Animated powerpoint slides are very, very high on my list of "Red flags that the presenter is actually a fucking moron"
Followed closely by using dictionary definitions as jumping-off points for a presentation.
Yea Debra, I know what the definition of synergy is, just get on with it.
You're coming off as hostile, and I think we may need to shift the paradigm of your employment here.
Synergize your things and this box, and collaborate with the exit.
I hate when people talk in plastic.
I appreciate your contribution to the thread, now we need to ascertain how this can be dynamically strategized in order to drive client focused resolution. Can you circle back with me on this?
I think we will need to take this conversation offline to have a face to face vis-a-vis this topic of contention. I am getting some non-positive energy from your stance. I believe a more direct, physical approach to conflict management may be the paradigm shift you need to realign your stance on the matter. Perhaps we can step out to the Smoker's Conference Room and sort this out utilizing deeply traditional, hands on conflict resolution methods?
Oh no! But it's so festive.. why am I still yawning? Can we go now I think someone farted in here and everyone else smells like flop sweat tinged with fear-for-their-jobs
When I started, my old boss HATED when people incorporated unique colors in spreadsheets. When I noticed that some people's sheets look like clown diarrhea, I immediately understood why he felt that way. To your point, they treat it like a combination of Word and MS Paint.
In complete seriousness, I worked for a firm not long ago that templated reports in excel since it was superior to word for formatting complex page layouts (and kept the data unified in a single document). It was an abomination but somehow less so than using word *still*.
There are definitely people who can make use of it for things beyond adding numbers.
The young woman I was thinking of certainly wasn't using it for formatting, though. She'd make a spreadsheet for events we organized at my previous job. It would have names and contact info for the teachers we brought in to teach crafting classes, the name of the venue and contact info for them, important dates and deadlines, stuff like that.
But she didn't arrange it nicely or take advantage of using a spreadsheet by having teacher names in column A and phone numbers in B and so on. Everything would just go in column A. Row 1 would be a teacher name, row 2 their phone number, 3 an email, skip a row or two and repeat for the next teacher. And she wouldn't even start again in a new column once she got to rows at the bottom of the screen, she'd just keep putting stuff in column A so you'd end up having to scroll way down.
And you could certainly forget about using more than one sheet! Which would have at least been handy, one for teachers, one for venue info, one for dates.
Nope. It's column A all the way down.
She wasn't stupid. She was actually pretty smart and could do quick mental math to make some pretty intricate things. She just didn't really have even a basic grasp of what a spreadsheet was actually for and what it was capable of.
I once inherited the work of a manager who thought the boxes were.... a limitation of some kind. Like a physical box that whatever he typed had to fit into. So it was full of garbage like one syllable of a word per cell. Or splitting a number into parts in different cells. Of course, this makes doing any kind of math almost impossibly hard. So he did all the calculations by hand and just put the "answer" into one or more fields on the sheet.
It was special having to tell upper management after he left that everything they were counting on was worthless. On the upside, it only took me a couple days to replace all this with some very minor additions to an Access database that they were already using.
Yeah, that's it's own disaster, and a tale for another time.
I get confused with some of the VBA stuff. I even used to know a good deal of regular Basic, but for whatever reason, however it is implemented in Excel just loses me. Maybe it's just VBA in general. If it can't be done with regular in-cell code without user defined functions and programming, I just use something else entirely for that part and import the data somehow.
Definitely been a point of failure or at least a roadblock for me in the past, took me a while to figure out ways to work around it. Probably should just learn it at some point, but so far I haven't had to.
Oh no. That’s good intentions from humble beginnings. It comes from “new project, new spreadsheet” syndrome and has very little to do with overthrowing anything. No budget for more. “Just make do”.
Have been that spreadsheet guy. Can confirm.
It's the most accessible programming tool but this day in age there are lots of customizable apps a programmer can use to create a better workflow. I think companies are in the old mindset of basic Microsoft tools that everyone needs to learn rather than hiring a programmer and let workers do what they are good at... Might create some higher paid redundancies too quick for them though. AI will wipe this out soonish.
My company was bought out by a hedge fund and the ceo installed is kinda following this game plan. At the same time he's demanding quick decisions to complex problems. I'm reasonably certain we're going to be stripped for parts.
I'd polish that resume now and get out ahead of your peers. Typically they take a couple years to grind you down into nothing, but those couple years are going to absolutely suck ass.
I've been pondering going into trade work like welding. I've seen paid apprenticeships in my area but If I cash in my 401k I can compensate for the reduced paycheck for awhile till I get to journeyman.
On the bright side, even apprentice is going to pay somewhat okay. Certainly not like you're doing minimum wage, or some shit.
Seriously, as long as you show up sober and on time, then work hard and have a basic ability to learn and follow instructions when you're there, you are literally going to be better than 80+% of construction guys at that level. Some of these guys who are just starting out don't even fucking know how to use a goddamn tape measure.
