Some stunning and shocking research has been reported by BBC News. They've concluded that if you exercise you can eat more than someone who sits around doing nothing all day and not get as fat. I'm not sure how this revolutionary news will change our lives. I guess the scientists would suggest we should actually get out of the car and use FFOM 1.
I found this article on another blog yesterday and it relates quite well to us I think. For those that can't be bothered to read the article features Doug Richard, formerly one of the Dragons on Dragons' Den, talking about the way luck plays a part in business success. It's a concept that should be familiar to anyone in the world of the lazy. Sure, we want to spend our time doing nothing, but sometimes opportunities come up and you have to move fast to seize them. I guess everyone has heard the joke about the guy trapped in a flood?
A guy is caught in his house in a massive flood, maybe it's New Orleans and he's too poor to get evacuated with the rich folk. So anyway the flood waters are rising and when the water starts to fill up the ground floor of the house. Then a man in a rowboat rows past and asks "Need any help?"
But the guy in the house said, "Nope, the Lord'll take care of me!" Anyway it's a long joke but a few other people come along and try and help him but every time he says "Nope, the Lord'll take care of me!" Eventually the guy drowns and goes to heaven and when he gets there he says "God! Why didn't you save me?" and God says, "Well, I sent two rowboats, the navy and a helicopter!"
Anyway, for the lazy it's extremely important that you take your opportunities when they come along, after all, you're not out there making your opportunities for yourself are you? When I was at university the uni had a policy that in the first year it'd endeavour to provide all first year students with a place in university accommodation, but in your second and third years you were pretty much on your own and had to find private accommodation. I got together with a couple of friends and we agreed we'd find a house to share. Now, of course, we were really lazy and did nothing whilst everyone else spent a great deal of time searching and dealing with dodgy private landlords.
A lot of time passed and it was getting perilously close to the time we really needed to have somewhere sorted, and we'd done literally nothing. We were going to end up with a complete shit hole in the middle of nowhere, miles from college, which is pretty disasterous. Then we got word from a friend of ours about a great opportunity. The university actually had some houses that it managed on behalf of private landlords for second and third years to rent. You had to get in really, really early to register on their lists to get to pick from these and obviously we hadn't managed it. At this late stage though, there were still a few houses up for grabs, and we got wind from a friend of ours that the houses were going to be released to the general population on a certain day, so we got down there early and nabbed a brilliant house, miles better than anyone else that we knew had got, cheaper, and only an 8 minute walk from my bed to my lecture theatres. Once again being lazy had paid off handsomely.
So, I totally agree with the article, the secret to business success, or achieving your adequacy with ease is that when you get a bit of luck like this you have to make sure you take full advantage of it otherwise all the benefits of your lack of effort will slip through your fingers!
Here at LazyView, we love fast food. Because it's fast(ish) and we don't have to make it. Unfortunately, sometimes fast food isn't easy as it should be. Most times it's because of the people behind the counter. Other times it's because people don't know how to properly order. Now I have a great bond with those people behind the counter, they're almost certainly lazy as hell. Let's face it, 95% of people don't work at fast food restaurants because of the great career opportunities.
Not that they aren't fine people mind you. No. Quite the opposite. They're just out there looking for some money with the least possible effort. We here at LazyView wholeheartedly support that.
No, I'm here to talk about ordering. As Mikey Mike and the Funky Bunch alluded to in an earlier post, ordering at a fast food place can be tricky. Luckily for you, I'm here to help. After all my years, and my 3 heart attacks, ordering at Bojangle's, I've finally figured out that there are two distinct Fast Food Ordering Methods. One for the drive through, and one for inside the restaurant. Using both of these will allow both parties to maintain maximum laziness, with minimal work, resulting in maximum efficiency.
FFOM 1: Interior Restuarant Method.
Pros: Higher likelihood of a correct order. Exercise. People watching.
Cons: Have to get out of car. Have to be around other people. No car radio. Slower.
Methodology: This is the method discovered by my platitudinous colleague entirely by accident while this advanced theory was under development. The problem is, when people are face to face, they automatically expect some form of structure conversation. Look at the following example where you and your homie enter a Bojangle's for some fine Southern nourishment (and possible heart and bowel problems):
Employee of Doom (and Laziness): "Hi. This for here or to go?"
You: "For here."
Employee of Doom (and Laziness): "What can I get you?"
You: "I need a filet biscuit combo."
Employee of Doom (and Laziness): "French Fries and Ice Tea?"
You: "Yeah"
Employee of Doom (and Laziness): "Anything else?"
You: "Yeah. Can I get an extra order of fries."
Employee of Doom (and Laziness): "Is that it?"
You: "No. I also need a quarter white."
Employee of Doom (and Laziness): "What sides?"
And so on and so forth. See? It's not an order. It's a legitimate conversation. If for no other reason that the make up of the human psychology. When you're face to face with a person you're on a level playing field and things like eye contact and body language come in to play and the full complexity of human interaction is on display. Even when you're just trying to stuff your face with some greasy shitfood. There's no magic to it. And there's no way around it.
FFOM 2: Drive Thru
Pros: Usually faster. In car entertainment to fill waiting times.
Cons: Planet raping (possibly a pro) via carbon monoxide emissions. Only one line, so it CAN also be slow. High likelihood that your order will be more fucked up than 3 year old after a shot of whisky.
Methodology: This method of ordering offers a completely streamlined experience. Since you're talking to an inanimate speaker there's no need for eye contact or those natural conversational pauses that normally occur when two people face off. There's no give and take in the conversation. The people manning the register on the other side of this speaker are trained to keep listening until you stop talking so fire away with your complete order, only pausing between complete sets of food. For example, you and your dogg are ordering at a Bojangle's drive thru.
