making rugby and football programs for Bristol, Bath and Cheltenham and some other things for free magazines and I usually worked later to get thing done but the other guy who was older went home at 6:30pm on the dot every day.

That took balls in an industry which is always pressuring you and has print deadlines but he never got told off or pressured ever.

Me on the other hand in one of my first jobs worked too hard. The publishers did not require the latest in graphical design trends, they are a small little company who just needs fast reliable turnover using very simple layouts done quick.

I even worked over christmas but in the new year I got fired by text!

I once made a small mistake in not applying bleed to an image and it got messed up by the printers.

But having no bleed must be a common occurrence given the amount of proofs they get every day as a big printing press.

So why couldn't the guy just correct the mistake. It would have been so easy!

So I lost my job and the guy who clocks off every day at exactly home time is still there probably never, ever breaking a sweat.

I think he uses it the same way... Bill Gates did. Or was it someone else?

@jackamomo

actually agree about something.

I have fought with social norms about this for decades.

Basically 'no ...I actually would rather have more time off then have a fancy car...no lie'

well first off that is actually not completely true (they have found having down time actually increases performance) but second off, it depends on the objective.

if the goal is to kill off as many people as possible (as an extreme example) then lazyness is actually a better thing.

so 'picking up the slack' as a value system completely depends on the objective.

also...we have a co-worker here who spent literally about 6 months working hard on something that we were able to solve for him in 6 days. he was working hard, its just he was not working smart enough

@tryit: kill off as many people as possible

Bit extreme tryit! Also doesn't quite work as an analogy as the objective is purely quantitative and being I'm talking about complex tasks with a desired objective, despite your opinion on the outcome. If the task is to kill as many people as possible, release a virus. Easy. Lazy.

But down time does increase productivity, because when your brain is burdened it is not operating efficiently.

yes it does work as analogy and there are billions of different examples at all various levels.

work for the sake of work is not by default good. it depends on what the work is for.

and again, we have a coworker who wasted 6 months working very hard at something that we solved in 6 days for him because he was a fucking moron. I literally could have done nothing at all for 5 months and STILL been more productive then he was

so work for the sake of work sake is not good.

Well honestly, with experience work often becomes easier and more efficient. But you need that hard work in the beginning to learn the ropes.

Me and my husband have been building a site for this business guy for 10+ years now and it's only just started to sell. We work our arses off on it.

We work from home which is good from one perspective as we work our own hours. The bad thing is the arse rings us at all hours of the day and night asking questions about said site or to just text about football or films like he's our mate (WTF..!!). Like say at 8pm. I mean really we could be doing 'stuff' ;)..!!

Another thing that annoys me and why this site is giving us both a nervous break down is that the arse hole keeps changing his mind about things. He really doesn't understand how much coding goes into one simple area. Or that if you change one aspect it can have a knock on effect on multiple areas of the site. His constantly re-naming titles that make no sense to a user is mind boggling and wait for it here's the best bit he never looks at the site online EVER....!!!!!!

Sorry for the rant got carried away there..!! Yeah so i work hard but i'm not an idiot.. Maybe a doormat..?

@Peasly: I was a freelance web developer for years and all this is so familiar.

I did a free short business course when on benefit after college and it tells you to note all your time down working. Even if it's not the actual coding say, but stuff around the job, emails and paperwork, meetings etc. Then you can have a true picture of how much you are earning per hour.

Apparently you are on retainer for this customer if he's your sole client and I suppose you don't want to upset him. But it feels like he has stepped over the boundaries phoning you at 8.

Is the site not have an admin area for your client?

If I do freelancing again I will draw up a proper contract which says that changes to schedules, which is your responsibility to keep, as you should be expected to project timescales which is not always easy... will come with an additional fee.

Make a schedule for work tasks in the day to manage your time effectively and suggest to him times to discuss changes at the site at intervals in between project milestones.

I think this guy needs to back off I think he's getting a hitler complex. If your worried because he's your only client you need a better working relationship or broader client base as you have given yourself the job of his b*tch. He knows he's being a dick and you may be surprised, if approached tactfully and delicately he may see your point of view if you suggest for instance "I was thinking... Why don't we compact down all the various communications in the week to just one meeting?"

