''Bonjour paresse'' (''Hello Laziness'') is the title of an international
bestseller by
Corinne Maier, a French
writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...
,
psychoanalyst, and
economist
An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics.
The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...
. The
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physi ...
is a highly
cynical
Cynicism is an attitude characterized by a general distrust of the motives of "others". A cynic may have a general lack of faith or hope in people motivated by ambition, desire, greed, gratification, materialism, goals, and opinions that a cynic ...
and humorous
critique of work
Critique of work or critique of labour is the critique of, and wish to abolish, work ''as such'', and to critique what the critics of works deem wage slavery.
Critique of work can be existential, and focus on how labour can be and/or feel meaning ...
and contemporary French
corporate culture
Historically there have been differences among investigators regarding the definition of organizational culture. Edgar Schein, a leading researcher in this field, defined "organizational culture" as comprising a number of features, including a ...
(epitomized for Maier by the
middle manager Middle management is the intermediate management level of a hierarchical organization that is subordinate to the executive management and responsible for ‘team leading’ line managers and/or ‘specialist’ line managers. Middle management is i ...
) that advocates various ways of undermining the system. Maier advocates that it is in the reader's best interest to work as little as possible.
The title is a reference to
Françoise Sagan
Françoise Sagan (born Françoise Delphine Quoirez; 21 June 1935 – 24 September 2004) was a French playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. Sagan was known for works with strong romantic themes involving wealthy and disillusioned bourgeois chara ...
's
novel ''
Bonjour Tristesse''. It is variously subtitled ''Jumping Off the Corporate Ladder'', or ''Why Hard Work Doesn’t Pay'' depending on the edition. Because of their similar attitudes towards the workplace, Maier has been frequently compared to ''
Dilbert
''Dilbert'' is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Scott Adams, first published on April 16, 1989. It is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office with engineer Dilbert as the title charact ...
'' creator
Scott Adams
Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957) is an American author and cartoonist. He is the creator of the syndicated '' Dilbert'' comic strip, and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, and business. ''Dilbert'' gained natio ...
.
Maier was subjected to a disciplinary hearing on 17 August 2004 by her employer,
Électricité de France, for the writing and publication of ''Bonjour Paresse.'' The French
newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...
''
Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' ran a front page article about the dispute at the end of July 2004, which did much to publicize the work.
Chapter titles and subheadings
As translated by
Sophie Hawkes:
*Introduction: Business Is Not Humanistic
**Can Disenchantment Solve the Problem of Business?
**A New Way of Reading Tea Leaves
**Warning: If You Are an Individualist, Walk On By
*I. Business Speaks an Incomprehensible No-Man's Language
**Hello, Gibberish
**Acronyms: A Thicket, a Wilderness, Nay, a Veritable Labyrinth
**Foreign Languages: ''No Pasarán''
**Platitudes Aplenty
*II. The Dice Are Loaded
**Money Costs More Than You Think
**They Tell You to Succeed
**Power Struggles: Watch Your Back
**Degrees and Diplomas: Or, How to Make Paper Airplanes
**Employment and Employability: Knowing How to Brand and Sell Oneself
**The Defeat of the Word
**The Planned Obsolescence of the Worker
*III. The Biggest Rip-offs
**Mobility: Journey to the End of Your Career
**Corporate Culture: ''Culture'', My Ass!
**Ethics, Schmethics
**The Strategy: The Art of Appearing Smarter Than You Are
**New Information and Communications Technologies Are the Wave of the Future
*IV. The Idiots You Rub Shoulders With
**The Average Manager: Presentable and Preferably Male
**The Hollow Man(ager)
**Culture and the Manager: The Marriage of the Carp and the Hare
**Engineers and Salesmen: A Stalemate
**The Consultant: It's Always Insulting to Be Taken for a Jerk
**The Useless, the Submissive, and the Goof-offs
**People You'll Never See
*V. Extra, Extra: Big Business is Doomed!
**Flexibility is Theft
**Two Modes of Discourse, Zero Brains
**The Spirit of Capitalism: Where Is It?
**Meaninglessness as a Newly Discovered Universal Law
**The New Economy: The Latest Flash in the Pan
**Globalization: The Worm in the Apple
*VI. Why There's No Risk in Disengaging Yourself
**Work: No More Professions
**No More Authority: Take Advantage of It
**No More Work: A Godsend
**The Art of Doing Nothing
*Conclusion: Begin Your Sabotage Tomorrow
**The Ten Commandments Imposed on the Middle Manager
**My Ten Counterproposals (see below)
Maier's Ten Counterproposals
Sometimes referred to as the Ten Commandments for the Idle, these counterproposals have been widely reproduced on the
Web in a shortened form:
#You are a modern-day slave. There is no scope for personal fulfilment. You work for your pay-check at the end of the month, full stop.
#It's pointless to try to change the system. Opposing it simply makes it stronger.
#What you do is pointless. You can be replaced from one day to the next by any cretin sitting next to you. So work as little as possible and spend time (not too much, if you can help it) cultivating your personal network so that you're untouchable when the next restructuring comes around.
#You're not judged on merit, but on whether you look and sound the part. Use much leaden jargon: people will suspect you have an inside track
#Never accept a position of responsibility for any reason. You'll only have to work harder for what amounts to peanuts.
#Make a beeline for the most useless positions, (research, strategy and business development), where it is impossible to assess your 'contribution to the wealth of the firm'. Avoid 'on the ground' operational roles like the plague.
#Once you've found one of these plum jobs, never move. It is only the most exposed who get fired.
#Learn to identify kindred spirits who, like you, believe the system is absurd through discreet signs (quirks in clothing, peculiar jokes, warm smiles).
#Be nice to people on short-term contracts. They are the only people who do any real work.
#Tell yourself that the absurd ideology underpinning this corporate bullshit cannot last for ever. It will go the same way as the
dialectical materialism of the communist system. The problem is knowing when...
English translations
''Bonjour Paresse'' has been translated by David Watson (as ''Hello Laziness'') for
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd in the United Kingdom, and in the United States by Sophie Hawkes (as ''Bonjour Laziness'') for
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
.
References
*Maier, Corinne (2005). ''Hello Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn't Pay.'' Trans. David Watson. London: Orion. .
*Maier, Corinne (2005). ''Bonjour Laziness: Jumping Off the Corporate Ladder.'' Trans. Sophie Hawkes. New York: Pantheon. .
External links
An interview with Corinne Maier (at FunnyBusiness.com)The slacker's new bible: Management tips from the executive slow lane (MSNBC article)Lazy joke lands author in trouble (BBC article){{Critique of work
2005 non-fiction books
Books about social psychology