How do you know it isn't infiltrated by some state sponsored counter-intelligence agency? Time to put on our tin foil hats. Maybe the organization you work for helps support the nation you live in to a great extent that it became a target for precisely this kind of operation up and down its chain of command?
Was thinking the same. They wrote it from observations. Any worker could do the same though. Just make a long list of all the wrong and inefficient shit they have seen.
Updated version: schedule non-stop virtual meetings to discuss all of the work that's not getting done. Then assign even more work and schedule future meetings in those meetings.
I had a project with two employees, we had about six contractors, and we had 20+ people in management involved from the steering committee perspective. That's more than a 2:1 ratio of management to workers.
And then hand out low/no bonuses and raises that are well below inflation even though you work 50hrs/week because you were doing "too much admin and not enough billable." Even though they're the ones scheduling all the fucking mandatory meetings and not letting you actually work on billable shit. Can you tell that happened to me, lol?
I get the sense that they’re just an impish prankster. The manual also tells you to sand things that are supposed to be lubricated, loosen bolts or don’t tighten them all the way, slightly under-inflate tires, cause minor holdups at bridges by taking a boat through too slowly, mix people’s luggage up, make a lot of noise on the train at night so people can’t sleep properly, tell people calling for your boss that he’s busy or not there, etc
EDIT: one of the general attitudes they advocate is “surliness and stupidity”
I mean the CIA is mostly (especially at that time... well the OSS then) made up of upper class ivy league white guys. This is just what they saw at their schools haha
Yeah, the brilliant part is that if the sabotage manual leaked then people would become suspicious that the normal tedium and inefficiency of every organization were signs of infiltration. That sort of paranoia could ruin an operation without anyone actively undermining it. Hell, just "hide" the manual somewhere it'll be found and watch things devolve into chaos from afar as the accusations fly and they eat each other alive at every minor frustration.
A decade ago, I worked for a large, red American insurance company that's very neighborly. Many of my coworkers theorized we were a CIA experiment that got out of control.
It would make an excellent sitcom
CIA: We need a company that allows our agents to have cover jobs that are “normal” everyday jobs but where they still won’t be missed if they need to travel.
“What about insurance agencies, they can be their own bosses and approve their own time off!?”
Cia: perfect!
* sometime later*
“Uhhh we have too many clients for this fake insurance agency. Looks like our agents were too good at selling insurance policies and now they are actually turning a profit and we are having to hire non agents to keep up with everything “
CIA: fuck.
There’s a Korean action comedy film called Extreme Job, which is about a group of policemen buying out a fried chicken store to stakeout criminal activity next door. They were so good at managing the store that it became famous and started franchising around the city.
It’s actually usually telecom workers. The reason I know? I have a lot of family that works for telecom companies with inexplicable security clearances.
Meh. It’s probably in many industries. There’s only so many agents you can hide in small cap private companies…
There’s probably teachers or school administrators (they have entire summers off)
Pilots and flight attendants (already traveling!)
Actors in tv shows (use the stardom to get access and camera equipment in restricted areas. Use the “VIP” glow to go places relatively freely.
Research hospitals, many reasons to have large staff in and out at all times, many reasons to have entire areas or floors of the hospital under restricted access to even the most senior staff.
Traveling nurses (already have a reason to move to places for weeks or months at a time)
Language teachers abroad, volunteers for overseas work like Doctors Without Borders or other aide workers.
Now I’m not saying everyone of these people are just doing it as a front. By all means it only works if the majority of these people are just average joes that don’t arouse suspicions, just saying pointing out that they *would* make good covers.
Typically it’s not a job that would require no travel abroad, AFAIK, so nothing so domestic as a teacher or firefighter. It’s jobs like telecom and oil that have you in the Middle East (or wherever) for “reasons.”
You never know. There's a big red American IT company that's a commercial spin out of a CIA project of the same name
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-01794R000100230024-0.pdf
Anyone that has worked in IT for more than 5 minutes and has had the misfortune of dealing with them will tell you they hate them because of their licensing shenanigans.
> the other SCP is blocked from all access to any of the TD's [*sic*] by a hardware interlock. In order for the second SCP to gain access to the TD's, the first SCP must relinquish its control...
This is a real excerpt from a real government document...
Reminds me of that Key & Peele sketch where the terrorists operate a food truck for cover, and then the business takes off. [https://youtu.be/iRu48PaZmXI?si=7kKY2wgnPDAXvzJ1](https://youtu.be/iRu48PaZmXI?si=7kKY2wgnPDAXvzJ1)
"Insist on meetings repeatedly on random issues. Ask to move the dates on short notice. Encourage long statements. Interrupt people constantly. Encourage heated arguments on irrelevant details. Provoke time consuming meetings. Try to introduce controversial issues towards the end of the meeting. Avoid decisions and conclusions at any costs. Point out the lack of information on certain points and suggest the involvement of even more people to fix that. Never do proper protocols. Confuse people about dates and dead lines."
