The World War II-era "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" is full of steps that office workers can take to resist leadership.

Over the last week, the guide has surged to become the 5th-most-accessed book on Project Gutenberg, an open source repository of free and public domain ebooks. It is also the fifth most popular ebook on the site over the last 30 days, having been accessed nearly 60,000 times over the last month (just behind Romeo and Juliet).

Direct link to the book (without the backref):

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26184

  • aesthelete@lemmy.world
    5·
    4 hours ago

    I’m pretty sure that the people at the companies I’ve worked at for the last 15 years have been following this playbook the whole time.

  • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
    40·
    12 hours ago

    Milton was the best: playing music that distracts your coworkers and reduces productivity, engaging management and taking up their time about quibbles, muttering incoherently leading to lost time due to miscommunication, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and setting the fucking building on fire.

    Be like Milton.

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
    71·
    14 hours ago
    • “Insist on doing everything through ‘channels.’ Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.”
    • “Make ‘speeches.’ Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your ‘points’ by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate ‘patriotic’ comments.”
    • “Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.” “Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.”
    • “‘Misunderstand’ orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.”
    • “In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.”
    • “To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.”
    • “Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.”
    • “Multiply paperwork in plausible ways.”
    • “Make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders. Confuse similar names. Use wrong addresses.”
    • “Work slowly. Think out ways to increase the number of movements necessary on your job”
    • “Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions.”
    • “Snarl up administration in every possible way. Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.”

    But … but we’re already doing every single one of them 🥺

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
      51·
      14 hours ago
      • “To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.”
      • “Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.”
      • “Multiply paperwork in plausible ways.”

      Holy shit, my workplace must be trying to sabotage fascism…

    • Zink@programming.dev
      3·
      9 hours ago

      I get how all parts of this are effective to sabotage an economy and hurt the ambitions of those at the top. But, as a regular person working within the system, I choose not to discriminate against or complain about other individual workers just trying to get through their day.

      That seems counter productive. The best way to resist the oligarchs can’t be to fuck with the other poor people we’re trying to help.

        • Zink@programming.dev
          2·
          8 hours ago

          Hey now I didn’t suggest not working against the system and the fascists. I pointed out that targeting the morale and well-being of individuals close to you might not be the best use of one’s energy, assuming underlying motivation is to make the world better for yourself and others.

          And you can sabotage the work without being hostile towards an individual. That individual is somebody you should be getting on your side.

          • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de
            3·
            6 hours ago

            Youd be much better off trying to unionize your coworkers, that would be far more damaging to the fascist ubercapitalists, and much more beneficial for the workers morale.

          • liyunxiao@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            7 hours ago

            Short term pain for long term freedom is needed. If people had your point of view during the American civil war, you’d be the Confederate states of the US.

            Every day people are the ones enabling and holding up fascism, not the uniforms, not the leadership, just people like you and your loved ones. Without you fascists have no power. Pressuring those around you, sabotaging their work if it’s helpful to the fascists, socially isolating those that refuse to help are the effective steps to take. If you don’t take them, you’re as bad as any fash with a gun or suit.

    • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
      4·
      13 hours ago

      Please tell me that’s not actually what they tell you to do.

      Where’s the bombs and general strikes?

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        18·
        12 hours ago

        Almost half of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck. A strike means they can’t feed or house their kids. Corporations have Americans by the balls and they know it.

        • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
          4·
          12 hours ago

          Nope. Soup kitchens are cheap and easy.

          US Americans are just too stupid to turn to their neighbor and work together

          • Crikeste@lemm.ee
            5·
            8 hours ago

            Soup kitchen covering people’s health insurance and shit now? You know damn well how much people’s jobs mean to them and their livelihoods.

            I agree with you; but it’s very easy to say, challenge level impossible to do.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                3·
                5 hours ago

                Which doctor can provide free chemo if I have cancer? Which doctor can provide a free MRI if I have a stroke? Do they keep those things in their home?

                You don’t mind children dying, and apparently you don’t mind very sick people dying either.

                So how many people do you feel is an acceptable number to die for your cause?

                • stephan262@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  4 hours ago

                  So for how much longer would you consider it acceptable for the current system to cause more suffering and death before drastic actions for change are acceptable?

                  It seems you care more about those who would be hypothetically be harmed than those who are being harmed right now.

                  I don’t think that those who advocate for mutual aid networks and a general strike are either ignorant or uncaring of the harm that it could cause. I think they believe that the harm caused would be less than the harm already being inflicted by the current system. That said, I think it’s a big ask for people to put themselves and their families at great risk, even if it’s for a good purpose.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            18·
            12 hours ago

            Nope. Soup kitchens are cheap and easy.

