Official Slacker Handbook Read online

  Sometimes a cruddy temp job is worth keeping for a while if only so you can maintain photocopying capabilities and access to a fax machine. Illegal use of the postage meter, free long-distance and international telephone calls, insider knowledge of Federal Express corporate account numbers—contemplating the possibilities of grunt-level office graft can be dizzying.

  Of course, you’ll want to be sure to stock up on the usuals: pens, paper, scissors, staplers, tape, tape dispensers, pencil holders, name plates of people you don’t like, file folders, hanging files, envelopes of every imaginable dimension, paper clips, tacks, staples, staplers, index cards, and Post-It notes, as well as any card store gift mugs left unattended in the employee lunchroom. When you’re not busy stealing things for yourself, you’ll want to uncover ways to provide your slacker friends with things for free. You do this not only as an expedient means of combating economic injustice, but also because they’ll undoubtedly hook you up as well. Before you know it, you’ll have developed your own microeconomy based upon the bartering of goods stolen from your respective employers, and everyone’s standard of living will dramatically increase.

  The Sacking of a Slacker: In Revenge Sleeping Is the Best

  DAY JOB: REASON FOR TERMINATION:

  Mini-mart register person Malfunctioning snooze button

  Shopping mall fuddle crafter Smirked during a managerial talking-to

  House painter Run-of-the mill lax work ethic

  Bellhop Not quite obsequious enough

  Deli cashier Forgot show up

  Ice-cream scooper Claimed to have “time to lean, not to clean”

  BrobdingnagianPlex usher Said the magic words: “Let’s unionize!”

  Bartender Fell prey to trumped-up charge of gross insubordination

  Waitress Instigated massive back-of-the-house food fight

  Fast food chef Pulled housemate’s truck up to Drive Thru window and loaded twelve boxes of frozen McNuggets into the cab while manager was locked in rest room

  “I Ain’t Gonna Work on Maggie’s Farm No More”: The Self-Employed Slacker

  If the entrepreneurial spirit doesn’t exactly shine forth from every slacker, in most of you it can be found somewhere, if only as a single glowing ember resting far beneath the dusty surface of your existence. Traditional slacker employment dreams—starting a found-object jewelry company, opening an anarchist bookstore—have a distinct entrepreneurial edge. Unfortunately, getting in bed with, say, Turkish cafe that you and your friend Alicia start up can all too quickly seem like a real job. Worse than a real job, because you’ll undoubtedly be losing money hand over fist. But if you start small, with low or no overhead, you might be able to meet most (if not all) of your personal employment goals. That, land life would be much more predictable if you were the one in charge of firing you:

  Law school application writer: You’ll need a dose of writing talent and a lot of pathetic friends from college who are thinking about applying. When it comes to pricing: gouge ’em.

  Pedicab Man: aka The Human Beast of Burden. Ideal for the slacker who wants to develop both thighs like tree trunks and a lifelong hatred of overweight tourists.

  Photomemory Man: You need a Polaroid camera, some homemade cardboard frames, and a steady stream of gullible out-of-towners who will pay five bucks to have their picture taken with the Sears Tower looming in the background.

  Freelance proofreader: Requirements: Ph.D. in English literature and an ambitious first novel smoldering inside your Macintosh.

  Housecleaner: Counterintuitive? Yes, but occasionally the slacker seeking self-employment will metamorphose into a Rent-a-Maid. Print lap a couple of hundred fliers, don those rubber gloves, and practice saying, “I don’t do windows.”

  Plant care technician/Professional dog-walker: Calls for a substantial degree of personal responsibility and an ability to walk around town with twelve dogs on leashes simultaneously. Be forewarned, however: Neighborhood children will refer to you as “The Dog Man” for the rest of your life.

  SLACKING ON THE DOLE: BILKING THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

  The government has been kind enough to establish several generous programs that you can make use of to finance anything from an experimental first novel to a year-long TV binge. In all fairness, it should be noted that only a very small percentage of slackers do go ahead and make use of these handouts; most are stopped by ethics, the rest by logistics. Still, the Welfare Queen Slackers who manage to navigate the maze of red tape in order to liberate the cash that society owes them soon discover that sitting back and getting a check in the mail from Uncle Sam is much easier than waking up for even the best lousy day job.