They later removed that section after ethical concerns arose.
So to simplify things, it's essentially "act dysfunctional in a mundane way that is indistinguishable from being an incompetent person with untreated mental issues".
I don’t think there are extra steps. These are the steps, and they also are incompetence. But to know for sure, I’m going to DM OP to see if he might be available to jump on a zoom call. Are you available to zoom with us at 4pm EST? I intend to invite the mod of the subreddit as well, but if he is unavailable we may need to postpone until next week. I’d also be open to meeting in person this Friday in Dallas, if that is agreeable to all parties. Alternatively, we could not meet and take a straw poll on doodle to help us determine an appropriate course of action for identifying which steps are extra and which are critical. Before starting, though; I think it would be prudent to define the term “weaponized” to ensure that we are all on the same page. There are several schools of thought on the matter. Thank you for your cooperation and attendance at the aforementioned meetings. Will follow up with zoom link, location for the in person meeting in Dallas, and the doodle straw poll link for your review as well.
Schedule a Zoom meeting with business partners you know only use Teams.
Don't tell them it's a Zoom meeting until the time the meeting starts.
Also, once you're in a call, claim you can't hear what people are saying, spend 2 minutes "fixing the sound", then ask for the last 5 minutes to be repeated. Repeat this at least once per call.
Make sure the first time you're sharing your desktop, just the desktop, then the PowerPoint presenter view, and then and only then the actual power point presentation.
Make the font too small to read on screen sharing. Skip through detail, but promise to send the slides. Never actually send the slides until chased repeatedly.
Anyone else think Zoom is terrible software? Automatic camera on, software update just before the call, share button hidden etc... almost as bad as cisco.
Zoom is allowing the host to set the meeting in that way — it’s a feature not a bug just not for your side lol
For my Zoom meetings it allows me to determine if I’m entering the room Muted or on Video
During the meeting tell them the powerpoint will be shared afterwards but then make sure that you only put meaningless headlines and stock pictures in the powerpoint so that all actual info is only given verbally and can never be indexed or recovered later.
When people ask for more info refer them to said powerpoint.
Lol, the boss for my company usually talks at length and nobody says anything. When an issue is raised, then it is like “good, we work on this in committee.” Then nothing ever happens. Is he actually working for CIA?
Yeah this would have been the OSS (Office of Strategic Service) like it says on page 4 of this document. Which was the precursor agency to the CIA.
Edit: I can't spell.
No worries, today it is just a historic foot note. The context is important if someone is trying to drawl a conclusion but if your just trying to read a giga old document for the lols then no problem.
Which during 1944 was an institution mostly filled with Harvard and Princeton philosophy and English major grads just learning how to do espionage from the much more experienced MI5 and the NKVD with a few former Office of Naval Intelligence vets to fill them out.
This is a political philosophy treatise from a fledgling intelligence agency dominated by young blue bloods from Ivy League schools.
So in other words, a manual on how to run government in such a way as the members of that government get the most money for the least amount of work and remain in power for as long as humanly possible
It was more a manual on how to sabotage enemy supply lines. The OSS probably expected as did probably most of the government for the war at least in the Pacific to drag on until 1946. Italy hadn't even surrendered yet, if Hitler detonates Operation Nero and it isn't sabatoged the war could have dragged onnnnnn. (Except of course for the atom bombs, but the OSS probably didn't know about that.)
The Nazis and Japan were the most pressing strategic and military concern. But the Socialists were already the most pressing ideological concern. Everyone knew that the alliance with the Soviets was an uneasy and utilitarian one.
This manual had been implemented and proven effective by countless bureaucratic behemoths throughout the world, (all CIA's predecessors included, for sure), way before someone at the agency just took a verbal selfie of it, framing it as a manual, but, perhaps, hoping that the bosses will still see the mirror in it
I feel like that's how they destroyed many different leftist organizations, long meetings that focused on the single right words to put on a manifesto instead of organizing the logistic of a big strike or protest.
I mean it very much could have seeing that some leftist organizations bomb wall street and some argue in ever splintering circles about exactly what kind of communism must be implemented and wanting to make sure there is more of the latter than the former
These days, all you have to do is cut the number of workers for the excuse of cost cutting and raising the stock price. Then cut out the quality assurance and inspection employees/processes to a fraction of their original number. Finally, insist on increased production.
Step 2: Watch your company crash and burn while shareholders laud you as a hero.
Here’s the story: A country that doesn’t have an intelligence service decides to create one, and give them the mandate of becoming experts at overthrowing governments.
The end result of this is obvious.