Speaker of Doom (and Static): "Welco to Bojangle's. Can help oo?"
You: "Can I get a filet biscuit combo, French fries, Ice Tea, and an extra order of fries?"
Speaker of Doom (and Static): "Will tha be al?"
You: "I also need a quarter white, 2 biscuits with jelly, Ice Tea, and some Bo Rounds."
Speaker of Doom (and Static): "Th'll be nine sixty plurh. Pull round."
Pure speed right there. I love it. Plus I don't have to stand in line. I can sit on my ever expanding ass and listen to Earth, Wind, and Fire...I mean TI. Assuming Consuela and her microphone picked up everything you said, you're golden. I can't stress it enough...Do not wait for Consuela to confirm any part of your order. You will start talking over each other and things will get strange and awkward from there. You further increase your chances of a fucked up order and you may even end up on a date with Consuela. Consuela is not pretty. Trust me.
Conclusion
Both methods have their merits. You just have to know what you're getting in to. If you go into a restaurant you have to use method 1. Ty method 2 and you'll end up like poor Mikey. Repeating yourself like a parrot with a stutter. When speaking face to face people don't like to be ordered around, even though that's exactly what you're supposed to be doing. They like to spoken to like human beings. Not inanimate objects. Damn them all to hell.
I get the train to work every morning. Well, every work day morning. Unfortunately so far I haven't been able to find an alternative to a normal job to provide me with an income to provide for my adequate lifestyle. So every morning I turn up at the station, buy a ticket, get on the train and go to work.
Wait, I hear you cry, you buy a ticket every morning? Can't you get a season ticket or something? Well... yes, yes I could get a season ticket. I even did that once a few years ago. I ended up leaving it in my trousers when I washed them thus destroying the ticket. Considering I was single at the time and subsequently was quite smelly and washed my clothes as infrequently as possible, this was quite unlucky. Anyway, since that brief flirtation with season tickets I've never bothered again. It's actually really easy in theory, all I need to do is get a photograph, go and sign up at the station and then I can just buy 1 ticket a month rather than 1 a day. There are a couple of photo machines in the station, and as I said, I pass through there twice a day so it's not even out of my way. I think I can even buy my renewals from the automated ticket machines now rather than having to queue up to get to the ticket counter. It'd also save me money. The danger is you go to all that effort, and then destroy it again.
It's not just me who does this, I know at least a couple of other people do, or have in the past, bought their tickets daily instead of getting a season ticket. It's quite bizarre really. I guess the daily 2 minutes getting a ticket feels like less effort than getting season ticket once a month. I wonder if this is one of those times where I'm actually going to have to take some action to sustain future laziness?
I was having a search around the world of Laziness on the internet and I came across the following site. This is the blog of a guy, Fred, who has a similar philosophy to ours in some ways. His website, and book, is the Lazy Way to Success and he talks a lot about how you can be successful without expending much effort. He talks about some of the problems all lazy practitioners will experience. For instance as he points out Lazy isn't really the right word in all situations. In a work environment I'd definitely say I was "efficient" because I am getting the maximum output from the minimum input. Someone in a management position might say I was Lazy because I wasn't expending the minimum effort all day long. My view is that if I get the work that needs doing done in a fraction of the time no-one should care, right?
D (no-one calls him that, he's neither cool or a gangster) mentioned in passing in his post earlier today that a much simpler goal is to aim for adequacy. We'll probably talk about this in much more depth in the upcoming weeks and months but it's worth giving you an overview. What people basically want out of life is a few basic requirements: a nice roof over your head, enough to eat, a comfy bed, someone to sleep with, as much booze as you can drink and a massive widescreen TV with surround sound and millions of channels. Once you have those things, why try any harder? The lazy man should never strive for success when adequacy is so much easier. It doesn't matter how easy Fred's concepts for achieving success are because using the same techniques to achieve adequacy requires much less effort. Being rich might sound good, and if something comes along and makes you rich without you doing anything then great, but it's really not necessary in any way.
I should note that, as my girlfriend will almost inevitably read this post, that one area of my life I'd never be lazy in is my love life. Ah, who am I kidding, she knows me too well. I was just lucky that I ended up with the girlfriend equivalent of something great coming along and making me rich without me having to do anything.
People often say to me, "Hey D" (they say D because I'm totally cool and a street gangsta, also they're lazy and don't want to say my whole name) "How can I make laziness work for me?" After a hearty laugh and a slap on the back/shoulder area I sit them down, attempt to steal their wallet, and drop knowledge as they say.
Laziness can work in many ways. For example: When you're at the club, don't aim for the hottest chicks in the building, they're way to much work. You'll need to dance and dance well. You'll need to buy drinks. Probably those expensive foofoo drinks those high maintenance girls always need. And you'll need to be witty and charming and handsome. Good lord, I'm getting tired just thinking about it and I haven't even mentioned potentially fighting off meatheads for their attention. Instead, go for the middle of the road girl, slap the beer goggles on, and get to work. There's much less work involved on all fronts and you're more likely to score.
Remember: When you overachieve people expect you to be great all the time. When you're adequate, you never let anyone down.
I think it's time for a nap.
If you're interested in reading this blog regularly, you're probably as lazy as us and quite likely can't be bothered to remember to check back here to see if we've written something new. With that in mind, I've spent a few seconds searching the web to find the buttons to add this feed to whatever RSS reader you use. Luckily I found one blog that already had a whole load of different buttons to add their feed to a whole bunch of readers so I could just use them. Brilliant! Whatever you want to do on the internet, someone's probably already done it. Get good at searching!
If you have a blog, feel free to view the source of this page and steal the code for all the buttons yourself. If whatever reader you use isn't represented you'll have to do it manually from this link. Sorry!
Posts
All Comments
