How to Bring Down an Occupation Force: Be a Troll
Created | Updated May 27, 2018
How to Bring Down an Occupation Force: Be a Troll
Talk about your underground activity. The h2g2 Post has made a remarkable discovery in the Internet Archive (where else?): a sabotage manual from the O.S.S., anno 1944. The O.S.S., or Office of Strategic Services, was the US answer to Britain's S.O.,E., and the forerunner of the CIA. This Simple Sabotage Field Manual, signed off on by William J ("Wild Bill") Donovan, tells field agents how to train 'citizen saboteurs'. It's amazing how much damage you could do with a bit of wire, some salt, or a coin to blow fuses with. We can imagine frustrated occupation forces all over Europe. The booklet is short, it's been declassified, and it's an amusing read.
One of the things that struck us, however, was how much most of this activity continues to go on today. Have some people just not got the memo that World War II is over? Or is it that trolling behaviour is so much fun that it's hard to get people to stop? Read this selection: have you ever observed this kind of 'simple sabotage' where you work? Maybe you should report them to the Efficiency Police.
(11) General Interference with Organizations and
Production
(a) Organizations and Conferences
(1) Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) 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.
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible – never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(7) Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision – raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
(b) Managers and Supervisors
(1) Demand written orders.
(2) "Misunderstand" orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.
(3) Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order
may be ready beforehand, don't deliver it until it is completely ready.
(4) Don't order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.
(5) Order high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don't get them argue about
it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work.
(6) In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that
the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.
(7) Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing
those which have the least flaw. Approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to
the naked eye.
(8) Make mistakes in routing so that parts and materials will be sent to the wrong place in
the plant.
(9) When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.
(10) 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.
(11) Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
(12) Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files.
(13) Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.
(14) Apply all regulations to the last letter.
(c) Office Workers
(1) Make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders. Confuse similar
names. Use wrong addresses.
(2) Prolong correspondence with government bureaus.
(3) Misfile essential documents.
(4) In making carbon copies, make one too few, so that an extra copying job will have to be done1.
(5) Tell important callers the boss is busy or talking on another telephone.
(6) Hold up mail until the next collection.
(7) Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope2.
Our very first editing job, in fact, was the victim of this carbon problem. Your Editor was in fifth grade (eleven years old). The class newspaper was typed on a 'ditto' form by a mother unfamiliar with this reproduction template. She did it backwards.
The Editor had a Eureka moment and informed the other children that this, the first issue of the class newspaper, was in 'secret code'. There was a rush for the lavatories, where the text was decoded in the mirrors.
Very old we may be, but stupid we never were.2Would someone please tell the current administration that the war is over?