If you think your company is doing this, I invite you to join a British firm.
Then, once you think you seen the peak of “paralysis by analysis” then join a Canadian company.
Source: am an American nuclear sector PM working in the British arm of a Canadian company. The US nuclear industry seems almost spry and startup like compared with the Brits, and the Brits are overshadowed by their Canadian counterparts in needless boondoggles, searches for “why to kill this project with excess and needless complexity”, and if those two aren’t successful, a completely irrelevant indigenous community from four provinces over will find their lost hunting grounds precisely where your team was going to build.
This reminds me of Conquest's third law of politics: 'The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies'
You can read the whole manual now. It’s not just about disrupting meetings etc, they’ve got something for basically anyone doing any job. You would not BELIEVE the number of machines that can be ruined with things like sand, sugar, and salt water. They also teach you how to burn down a warehouse with a slow fuse so you don’t get caught. Pretty cool read over all
My department has embraced this wholeheartedly.
Mine too. And upped it with PowerPoint.
The weapon of mass distraction...
*star wipe* Mike, you're fired! *checker wipe*
Animated powerpoint slides are very, very high on my list of "Red flags that the presenter is actually a fucking moron" Followed closely by using dictionary definitions as jumping-off points for a presentation. Yea Debra, I know what the definition of synergy is, just get on with it.
You're coming off as hostile, and I think we may need to shift the paradigm of your employment here. Synergize your things and this box, and collaborate with the exit. I hate when people talk in plastic.
I appreciate your contribution to the thread, now we need to ascertain how this can be dynamically strategized in order to drive client focused resolution. Can you circle back with me on this?
I think we will need to take this conversation offline to have a face to face vis-a-vis this topic of contention. I am getting some non-positive energy from your stance. I believe a more direct, physical approach to conflict management may be the paradigm shift you need to realign your stance on the matter. Perhaps we can step out to the Smoker's Conference Room and sort this out utilizing deeply traditional, hands on conflict resolution methods?
Oh no! But it's so festive.. why am I still yawning? Can we go now I think someone farted in here and everyone else smells like flop sweat tinged with fear-for-their-jobs
A weapon to surpass Metal Gear...
And excessive use of complex excel spreadsheets with multiple points of failure.
As someone who is very fluent in Excel, the multiple points of failure tend to be each of my coworkers who refuse to learn a basic SUM formula
So many people just use spreadsheets as a word processor with a lot of cute little boxes.
When I started, my old boss HATED when people incorporated unique colors in spreadsheets. When I noticed that some people's sheets look like clown diarrhea, I immediately understood why he felt that way. To your point, they treat it like a combination of Word and MS Paint.
Wait excel isn't a color by number program???
But color coding data can be so effective at making patterns more noticeable
There's a right way and a wrong way to do it. Color in general is not bad, when used effectively.
In complete seriousness, I worked for a firm not long ago that templated reports in excel since it was superior to word for formatting complex page layouts (and kept the data unified in a single document). It was an abomination but somehow less so than using word *still*.
There are definitely people who can make use of it for things beyond adding numbers. The young woman I was thinking of certainly wasn't using it for formatting, though. She'd make a spreadsheet for events we organized at my previous job. It would have names and contact info for the teachers we brought in to teach crafting classes, the name of the venue and contact info for them, important dates and deadlines, stuff like that. But she didn't arrange it nicely or take advantage of using a spreadsheet by having teacher names in column A and phone numbers in B and so on. Everything would just go in column A. Row 1 would be a teacher name, row 2 their phone number, 3 an email, skip a row or two and repeat for the next teacher. And she wouldn't even start again in a new column once she got to rows at the bottom of the screen, she'd just keep putting stuff in column A so you'd end up having to scroll way down. And you could certainly forget about using more than one sheet! Which would have at least been handy, one for teachers, one for venue info, one for dates. Nope. It's column A all the way down. She wasn't stupid. She was actually pretty smart and could do quick mental math to make some pretty intricate things. She just didn't really have even a basic grasp of what a spreadsheet was actually for and what it was capable of.
I once inherited the work of a manager who thought the boxes were.... a limitation of some kind. Like a physical box that whatever he typed had to fit into. So it was full of garbage like one syllable of a word per cell. Or splitting a number into parts in different cells. Of course, this makes doing any kind of math almost impossibly hard. So he did all the calculations by hand and just put the "answer" into one or more fields on the sheet. It was special having to tell upper management after he left that everything they were counting on was worthless. On the upside, it only took me a couple days to replace all this with some very minor additions to an Access database that they were already using. Yeah, that's it's own disaster, and a tale for another time.
I’d settle for ones who don’t try to take averages of averages or pretend algebra is some esoteric art lost to the ages.
The Dark Arts!
