Playing Dumb to Succeed

Yesterday, I had this two hour meeting at the end of the day 5-7pm. It was to go over code for one of our Accounting programs. I had a lot to do with writing this code like 2 years ago, and over time it has evolved to some Monster. Now, we have over a 200 page document of SQL / Unix korn shell script code with a mess of ugly condition statements and comments. So the business side requested this walk-through (don’t know why?) knowing full well that they cannot understand a line of code. So my developers and I were excited to see how this meeting would unfold. Luckily, my colleague and I were smart enough that we decided we would grab a few cases of beer (few = 10) and bring them to the meeting. So there we are going over complex code while we’re drinking Sam Adams Light. I swear by page 23, I was toasted! In fact, I think half the room was also starting to see the beauty of if/else statements.

The point is that this meeting was highly productive. We breezed through the 200 pages with little to no confrontation. Which is why I think liquour should be standard at all office meetings. And I am willing to advocate this practice at all the finest corporate establishments. I really do think it cleanses the room. I mean the alcohol had an effect unlike any other in eliminating the typical egos, personal agendas, and rude interruptions that people tend to display during office meetings. So I say to you men (and women), schedule the next meeting through Outlook of Lotus Notes, and bring the cases. Let me know how they respond?

On another note, I woke up with some bitterness today. Just work-related, so nothing I will go into here. I lie! Basically, I despise the fact that many people get ahead in the corporate atmosphere by doing absolutely nothing. I swear one of these days I am going to snap! Here I am busting my butt working 60-hour weeks, going to get an MBA, completing a PMP certification and giving up my social life, and all I get is a silly email stating how much they appreciate my efforts. While the schmuck down the hall spends his day going to Starbucks four times during the workday, irritating others, and walking around with his stinking mug, and he gets promoted and a healthy bonus. I won’t stand for this!

Ok – you guys don’t really care for all that. So let me get off that topic. Moving onwards, I have decided that my new strategy in life is to “PLAY DUMB.” Seeing that so many people get by actually being dumb, I figure I could just go along and pretend. Let’s see how my life would have been different if I was dumb from the very beginning.

Grade school – c’mon even the dumb kids passed and made it to the next grade level. I wouldn’t have had to do homework and could’ve spent more of my time just playing with sharp tools.
High school – once again, even if I had been dumb, the very fact that I played a sport, I would have graduated in the same amount of time. I could have spent all that additional time gangbangin’
College – If a 2.0 GPA (which really means a 50 average) is good enough to graduate, I see why so many dumb people have college degrees. And if I played dumb I would have graduated with this GPA and still landed a decent job out of college.
Work – Being dumb, I would still have gotten a job. And possibly one that paid more than what I got by being smart.
Today – Dumb or not, I would still be here writing on this blog from work, doing the same thing professionally, getting paid the same or more, and living the same life.

And you know what, by being dumb, there would have been little to no expectations to be great or successful. No one would ask me to do ish. I would just fly under the radar like 90% of the people in this world. Just another average to below average person in the mix of life. And then, when something actually went right, like making a semi-decent presentation, or achieving a graduate degree, people would think that was the greatest accomplishment of my life. Because, of course, they would never expect a dumb person to achieve that. But that’s all bullocks! Nowadays, we let dumb people achieve anything they don’t put their mind to. Just look around. The guy next to you is an idiot. The girl across the hall is a moron. Your boss’s boss is an imbecile. They’re everywhere and guess what? They are content. And you are not!

So you see people, stop trying to be ambitious! Stop trying to achieve your goals! Stop trying to be the best at everything! Instead, just PLAY DUMB, and you will achieve more than you ever thought was possible. Trust me, I have been researching this phenomenon for quite some years now, and the facts all point to this very notion.

I leave your future to you. But heed my words, and success will be inevitable.

Short URL: http://www.updatist.com/?p=123

Posted by Charlie P on Feb 17 2005. Filed under Entertainment, Headline, Lists, Live, Play, Sex + Women, Sports, Stories, Style, Travel + Places, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry