Simple Sabotage Field Manual | Hacker News Reader

Simple Sabotage Field Manual

openculture.com

20 pointsjbajic8 comments

Q: Why do multi-million and billion dollar agencies seem unable, or unwilling, to accomplish the simplest of tasks? Why do so many of us spend our lives in the real-life bureaucratic nightmares satirized in the The Office and Office Space?

A: Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution -- The Shirky Principle

AKA It's what pays.

excerpt from submission, a summary of sabatoge[foot gunning]

--You will laugh ruefully, then maybe shudder a little as you recognize how much your own workplace, and many others, resemble the kind of dysfunctional mess the OSS meticulously planned during World War II.

Organizations and Conferences

    Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
    Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
    When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committee as large as possible — never less than five.
    Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
    Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
    Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
    Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

Managers

    In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers.
    Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw.
    To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions.
    Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
    Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.

Employees

    Work slowly
    Work slowly.
    Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can.
    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.
    Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.

While it’s certainly funny (in a very morbid way) how much this resembles workplaces I’ve been in, I how how much it resembles those of the past.

Surely the CIA did not invent incompetence and method of disincentivizing work. So how far back do we have to look before we stop seeing this behaviour in our history? Does all work run into these problems, or are certain arrangements more/less susceptible to it?

this seems a large bit michavaelian in foundation. ] the etymology, not your comment [

reading nico's work [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince] reveals some of Sun Tzu's principia. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War]

Well, the advice is intended to allow saboteurs to remain undetected - it's entirely intentional that these seem like things we often see in organisations.

The sabotage field manual contains plenty of other advice [1] - but nobody recounts advice like "start fires in rooms with gas illumination", "issue tickets slowly close to train departure times" and "two or three moths will disrupt enemy propaganda films when they are drawn to and block the projector"

[1] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/26184-h/26184-h.htm

Reposts are fine after a year or so but this perennial had a big thread a few months ago:

Excerpt from CIA's Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597454 - Dec 2021 (209 comments)

Also:

Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 - Feb 2020 (89 comments)

Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 - Aug 2017 (32 comments)

The CIA’s 1944 Simple Sabotage Field Manual (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 - Aug 2016 (64 comments)

Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 - Nov 2015 (68 comments)

Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 - Nov 2012 (67 comments)

WW2 "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" declassified [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=905750 - Oct 2009 (6 comments)

OSS (pre-CIA) Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443 - Sept 2009 (29 comments)

(2015)

Pretty timeless unintended (?) satire of corporate culture.

Previously discussed here, with links to other discussions in dang's comment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597454

Interesting though experiment: turn those sabotage instructions into their exact opposite. Are the results recipes for an efficient work culture? If not, why not?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com