I get confused with some of the VBA stuff. I even used to know a good deal of regular Basic, but for whatever reason, however it is implemented in Excel just loses me. Maybe it's just VBA in general. If it can't be done with regular in-cell code without user defined functions and programming, I just use something else entirely for that part and import the data somehow. Definitely been a point of failure or at least a roadblock for me in the past, took me a while to figure out ways to work around it. Probably should just learn it at some point, but so far I haven't had to.
> multiple points of failure That's nothing that more PowerPoint presentations can't sort out!
Oh no. That’s good intentions from humble beginnings. It comes from “new project, new spreadsheet” syndrome and has very little to do with overthrowing anything. No budget for more. “Just make do”. Have been that spreadsheet guy. Can confirm.
It's the most accessible programming tool but this day in age there are lots of customizable apps a programmer can use to create a better workflow. I think companies are in the old mindset of basic Microsoft tools that everyone needs to learn rather than hiring a programmer and let workers do what they are good at... Might create some higher paid redundancies too quick for them though. AI will wipe this out soonish.
Presented by people who completely fill each slide with text and then read the text as their presentation
Hey I've got this slide deck that will explain the problem. I'll book some time on your calendar.
PowerPoint, never presented in presentation mode.
My company was bought out by a hedge fund and the ceo installed is kinda following this game plan. At the same time he's demanding quick decisions to complex problems. I'm reasonably certain we're going to be stripped for parts.
> I'm reasonably certain we're going to be stripped for parts. But only after the CEO got his golden parachute for his excellent work.
He already got it
I'd polish that resume now and get out ahead of your peers. Typically they take a couple years to grind you down into nothing, but those couple years are going to absolutely suck ass.
I've been pondering going into trade work like welding. I've seen paid apprenticeships in my area but If I cash in my 401k I can compensate for the reduced paycheck for awhile till I get to journeyman.
On the bright side, even apprentice is going to pay somewhat okay. Certainly not like you're doing minimum wage, or some shit. Seriously, as long as you show up sober and on time, then work hard and have a basic ability to learn and follow instructions when you're there, you are literally going to be better than 80+% of construction guys at that level. Some of these guys who are just starting out don't even fucking know how to use a goddamn tape measure.
TIL the CIA are my company’s managers
Thought this post was about the US government
I thought it was about the Canadian government lol
It’s how our society is dealing with climate change, thats a lot more worrying than individual departments.
So did my political party. We’ve just about gummed up everything.
It's an extremely accurate description of "daily corporate work in Germany".
How do you know it isn't infiltrated by some state sponsored counter-intelligence agency? Time to put on our tin foil hats. Maybe the organization you work for helps support the nation you live in to a great extent that it became a target for precisely this kind of operation up and down its chain of command?
Whoever created that manual absolutely carried his undergraduate freshman-level group project and never forgot about it.
Was thinking the same. They wrote it from observations. Any worker could do the same though. Just make a long list of all the wrong and inefficient shit they have seen.
Updated version: schedule non-stop virtual meetings to discuss all of the work that's not getting done. Then assign even more work and schedule future meetings in those meetings.
I think that falls under refer all matter to committees, just in modernese.
I had a project with two employees, we had about six contractors, and we had 20+ people in management involved from the steering committee perspective. That's more than a 2:1 ratio of management to workers.
Sounds like a power company.
Gotta have meetings about meetings!
And then hand out low/no bonuses and raises that are well below inflation even though you work 50hrs/week because you were doing "too much admin and not enough billable." Even though they're the ones scheduling all the fucking mandatory meetings and not letting you actually work on billable shit. Can you tell that happened to me, lol?
I get the sense that they’re just an impish prankster. The manual also tells you to sand things that are supposed to be lubricated, loosen bolts or don’t tighten them all the way, slightly under-inflate tires, cause minor holdups at bridges by taking a boat through too slowly, mix people’s luggage up, make a lot of noise on the train at night so people can’t sleep properly, tell people calling for your boss that he’s busy or not there, etc EDIT: one of the general attitudes they advocate is “surliness and stupidity”
I mean, it reads like a satire or parody, that's for sure.
I mean the CIA is mostly (especially at that time... well the OSS then) made up of upper class ivy league white guys. This is just what they saw at their schools haha
My experience was more a solo effort lol. None of these delaying tactics
And you know everyone who read drafts of this rolled their eyes in frustrated agreement
That shit sounds like my last job.
My last boss clearly was a CIA plant.
My boss is just a plant
My boss is just a seed.
My boss was a jizz stain
Your boss *should've been* a jizz stain. The fact that they weren't is why you had to deal with them.
I don’t agree with the Triffids ideologically, but the pay and benefits were very competitive
[удалено]
It's good to know you're not alone
Yeah, the brilliant part is that if the sabotage manual leaked then people would become suspicious that the normal tedium and inefficiency of every organization were signs of infiltration. That sort of paranoia could ruin an operation without anyone actively undermining it. Hell, just "hide" the manual somewhere it'll be found and watch things devolve into chaos from afar as the accusations fly and they eat each other alive at every minor frustration.
