Declassified CIA documents detail how to sabotage employers, annoy bosses | Hacker News Reader

Declassified CIA documents detail how to sabotage employers, annoy bosses

independent.co.uk

87 pointsrobinwarren21 comments

    "When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible - never less than five.

    Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.

    Misunderstand orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.

    Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

    Be unreasonable and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

    Don't order new working' materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.

    To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.

    Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.

    Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope."

Seems like items 1-4 are strongly in effect at most places I've been to, unintentionally of course. The statements on committee-forming and pedantic wording ring particularly true, and I fear that these things are what people are learning from each other. You don't need a committee or meeting for most decisions, and the wording seldom matters so long as the spirit is there for internal documents.

I like when government "wants" to solve some problem and instantiate a committee... it straight away means that they won't do a thing.

Some points from original PDF:

Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments.

When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.

Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing you from doing your job right.

The original of the document seems to be open since 2012: https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/...

I'm wondering how much it would take to invert every item, and turn the guide document into management best practices.

Also it originates on the OSS (the precursor to the CIA)

And given that the OSS was infamous for being populated with high social status corporate types, "Oh So Social" was one variant it was called, we can be very sure they learned these methods, one way or another, in the organizations they came from, so it's inherently useful either way.

So... Either this is an inside joke or basically every company in America (and very likely everywhere) is a CIA front.

My employer has been heavily infiltrated!

I wonder how many of us reading this are nodding their heads and saying the same thing! Either there are too many spies in the workforce, or the agency needs to up it's tactics. Perhaps starting with "keep fiddling with your phone in meetings", "put Annoy-a-tron in your boss' room" etc.

Shit man, at this point I'm wondering if I'm not actually working for the CIA's industrial sabotage training department. That list is basically an SoP.

Made a readable version of original document part related to office work: https://gist.github.com/sigsergv/4ef7760bce859c67e298

This would explain a few of the places I've worked at :(

higher quality version

http://www.simplesabotage.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Ori...

This is less of a how to sabotage and more like a list of productivity killing things they acknowledged were killing productivity and a suggestion that they can be applied in the context of sabotage.

While unsurprising, it's mildly amusing.

11.a.5: "Haggle over precise wordings of communications..."

"productivity killing" is exactly what sabotage is, be it cutting railroad track or persuading telephone operators to randomly drop calls. You just said that sabotage is sabotage applied in the context of sabotage :)

Dogbert? Is that you?

So the CIA invented Change MAnagement back in 1944 then?

They seem to have done most of the ITIL 2.0 taxonomy. Service desk, CMDB, service catalog, and it wouldn't take much more for a PPM document.

cia in 1944 how is that possible ? the agency was founded in 1947...

In the first paragraph on the linked page

> In 1944, CIA’s precursor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), created the Simple Sabotage Field Manual.

"Pay every employee, whether good or bad, 70 thousand a year."

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