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

  UNEMPLOYMENT—THE GRANT YOU’VE ALWAYS DREAMED OF—IS BY FAR THE SLACK HANDOUT OF CHOICE. THE LENGTH OF YOUR STINT WILL DEPEND ON THE CURRENT UNEMPLOYMENT PERCENTAGE, AND IF YOU LOSE YOUR JOB AT THE RIGHT TIME YOU CAN CATCH THE CREST OF THE WAVE AND JUST KEEP RIDING, FOR FIFTY-TWO WEEKS A PLUS FOURTEEN-WEEK EXTENSION. GENERALLY, IT’S MORE LIKE TWENTY-SIX WEEKS PLUS A SEVEN-WEEK EXTENSION OR TWO, WHICH YOU GET IF YOU CAN PROVE THAT YOU’RE “UNEMPLOYABLE.” IN ORDER TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT YOU HAVE TO BE LAID OFF (YOU CAN’T BE FIRED OR SIMPLY QUIT), BUT SOME SYMPATHETIC EMPLOYERS WILL HELP YOU BEND THIS LITTLE RULE. IF YOU DECIDE TO DO THE UNEMPLOYMENT THING, FIND SOMEONE IN YOUR AREA WHO’S ALREADY SUCCESSFULLY RAKING IN HIS FELLOW TAXPAYERS’ DOUGH, WHO WILL HELP WITH YOUR INITIATION, TELLING YOU THE BEST TIME TO SHOW UP AT THE UNEMPLOYMENT OFFICE AND LEADING YOU THROUGH THE PAPERWORK. THEN KICK BACK, PUT YOUR FEET UP, AND START THINKING UP A TITLE FOR YOUR WORK-IN-PROGRESS.

  WELFARE.

  Welfare is a little more serious than unemployment, and the paperwork and hassles make it the choice of exceedingly few slackers. The welfare stigma still exists in the slack community, and lots of people who coast on unemployment refuse to take the logical next step, even if their novel is still in the embryonic stage after their first thirty-three weeks on the dole. Unlike unemployment, the welfare program makes use of “case workers,” who are people who will pop in on you, unannounced, and proceed to get on your case. Again, though, if you are determined to do this, find a friend who is doing welfare in your state, and doing it well, to help you get started.

  FOOD STAMPS.

  IF YOUR INCOME IS LOW ENOUGH, AND YOU CAN PROVE THAT MOST OF YOUR MONEY GOES TO RENT AND OTHER ESSENTIALS (NOT INCLUDING CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES), YOU MIGHT BE ELIGIBLE FOR FOOD STAMPS. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE IRREDEEMABLY INDIGENT (ALTHOUGH IT HELPS)—YOU SIMPLY MUST PROVE THAT YOU ARE MAKING A GO AT SUPPORTING YOURSELF, BUT YOUR LOUSY FIVE-DOLLAR-AN-HOUR JOB MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO AFFORD THE COLORFUL BREAKFAST CEREALS ASSOCIATED WITH TOUCAN SAM AND COUNT CHOCULA. WE CAN ALL SLEEP EASIER KNOWING THAT THIS ISSTILLAN INALIENABLE RIGHT IN THIS GOD-FEARING COUNTRY OF OURS, AND THE GOVERNMENT WILL PROFFER THE HANDOUT NEEDED TO MAKE YOUR MORNING MEAL GREET YOU IN TECHNICOLOR.

  13 Things Parents Will Still Pay For

  1. Collect calls

  2. Catastrophic dental work

  3. Nursing school

  4. Mental health care

  5. Kaplan

  6. Annual Yuletide Greyhound tickets

  7. Detox

  8. Portable radiators

  9. Law school application fees

  10. Plane tickets back from Eastern Europe in the event of a counter-revolution

  11. Bail

  12. Transportation costs to and from relatives’ funerals

  13. Rehab

  HOW TO SELL LITTLE SNIPPETS OF YOUR LIVER FOR REALLY BIG BUCKS: DRUG STUDY BONANZAS AND OTHER UNCONVENTIONAL WINDFALLS

  For those of you who want to earn a great deal of money with an absolute minimum of time and effort, your options fall into the following categories: the unhealthy, the immoral, the unpleasant, and the illegal.

  Not that that should dissuade you. If you already reside quite comfortably at the bottom of the health chain, what’s a little radioactive material injected into your spleen to you, really, when
it comes right down to it? And didn’t you willfully defraud the Columbia House Record and Tape club in sixth grade? Several times? Until your parents caught you and made you rake neighborhood leaves to pay them back? And don’t you still sign up, under ten assumed names, two months before you vacate any given apartment? I thought so.

  Most of you probably have a fairly strict code of personal ethics that adheres to a Byzantine inner logic clear to no one but yourselves. For example, perhaps you give no second thought to milking the nation’s entitlement system for all it’s worthy yet you refuse to perpetrate even the most minor insurance scam. Or maybe you find the thought of taking an unemployment check repugnant, but you would gladly defraud the government by “marrying” a foreigner, and you’ve spent years toiling away in the underground economy. Perhaps you see nothing wrong with instigating a nuisance lawsuit every now and then, but you’re loath to sell your genomes to strangers.