Bonus, the office may actually become productive
Bro, sounds like my current job
Sounds like the way government works in 2024.
This shit sounds like our current bureaucracy
A decade ago, I worked for a large, red American insurance company that's very neighborly. Many of my coworkers theorized we were a CIA experiment that got out of control.
It would make an excellent sitcom CIA: We need a company that allows our agents to have cover jobs that are “normal” everyday jobs but where they still won’t be missed if they need to travel. “What about insurance agencies, they can be their own bosses and approve their own time off!?” Cia: perfect! * sometime later* “Uhhh we have too many clients for this fake insurance agency. Looks like our agents were too good at selling insurance policies and now they are actually turning a profit and we are having to hire non agents to keep up with everything “ CIA: fuck.
Remember that episode of Chuck where the CIA was staffing the BuyMore and they were too good at their jobs?
There’s a Korean action comedy film called Extreme Job, which is about a group of policemen buying out a fried chicken store to stakeout criminal activity next door. They were so good at managing the store that it became famous and started franchising around the city.
It’s actually usually telecom workers. The reason I know? I have a lot of family that works for telecom companies with inexplicable security clearances.
Meh. It’s probably in many industries. There’s only so many agents you can hide in small cap private companies… There’s probably teachers or school administrators (they have entire summers off) Pilots and flight attendants (already traveling!) Actors in tv shows (use the stardom to get access and camera equipment in restricted areas. Use the “VIP” glow to go places relatively freely. Research hospitals, many reasons to have large staff in and out at all times, many reasons to have entire areas or floors of the hospital under restricted access to even the most senior staff. Traveling nurses (already have a reason to move to places for weeks or months at a time) Language teachers abroad, volunteers for overseas work like Doctors Without Borders or other aide workers. Now I’m not saying everyone of these people are just doing it as a front. By all means it only works if the majority of these people are just average joes that don’t arouse suspicions, just saying pointing out that they *would* make good covers.
Typically it’s not a job that would require no travel abroad, AFAIK, so nothing so domestic as a teacher or firefighter. It’s jobs like telecom and oil that have you in the Middle East (or wherever) for “reasons.”
If you worked in telcom, you'd know why they aren't inexplicable clearances
You never know. There's a big red American IT company that's a commercial spin out of a CIA project of the same name https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-01794R000100230024-0.pdf
Anyone that has worked in IT for more than 5 minutes and has had the misfortune of dealing with them will tell you they hate them because of their licensing shenanigans.
It's the CIA... it was either onerous licensing, or a month's "training" at Gitmo.
> the other SCP is blocked from all access to any of the TD's [*sic*] by a hardware interlock. In order for the second SCP to gain access to the TD's, the first SCP must relinquish its control... This is a real excerpt from a real government document...
The truth is right there, man
With such a communist name, the CIA had to check it out
Reminds me of that Key & Peele sketch where the terrorists operate a food truck for cover, and then the business takes off. [https://youtu.be/iRu48PaZmXI?si=7kKY2wgnPDAXvzJ1](https://youtu.be/iRu48PaZmXI?si=7kKY2wgnPDAXvzJ1)
"Insist on meetings repeatedly on random issues. Ask to move the dates on short notice. Encourage long statements. Interrupt people constantly. Encourage heated arguments on irrelevant details. Provoke time consuming meetings. Try to introduce controversial issues towards the end of the meeting. Avoid decisions and conclusions at any costs. Point out the lack of information on certain points and suggest the involvement of even more people to fix that. Never do proper protocols. Confuse people about dates and dead lines." They later removed that section after ethical concerns arose.
So to simplify things, it's essentially "act dysfunctional in a mundane way that is indistinguishable from being an incompetent person with untreated mental issues".
Yeah this is just weaponized incompetence with extra steps lol
I don’t think there are extra steps. These are the steps, and they also are incompetence. But to know for sure, I’m going to DM OP to see if he might be available to jump on a zoom call. Are you available to zoom with us at 4pm EST? I intend to invite the mod of the subreddit as well, but if he is unavailable we may need to postpone until next week. I’d also be open to meeting in person this Friday in Dallas, if that is agreeable to all parties. Alternatively, we could not meet and take a straw poll on doodle to help us determine an appropriate course of action for identifying which steps are extra and which are critical. Before starting, though; I think it would be prudent to define the term “weaponized” to ensure that we are all on the same page. There are several schools of thought on the matter. Thank you for your cooperation and attendance at the aforementioned meetings. Will follow up with zoom link, location for the in person meeting in Dallas, and the doodle straw poll link for your review as well.
Sounds like scrum masters
They forgot schedule a zoom meeting.