            Yeah, so is eating out of a dumpster. Jesus Christ. Have you ever even talked to a homeless person?

            • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
              7·
              12 hours ago

              I spent years eating dumpstered food when I lived in the US. You’re proving my point.

              Have you ever even volunteered with Food Not Bombs?

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                4·
                12 hours ago

                Did you feed your kids out of dumpsters? And if so, were any of them autistic kids who would only be willing to eat things they approve of and starve otherwise? I hope not.

                But I’m guessing your suggestion is either force-feed them or let them starve.

                Also, do you know one of the reasons they take your kids away from you and put them in abusive foster care? Because you’re homeless.

                Basically your whole idea is advocating child abuse.

                Amazing how many people here think you should put the welfare of others over your own children.

                • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
                  5·
                  12 hours ago

                  Its clear you’ve never dumpster dived before. Its usually wrapped in food grade containers. Completely sanitary. And good stuff, like super fancy expensive pastries.

                  And food not bombs works with restaurants and groceries to get the food before they even put it in a dumpster, just before its thrown out.

                  Seriously, please find your local chapter of Food Not Bombs and volunteer. You would learn a lot. Feeding people is not an issue in the US.

                • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
                  3·
                  9 hours ago

                  My guy, food not bombs explicitly is a mutal aid network and they’re specifically discrediting your attempt to discredit them because they have eaten out of dumpsters. But sure, it’s everybody else that’s wildly out of touch in this conversation.

  • laranis@lemmy.zip
    132·
    1 day ago

    I was expecting something subtle, some sort of resistance from within type stuff.

    Warehouses, barracks, offices, hotels, and factory buildings are outstanding targets for simple sabotage. They are extremely susceptible to damage, especially by fire.

    Not so much.

  • Thrillhouse@lemmy.world
    271·
    1 day ago

    I don’t spot the difference between this and how most modern day corporations are operated:

    • “To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.”
    • “Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.”
  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    55·
    1 day ago

    I wonder what the purge at our intelligence agencies will be like. They were never good agencies, they did a lot of shitty stuff, but they did it because “America”. Now that the Chief Cheeto is in charge, who has insulted the USIC on many occasions, and cozies up to dictators and Nazis, there have to be a not insignificant number of USIC people that want nothing to with Combover in Chief, so they’ll get the boot to be replaced with some jackbooted NKVD Commissariat trump sycophants.

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
      5·
      16 hours ago

      It’s relatively easy to envision.

      Assume each agency (not just the 3-letter ones, any) had X% of fascists and fascist-friendly people. The other 100%-X% will be fired. So just the X% remain.

      On the one hand, the agency is now severly crippled as it lacks key personell, and probably the firings aren’t evenly spread through departments and key positions, meaning some aspects don’t work at all any more (separating air traffic is one, for a simple example), while others still mostly work. On the other hand, all remaining aspects are now 100% fascist in their nature, and will always take the fascist option if one presents itself as anyone who would not do so has been removed.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
    140·
    1 day ago

    Remember when reading this that it was written for a time long past. There are cameras and other electronic tracking everywhere now. Even if you can avoid detection, much of the methodology described here just doesn’t apply to modern machines, telecommunications, and other systems.

    But read it all anyway. (It’s not that long.) The mindset you will need to employ is plainly communicated and remains valid today. Be observant, be creative, be careful, and !resist@fedia.io.

      • superkret@feddit.org
        10·
        19 hours ago

        Crimp (damage by bending) the Ethernet cables.

        I’m siding with the fascists on this one.

    • superkret@feddit.org
      78·
      1 day ago

      The modern approach for grinding everything to a halt is to push for migration to M365 in your workplace.

      • Nougat@fedia.io
        36·
        1 day ago

        You jest, but you’re not wrong.

        Pushing to “improve processes and efficiency” for as many people as possible, where that requires changes to what people do - and especially changes to the applications they use - means a whole lot of retraining and mistakes. Office workers are hardly different than factory line workers. They do the same thing over and over every day, and if anything changes, they’re flummoxed.

        This also serves to reveal more clearly which workers are more and less adaptable, so that you can focus any of your efforts. Either get more in the way of the more productive people, or take advantage of less productive people to effect a larger error.

        Edit: And if your “improved processes” are complicated enough, this gives other people who want to resist more opportunities to employ malicious compliance.

  • astronaut_sloth@mander.xyzEnglish
    116·
    1 day ago

    Hell yeah! This is great! I’m glad I’m not the only one sharing it around to friends and neighbors. True resistance is not the flashy stuff; it’s a whole of society approach to stop fascists in their tracks. True resistance is the sum total of small acts to inconvenience and impede a fascist.