He obviously views you as employees when you are in fact contractors.

Web dev is complex and a constant learning process but after 10 years it should get easier as the fundamentals reveal themselves. Using an open source CMS like Drupal should give you all the flexibility you need to build anything easily. But if he starts asking for changes to core functionality then you need to get PHP-ing which is far more complex than page styling I'm sure you're aware.

Every change he makes needs to be worked on then charged for otherwise he won't know his own business and will just keep asking for whatever he dreams up.

Clients often need educating and sometimes they will listen if they're smart. Otherwise, you have to decide to challenge him and explain your need for a more professional relationship, continue on or sever the contract if you could be making more money on other clients who are less fuss.

I'm very efficient at being lazy, does that count?

I think everybody can find a good job. Also each person have different abilities and interests. That means "hard work" is different for other people. If you work hard, you are not idiot. You just should find work which you will like. How can you find a job which you like? You should try to work in different jobs again and again. This way will make you happy... Finally. I want to believe!

I totally get and understand what you are saying, and in most ways I can agree with such sentiments, but at the same time I must say you are making a crude generalization that hard-working people are idiots. That is not true. You must analyze the hard work of an individual we're talking about here. If you're slaving away in a retail store, six days a week and working your ass off...yeah, sure, you're wasting your time. But honestly if you're working hard pursuing the things you love to do, you're doing it right.

You can't just sit on your ass and put in minimal work and expect to end up in high places. Even those people that work great jobs that give them lots of time for leisure, had to work their ways up to that point. Nothing is going to be for free.

It's about channeling the work you do into the right places that leads you to the next steps in growth. Working minimum wage, normal jobs is certainly a massive distraction for most people. The trick is to channel the amount of work you'd otherwise put into a normal job into the career path you're trying to pursue.

Again, there is no way a lazy person can build a sucessfull business. It takes a lot of work and dedication. Not to mention perservirance. I can see this applying to one of okay jobs that doesn't requiere much, but definetly not in the business world.

platitudes...

@jackamomo:

Apparently you are on retainer for this customer if he's your sole client and I suppose you don't want to upset him. But it feels like he has stepped over the boundaries phoning you at 8.

Is the site not have an admin area for your client?

If I do freelancing again I will draw up a proper contract which says that changes to schedules, which is your responsibility to keep, as you should be expected to project timescales which is not always easy... will come with an additional fee.

Make a schedule for work tasks in the day to manage your time effectively and suggest to him times to discuss changes at the site at intervals in between project milestones.

I think this guy needs to back off I think he's getting a hitler complex. If your worried because he's your only client you need a better working relationship or broader client base as you have given yourself the job of his b*tch. He knows he's being a dick and you may be surprised, if approached tactfully and delicately he may see your point of view if you suggest for instance "I was thinking... Why don't we compact down all the various communications in the week to just one meeting?"

He obviously views you as employees when you are in fact contractors.

Web dev is complex and a constant learning process but after 10 years it should get easier as the fundamentals reveal themselves. Using an open source CMS like Drupal should give you all the flexibility you need to build anything easily. But if he starts asking for changes to core functionality then you need to get PHP-ing which is far more complex than page styling I'm sure you're aware.

Every change he makes needs to be worked on then charged for otherwise he won't know his own business and will just keep asking for whatever he dreams up.

Clients often need educating and sometimes they will listen if they're smart. Otherwise, you have to decide to challenge him and explain your need for a more professional relationship, continue on or sever the contract if you could be making more money on other clients who are less fuss.

Firstly thanks for the feed back.

We stopped being freelancers when we started working for this guy as it was going to be our last big job. God it sounds like a criminal enterprise..!!!! We get paid a fixed monthly salary plus we get shares in the company which is going to be pretty good if it takes off.

Think he's panicking now as he's spent so long on it, close to 17 yrs rather than 10 and can see his money dwindling away and wants things done NOW. I like the Hitler complex analogy. I see him more as a Steve Jobs kind of guy you know he had some tech and said 'NO MAKE IT FASTER' and nearly killed off all his employees doing it. I think he's like that in that respect in that he forgets there are only 2 people coding this huge grants site (cat partially slipped out of bag there ;)) He does also have other employees working for him. They are just as messed up and fed up with him.