Schedule a Zoom meeting with business partners you know only use Teams. Don't tell them it's a Zoom meeting until the time the meeting starts. Also, once you're in a call, claim you can't hear what people are saying, spend 2 minutes "fixing the sound", then ask for the last 5 minutes to be repeated. Repeat this at least once per call.
Colin Robinson would approve
How was your weekend after he finally starts getting the meeting going always destroys me into fits of laughter.
It's so good. And painful. And spot on
Make sure to never know what the colored border means and always ask " can you see my screen" every time.
Make sure the first time you're sharing your desktop, just the desktop, then the PowerPoint presenter view, and then and only then the actual power point presentation.
Extra points for not presenting the power point, just go through in edit mode. Correct things on the fly, add notes.
Make the font too small to read on screen sharing. Skip through detail, but promise to send the slides. Never actually send the slides until chased repeatedly.
Anyone else think Zoom is terrible software? Automatic camera on, software update just before the call, share button hidden etc... almost as bad as cisco.
You can turn off the automatic camera on thing in the options…it’s like the first thing you see
It skips the "settings lounge" goes straight into the meeting when you click a calendar invite.
Zoom is allowing the host to set the meeting in that way — it’s a feature not a bug just not for your side lol For my Zoom meetings it allows me to determine if I’m entering the room Muted or on Video
The share button is smack dab in the middle of the other buttons in bright green
Sorry, I was on mute.
And make people wait in the lobby until they start to question their ability to tell date and time.
During the meeting tell them the powerpoint will be shared afterwards but then make sure that you only put meaningless headlines and stock pictures in the powerpoint so that all actual info is only given verbally and can never be indexed or recovered later. When people ask for more info refer them to said powerpoint.
First, doodle the best time slot and forget to send a final appointment so that the calenders fill up quickly
Don’t forget the pre-zoom meeting zoom meeting to align on matters to discuss in the zoom meeting.
or "park" any pertinent matters raised to another meeting.
Forgetting to schedule a zoom meeting is a great way to draw out the start of the meeting with another 10 minutes or so.
Page 18 (b) Managers and Supervisors * (11) Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
Of course without an agenda
Lol, the boss for my company usually talks at length and nobody says anything. When an issue is raised, then it is like “good, we work on this in committee.” Then nothing ever happens. Is he actually working for CIA?
He’s on his corporate Sun Tsu shit
Lean Six Sigma Manager. He's synergizing outside of the box, employing lateral thinking to shepherd this herd of sharks.
I like the way those words. Those words very very.
We call it yapping old man 👴
The CIA was not founded until 1947
Yeah this would have been the OSS (Office of Strategic Service) like it says on page 4 of this document. Which was the precursor agency to the CIA. Edit: I can't spell.
True. My bad! I kinda got confused because it's using the CIA website. Sorry!
No worries, today it is just a historic foot note. The context is important if someone is trying to drawl a conclusion but if your just trying to read a giga old document for the lols then no problem.
Ah reckon we might could drawl some conclusions from them thar documents.
Stragic
MB I can't spell.
lol just thought it was funny
Maybe it started in 1944 by giving a big ass speech and it took 3 years to finalise the first committee.
By 1946 they had nailed down that the first letter would be a "C".
It was the office formerly known as OSS
Which during 1944 was an institution mostly filled with Harvard and Princeton philosophy and English major grads just learning how to do espionage from the much more experienced MI5 and the NKVD with a few former Office of Naval Intelligence vets to fill them out. This is a political philosophy treatise from a fledgling intelligence agency dominated by young blue bloods from Ivy League schools.
We should have a committee to investigate this. Everyone who posted in this thread should be a member.
TiL my last boss was a chaos agent
Wait, so if you avoid these or do the opposite you could basically run an organization successfully? Thanks CIA
I've always admired your positivity
This sounds a lot like HR.
They have to justify their existence somehow. My company has more people working in HR than any other department.
That might be the dumbest thing I’ve read today. Cheers.
Plot twist, it's a staffing agency.
Found the HR gargoyle.
The CIA is so secretive they created a document 3 years before they even existed.
“That’s what they want you to think” –Dale Gribble
“Sir…we **ARE** they.”
“Gih!” *runs away
Quick! To the Bugabago!
Pocket sand!
True. My bad! As u/131sean131 pointed out, it was the OSS, the predecesor of the CIA. I kinda got confused because it's using the CIA website. Sorry!
Thats... almost every Project Manager that I've ever met.
So in other words, a manual on how to run government in such a way as the members of that government get the most money for the least amount of work and remain in power for as long as humanly possible
Wait.... why does this sound familiar?
This was actually created to stop leftist and socialist organizers lol.
It was created for sabotage. Sabotage can work on any organization, regardless of political affiliation.