  Alas, in this as in everything else it’s up to you to follow your own slightly skewed moral compass. Please keep in mind that the reporting of this information does not constitute an endorsement of any illegal activity contained herein, and neither this author nor Warner Books nor the massive, bloated Time Warner media conglomeration would ever encourage or instruct an individual or group thereof to break any local, state, or federal laws:

  THE DRUG STUDY $200 AND UP

  THE WORLD OF THE PERENNIAL DRUG PARTICIPANT IS AS BLEAK, HUMORLESS, AND DOG-EAT-DOG AS THAT OF ANY WALL STREET MARAUDER. IT TAKES A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF DESPERATION TO INGEST EXPERIMENTAL PHARMACEUTICALS FOR A LIVING, AND IN ORDER TO MAKE ANY SERIOUS CASH AT IT YOU’LL NEED FLEXIBILITY IN YOUR SCHEDULE, A CAVA-LIER ATTITUDE TOWARD YOUR PHYSICAL WELL-BEING, AND A WILLINGNESS TO WALK AROUND WITH PATCHES OF GAUZE TAPED TO YOUR ARMS FOR WEEKS AT A TIME. UNFORTUNATELY, MOST DRUG STUDIES CALL FOR “HEALTHY MEN AGED 18-35,” SO YOU LADIES GET THE SHORT END OF THE STICK ON THIS ONE. (BE SURE TO READ THE FINE PRINT, LEST YOUR SPERM STOP SWIMMING INDEFINITELY.)

  THE DRUG STUDY VARIES

  THIS ONE’S A GEM THAT’S AS BEAUTIFUL AS IT IS RARE, BUT MOST UNIVERSITIES HARBOR AT LEAST ONE RENEGADE PROF WHO IS ANXIOUS TO STUDY THE SHORT-TERM EFFECTS OF LSD ON BASIC MATH SKILLS. LIE ON THE APPLICATION FORM IF YOU MUST, AS WHAT YOU BLITHELY CONSIDER “OCCASIONAL RECREATIONAL DRUG USE” WILL PROBABLY BE REGARDED BY THEM AS “ADDICTION.”

  The Sleep Deprivation Study SEVERAL HUNDRED

  One of the many types of studies that you can hook up with at your local university’s psych department, the sleep deprivation study is a lucrative classic that will fuel cocktail-party conversations well into your “occasional hemorrhoidal flare-up” years. Still, sleep is such a precious commodity that the thought of giving it up, even temporarily, is difficult for most slackers to stomach. The payment for psych studies varies, and it is based primarily on whether or not they have to lock you up for a period of time in order to study you. A good, profitable study will inconvenience you for a week or so but render no lasting physical or psychological scars.

  PLASMA PEDDLING VARIES, BUT NOT TOO MUCH

  YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO GET RICH SELLING YOUR PLASMA, BUT THERE ARE ONLY SO MANY TIMES YOU CAN LIQUIDATE YOUR HOUSEMATE’S CD COLLECTION, AND YOU DO HAVE TO EAT. IDEALLY YOU’LL GET ON THE PLASMA SELLING CIRCUIT AND BE ABLE TO RETURN TO THE CENTER AT REGULARLY SCHEDULED INTERVALS TO SELL YOUR PLASMA AND PARTAKE OF THEIR BOUNTIFUL SUPPLY OF FREE COOKIES AND ORANGE JUICE.

  The Selling of One’s Eggs VARIES, BUT EASILY OVER $1000

  While hocking sperm is not particularly lucrative, if you permit a surgeon to slice you open and remove a handful of your eggs, you’re in gravy. Selling your eggs is not only profitable, it’s noble, which is a rare and compelling combination. The potential downsides, obviously, are substantial (bodily harm and possible death, mangled reproductive organs children with your glittering sense of humor dotting the globe and eventually, unknowingly, intermarrying…)

  The Green-Card Wedding $3,000-$10,000

  PARTICULARLY POPULAR AROUND UNIVERSITIES WITH A BIG INTERNATIONAL STUDENT POPULATION, MOST GREEN-CARD WEDDINGS LINK WEALTHY YOUNG FOREIGN GENTLEMEN WITH SLACKER CHICKS IN DIRE NEED OF A FEW GRAND TO TIDE THEM OVER WHILE THEY PAINT. YOU MUST REMAIN LEGALLY AND CONVINCINGLY MARRIED FOR TWO YEARS, AFTER WHICH YOU CAN DIVORCE AT YOUR LEISURE.