He has a habit of telling staff at office say for eg clients are going to want to pay multiple rates of £ for X service over Y period of time which will be sent out in an email. Firstly It was decided on a flat rate (as he wanted the quick hacked up version not the right way as we always ask him). Secondly nobody told us about any email so where do we code that in..??

Wish we could dump him. I'm suffering from a mysterious illness that makes my skin/scalp/eyelids feel like it's being stretched my bones in my head ache and i'm tired all the time. Meanwhile my husband is having a mini nervous breakdown.

Shit..!!

If you work hard, your an idiot

The irony.

@xdude85: I know I left it in to appear more human to all you plebs. I usually edit my posts until they have no grammatical errors at all.

If you working hard for pennies, then you aren't working hard. You're just being complacent and lack the self esteem to do greater.

Exactly. Big achievers in life generally work hard. Of course you have your small cases of Kardashians, but their father worked hard and they actually work hard as well to be a rather odd celebrity.

Now, if you don't work hard again, you can be in an okay job maybe great if you have connections but that's all you'll be in life.

not really true.

a study has been done and they found that the number 1 key to success more so then anything else by a fairly large margin is not skill, not intelligence and not even hard work it is however...opportunity

that is not to say there are not people in which hard work turned into great success, but there are many cases like Trump, where the public myth is that they did it on their own when in reality they were nearly gifted all of it.

Again, read my post above. I now have a business with 15+ employees. I had no opportunities growing up in poverty, being an immigrant and losing my dad at 15, which indebted my family. I simply worked hard, since that's all I've known all my life. And after 2-3 years started a business which now is giving me things I never expected in my life. Like I constantly travel now, have a big home. Not that I care about material things, but coming from nothing to where I am now is pretty awesome.

I'd like to add, considering my upbringing - in the hood, most of my friends are either in poverty, jail or dead. I decided to study hard to leave that life. Coming from where I was, the possiblites of having a rapidly growing business at my age (25) is second to none.

Again, there are a lot of entrepreneur who share my same story. Then there are cases like Trump, but even so you mention him. We do not like Trump, but Trump is again a hard worker. He worked hard to build a big business, even if it went bankrupt (part of it) and be president of the United States. So that example is not really the best.

I am telling you a study was done

meaning a scientific study in which they look at success of a large population pool and what they found was that opportunity is the main driver to success, not intelligence or hard work.

I will try and find that study for you.

more over, a lot of these 'rags to riches' stories are flat out lies.

EDIT: also the 'opportunity' formula includes being raised in a healthy enviroment, good schools etc.

the myth that all poor people are poor only because they are lazy is a pile of horseshit

Again, there are a lot of entrepreneur who share my same story. Then there are cases like Trump, but even so you mention him. We do not like Trump, but Trump is again a hard worker. He worked hard to build a big business, even if it went bankrupt (part of it) and be president of the United States. So that example is not really the best.

So you can show me the study but there is a difference from inheriting money, to working hard. You cant simply enhirit an empire, be lazy and expect it to keep growing. You need to keep working hard to sustain the business.

I'd rather you show me a study about lazy people who inherited a business and because of it went bankrupt as that would be the only way to sustain your argument.

I can show you studies however of entrepenours and how they worked hard to build big businesses, whether they inherited a business or started it up.

I dont want to get pinged for spamming but I am telling you what a scientific study concludes and what you and your buddies THINK is the key of your success is not equivalent.

You didnt have a healthy childhood? you didnt have good schools? you didnt have ANY good social connections that helped you start a business? nobody ever....nothing?

be honest

Again, all of that does apply to me and I made it out well. Then there are those that did have all of that, but still worked hard to achieve a good business.

But you still haven't gotten to the point. Show me a study of how laziness = success. You're comparing money inherited to laziness. Are you lazy? I know you said that you live in a trailer and what not. Perhaps that equals my point. Don't mean it in a disrespectful way, though.

yes its true there isnt a study that shows lazyness = success that I am aware of

nor am I suggesting that lazyness = success. I am saying the study shows that NEITHER lazyness, NOR hard work. there...more to the point.

BOTH attributes, just because I dont add an attribute to the list does not mean said attribute is a qualifier for success