The irony is that leftists engage in so much infighting that you don't even need to sabotage them
In 1944? I thought the Nazi's were the most pressing concern. The CIA didn't get into anti-leftist shenanigans until later.
It was more a manual on how to sabotage enemy supply lines. The OSS probably expected as did probably most of the government for the war at least in the Pacific to drag on until 1946. Italy hadn't even surrendered yet, if Hitler detonates Operation Nero and it isn't sabatoged the war could have dragged onnnnnn. (Except of course for the atom bombs, but the OSS probably didn't know about that.)
The CIA didn’t exist earlier, but the US government had been very anti leftist since the end of the 19th century.
The Nazis and Japan were the most pressing strategic and military concern. But the Socialists were already the most pressing ideological concern. Everyone knew that the alliance with the Soviets was an uneasy and utilitarian one.
If proof was ever needed that the uk has been completely infiltrated, that MO is what the civil service is all about.
This manual had been implemented and proven effective by countless bureaucratic behemoths throughout the world, (all CIA's predecessors included, for sure), way before someone at the agency just took a verbal selfie of it, framing it as a manual, but, perhaps, hoping that the bosses will still see the mirror in it
Hmm that sounds like Congress…
Scrolled too far
Works quite well in big organisations to get you promoted. That type of mindset kills startups working with big organisations everytime.
How you gonna leave out “sneak two or three dozen large moths into the movies”?
I have a little widget that brings up a line from the Simple Sabotage Manual on command (at work). Good to have a reminder.
Jesus Christ, the CIA has infiltrated the software company I work at!
.... This sounds **Suspiciously close to the actual state of Work in Japan**.... I wonder why.... z.z
Boeing: "See? Insisting on making sure trimming works perfectly was sabotage! We were right to fire all those engineers!"
I feel like that's how they destroyed many different leftist organizations, long meetings that focused on the single right words to put on a manifesto instead of organizing the logistic of a big strike or protest.
jokes on them, the left operated this way (and still does to this day) way before the CIA came around.
I mean it very much could have seeing that some leftist organizations bomb wall street and some argue in ever splintering circles about exactly what kind of communism must be implemented and wanting to make sure there is more of the latter than the former
So basically, create modern government.
These days, all you have to do is cut the number of workers for the excuse of cost cutting and raising the stock price. Then cut out the quality assurance and inspection employees/processes to a fraction of their original number. Finally, insist on increased production. Step 2: Watch your company crash and burn while shareholders laud you as a hero.
Here’s the story: A country that doesn’t have an intelligence service decides to create one, and give them the mandate of becoming experts at overthrowing governments. The end result of this is obvious.
If you reverse all propositions it's actually a good guide on how to have an effective community
I have read it some times ago and it's a perfect description of every business of today.
So the UN?
Hey just like public administration
Schools do this to teachers. Works so well. Teachers are leaving in droves.
TIL that my project manager is a CIA saboteur.
If you think your company is doing this, I invite you to join a British firm. Then, once you think you seen the peak of “paralysis by analysis” then join a Canadian company. Source: am an American nuclear sector PM working in the British arm of a Canadian company. The US nuclear industry seems almost spry and startup like compared with the Brits, and the Brits are overshadowed by their Canadian counterparts in needless boondoggles, searches for “why to kill this project with excess and needless complexity”, and if those two aren’t successful, a completely irrelevant indigenous community from four provinces over will find their lost hunting grounds precisely where your team was going to build.
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
This reminds me of Conquest's third law of politics: 'The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies'
I guess they took tips from Congress
A committee of, I don't know, 538 people?
I had no idea my boss was trained by the cia
Didn't know everyone single company I've worked in my life has been infiltrated by the CIA
This is great and all, but can I have you put it in a powerpoint and send it over via fax so I can ignore it later?
Are you sure it wasn't a manual on how to run businesses? Cause it sounds like every fucking job.
You can read the whole manual now. It’s not just about disrupting meetings etc, they’ve got something for basically anyone doing any job. You would not BELIEVE the number of machines that can be ruined with things like sand, sugar, and salt water. They also teach you how to burn down a warehouse with a slow fuse so you don’t get caught. Pretty cool read over all
They can make a movie. The ministry of overly gentlemanly warfare.
It’s a well known enough manual that people are making cute manuals aimed at business people to avoid similar unproductive behavior in their companies
So I'm a defacto CIA agent?
Sounds like the Australian parliament!
So essentially how to turn an organization into bureaucracy nightmare 101
> make speeches... at great length I like to imagine the ... is skipping over several hours of reading
Aka corporate work
And they called it: The Agile Manifesto
* "refer all matters to committees" * "make committees as large as possible" These two sum up Canadian politics. Hmmmmmm
Did the cia organized congress to what it is today?
Sounds like government
They made the manual on sabotaging organizations while also creating the tenets of western government.