  THE INSURANCE SCAM varies

  SAY YOU BUY AN EXPENSIVE NEW BIKE. A BIKE THAT YOU PUT ON YOUR CREDIT CARD, THE ONE WITH THE PURCHASE PROTECTION PLAN THAT THEY GAVE YOU BACK WHEN YOU WERE IN COLLEGE AND DEEMED AN ACCEPTABLE CREDIT RISK. SUPPOSE AFTER TWO OR THREE WEEKS YOU WALK OUTSIDE A BOOKSTORE AND DISCOVER THAT YOUR NEW BIKE HAS BEEN STOLEN. YOU FILE A POLICE REPORT, SUBMIT IT TO THE CREDIT CARD COMPANY, AND THEN—PRESTO—BOTH YOU AND YOUR FRIEND TED HAVE EXPENSIVE NEW BIKES.

  The Nuisance Lawsuit varies, but possibly huge

  THE NUISANCE LAWSUITCAN CALL FOR MORE EFFORT AND SUBTERFUGE THAN THE AVERAGE SLACKER IS WILLING TO INVEST, BUT THE RETURNS, AS YOU CAN WELL IMAGINE, CAN BE LIKE WINNING THE LOTTERY. WHEN YOU STUMBLE UPON SOMETHING THAT LOOKS SUSPICIOUSLY LIKE AN OPPORTUNITY, GO AHEAD AND SEIZE IT. THEN SEEK OUT OUST THE RIGHT AMBULANCE-CHASING LAWYER WITH A FONDNESS FOR CONTINGENCY FEES AND A PENCHANT FOR SETTLING OUT OF COURT, AND BEFORE YOU KNOW IT YOU’LL BE COMPARING TAX SHELTER SCAMS WITH YOUR NEW FRIENDS, THE IDLE RICH.

  Forewarned Is Forearmed

  Slacker A and Slacker B were close friends. Slacker A had health insurance, due to his position as a serving professional with a nationally franchisee! restaurant chain specializing in potato skins and buffalo wings. Slacker B—a part-time register person at a hole-in-the-wall record exchange—did not. When Slacker B seriously injured himself in a freak skateboarding accident for which he was entirely at fault and unable to sue anyone, Slacker A allowed him to check into a local hospital under an assumed identity, namely, his own. Thus Slacker B, posing as Slacker A, received over two weeks’ worth of hospital care, which was generously paid for by the insurance company of Slacker A. While his friend was laid up in the hospital. Slacker A dutifully showed up for each and every shift at work. Little did he know that those days of toting potato skins and buffalo wings to overweight strangers would seal his fate. When the insurance company, the hospital, and the restaurant franchise got around to comparing notes. Slackers A and B were introduced to levels of the criminal justice system that they had heretofore left unexplored as they discovered the true meaning behind the phrase “federal offense.”

  RATE YOUR DAY JOB

  Quiz #2

  Inching up the wage scale is important, but one should never underestimate the importance of finding a day job that truly suits the slack lifestyle. Before you leave your $6-an-hour job managing that tiny out-of-the-way used bookstore for a $14-an-hour job toting cement blocks around a construction site, take some time to assess those intangibles that make a day job worth keeping:

  “I never have to wake up before 11:00 A.M. to make it to work on time.”

  TRUE 4 points

  FALSE -3 points

  “I work three days a week or fewer.”

  TRUE 5 points

  FALSE -2 points

  “My job taxes less than 2 percent of my mental reserves.”

  TRUE 4 points

  FALSE -2 points

  “I can read books and magazines of my own selection while at work.”

  TRUE 2 points

  FALSE -1 point

  “I can watch television while at work.”

  TRUE 3 points

  FALSE -0 points

  “My friends and acquaintances can come to my place of employment and talk to me for hours while I continue to receive pay.”

  TRUE 2 points

  FALSE -2 points

  “I have never broken a sweat while at work.”

  “I would categorize my stress level while at work as ‘low’ to ‘extremely low.’”

  TRUE 2 points

  FALSE -2 points

  “I never have to move quickly while at work.”

  TRUE 3 points

&nb
sp; FALSE -2 points

  “I would categorize my stress level while at work as ‘low’ to ‘extremely low.’”

  TRUE 4 points

  FALSE -2 points

  “I can make long, involved telephone calls of a personal nature while on the job.”

  TRUE 1 point

  FALSE -1 point

  “I can make long, involved long-distance telephone calls of a personal nature while on the job.”

  TRUE 2 points

  FALSE 0 points

  “I can make long, involved international telephone calls of a personal nature while on the job.”

  TRUE 3 points

  FALSE 0 points

  “I am free to be sullen and rude to the people I come into contact with while on the job.”

  TRUE 2 points

  FALSE -1 point

  “I can more or less choose to work whenever the mood strikes.”

  TRUE 4 points

  FALSE -1 point

  “I can smoke while on the job.”