Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It_ The Results-Only Revolution - Cali Ressler [20]
So on one hand Sludge can be something very small—a little dig, a joke. On the other hand, Sludge is very big. Even if it hurts someone’s feelings only slightly, it’s still negative and it’s still undesirable. Sludge Anticipation wastes time and energy, two things that in business and in life are never in enough supply.
In the example above, the qualified, hard-working person is expending energy and time for what? To justify a measly fifteen minutes? Even if it were an hour would it matter that much? As important as your job might be, most of us are not open-heart surgeons. The patient isn’t going to die on the table if we come in at eight thirty versus eight.
The worst part about Sludge Anticipation is the way it reinforces those old, broken norms. Sludge Anticipation is what enables a culture of fear in which you’d rather call in sick than have to worry about getting slammed for being late, in which you’re nervous about taking too long a lunch, in which you feel like a kid who’s done something to piss off your parents, even though you’re not quite sure what.
Every second you spend anticipating a piece of Sludge, every second you spend coming up with excuses for being late or for skipping an irrelevant meeting, you are reinforcing this culture of fear. The worst part about it is that we do this to ourselves. We’ve so internalized these rules and expectations that we will punish ourselves for being late even if no one says a word. And when we “waltz in” a half hour late and no one says anything what do we feel? Relief! It’s like we got away with something. And what did we get away with? A little bit of time that frankly shouldn’t belong to anyone but us.
So if Sludge affects us personally more than we realize, what else is it doing to our lives? Sludge Anticipation is unnecessary, but we have only begun to waste our own time, other people’s time, and our company’s time. Now we enter the realm of Sludge Justification.
Let’s say you get to work fifteen minutes late and you get hit with that piece of Sludge. “Oh, look who’s here.” Then you have to justify yourself, and because of the rules of work, because you’re judged based on time and what work looks like, you can’t say, “Yes, I am here and I do a great job, so why do you care?” Instead you have to make up an excuse based on time. You were stuck in traffic, there was an accident, your kid wasn’t feeling well, or the cable guy came over and you had to let him in or blah, blah, blah.
Who cares? During this entire exchange you and your coworker are standing there at work not working and spending all this time having a conversation that does what? When someone says to you, “Oh, look who’s here,” they are wasting their time judging you, Sludging you, and you then have to waste time defending yourself. You are also likely to tell a white lie, because the reasons we are late are usually so small they don’t sound important enough to justify our misbehavior.
Then there is the aftermath of the exchange, when you waste a little more time shaking it off, rolling with it, getting to your desk, and starting your job. Let’s say you’re not a high performer who is ultrasecure in your job. Let’s say you’re new or you’re in a division where there are layoff rumors. Then what kind of morning do you have? If you’re like most people you are going to worry about being fifteen minutes late. You might spend the rest of the day worrying about the consequences of being late, and while you