The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

In 1944, back during World War II, the OSS, short for the Office of Strategic Services — the organization that would eventually be replaced by the CIA — published the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, a “Sabotage for Dummies” guide filled with handy tips for resistance members in Europe.

In its 32 pages, it lists a number of acts that could be carried out by ordinary people who want to mess with the Nazis and who aren’t even part of the resistance. The tips listed in the book have the goals of both hindering the Nazis’ ability to wage war and minimizing the risk to the saboteur, who would most likely be a civilian.

You’re not likely to see the acts of physical sabotage listed in this book in your day-to-day life, but you probably see people using the book’s suggestions for organizational sabotage every day at work. What a 1944 book listed as tactics to sabotage an organization are normal behavior for many managers in 2015:

Page 28 of the OSS’ Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Click the image to see it at full size.

Here’s the text from that page:

(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 per­ sonal 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 com­ munications, 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.

The Simple Sabotage Field Manual has more tips for killing productivity, including my “favorite” pro-tip for managers, “Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.” If this trick didn’t work, there’d be no market for an entire line of products with the message “I survived another meeting that should have been an email.”

Email didn’t exist in the 1940s, but carbon copy abuse did. One of the tips in the Simple Sabotage Field Manual was:

In making carbon copies, make one too few, so that an extra copying job will have to be done.

For you younger folks, carbon copying was a method of producing multiple copied of a typed letter in the days before photocopiers, never mind computers. This video shows how it was done (as well as why you should be thankful that we don’t live in the dark ages anymore):

Today, carbon copies live have their descendant: the cc: field of emails; “cc” is short for “carbon copy”. And instead of making too few copies, the internet-era version is to send emails that are cc’d to as many people as possible. In its more innocent form, the sender is just trying to be inclusive, but is likely filling other people’s inboxes with messages that don’t necessarily apply to them. In its nastier version, it’s a way to snitch on someone or throw them under the bus by cc:ing their boss and ensuring that “the wrong words go in the right ears”. No matter the intent, the effect is the same: it disrupts work.

The Simple Sabotage Field Manual was declassified in the 1970s (if you’re really curious, you can download a scan of the book from the CIA; it’s a 2.5 MB PDF file). As a no-longer-secret document, people are free to talk about it, which is what CIA employees Don Burke and Sean Dennehey did in 2008 at the Enterprise 2.0 conference, where the pointed out the strange similarities between 1944 sabotage and 21st-century management.

The book is referenced again by consultants Robert Galford, Bob Frisch, and Cary Greene in the new book, Simple Sabotage: A Modern Field Manual for Detecting and Rooting Out Everyday Behaviors that Undermine Your Workplace. In their book, they point out that most acts of 1944-style office sabotage are carried out with the best of intentions:

Saboteurs make you think that what they’re talking about is relevant and important when in reality what they’re saying is tangential, unimportant, or even inappropriate. They don’t know they’re doing it, so their earnestness and honesty helps make their case. And the people on the receiving end are instantly, innocently swept off course because they believe what they think they see or hear.

It’s not 1940s occupied Europe, so we can’t simply turn over our work saboteurs to our neighborhood friendly occupying army or take them behind the office and have them quietly shot, as tempting as it may seem (hey, we’re civilized, and we probably report to some of those saboteurs). I’ve got a long flight coming up in a couple of weeks, and since 800-CEO-READ calls Simple Sabotage a “staff pick” and “the perfect airplane read”, I just might order a copy to find out its suggestions for countering office sabotage.

Found on Imgur. Click to see the original.

This is the largest-sized version of this graphic I could find. Here’s its text, if you’re having trouble reading it:

Stephen “Joffrey” Harper (as in Joffrey Baratheon)	Quick to crush dissenters Widely known as a bastard Terrible record with protection of women
Justin “Snow” Trudeau (as in Jon Snow)	Famous father whom some see as a hero; some as a traitor Trying to breathe new life into an old boys club Great hair
Elizabeth “Khaleesi” May (as in Daenerys “Khaleesi” Targaryen)	Best social policies, especially for the poor Unfortunately seems to be the farthest possible from the throne Most loyal supporters live in a far off magical land
Thomas “Tyrion” Mulcair (as in Tyrion Lannister)	Has the most political experience History of vocal opposition to the throne Great empathy for the marginalized
Bonus character Gilles “Night’s King” Duceppe (as in the Night’s King)	Back from the dead Not seen as serious threat in most of the realm

Selling a poop-related product isn’t an easy task, which makes this ad for the Squatty Potty, a stool that your feet on while sitting on the toilet to ease the process, an amazing achievement. With the help of a creepy-cute unicorn that poops rainbow-colored ice cream, a Medieval Times-accurate prince shows of the virtues of the Squatty Potty in the one ad you have to watch this weekend:

Rick Mercer’s back, and he’s in fine form:

Here’s the transcript:

Well here we are in the midst of yet another federal election. Now normally I love an election, but this is not just any election. This is the longest election in modern Canadian history. We are sixty-six days in and I would love to tell you that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but with two weeks left to go I can’t even see the tunnel.

Now the Prime Minister says we needed this extra long election so we would have more time to discuss the issues. Then he announced that he would not take any follow-up questions on any issue, ever. You can ask this guy what he had for lunch; he can say Saskatchewan, and that issue is done. Which is why we’ve burned through all those silly issues early on like jobs, the economy, the plunging dollar, the price of oil, did I mention jobs? And we have settled on the definitive issue of the campaign: the niqab. If this keeps up, in a week we will be discussing which leader has the best hair. Oh right, we did that.

So for those of you who are feeling worn down by this campaign, who want to zone out and stay home—I feel your pain. I never thought I would say this: I would rather drink paint than hear the words “the following is a paid political announcement.” We must remain vigilant.

Remember this is not their election. It is ours. They do not get to choose what this election is about, we do. Just like we get to choose who runs this country. That’s our job. All we have to do is show up and do it.

If you’re not from Canada (or if you are from Canada but aren’t terribly good at following the news), you might want to check out Vox’s The 2015 Canadian federal election, explained.

While talking with the Conservative Party of Canada candidate in his riding, University of Alberta law professor Ubaka Ogbogu expressed his concerns about Bill C-24, the new law that allows the Canadian government to strip to revoke the citizenship of anyone born outside Canada or anyone born in Canada who has or is eligible for citizenship in another country. Ogbogu was concerned about his daughters, who, while Canadian-born, can have their citizenship stripped — and by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration or a delegate, not a real judge. Cumming’s advice was that if Bill C-24 was such a concern, Ogbogu should “renounce his heritage”.

Bill C-24 (and yes, full disclosure, it affects me) is supposed to be used to punish the following classes of offender:

• Obtained citizenship by false representation or fraud
• Served as a member of an armed force or organized armed group engaged in an armed conflict with Canada
• Was convicted of treason, high treason, spying offences and sentenced to imprisonment for life
• The person was convicted of a terrorism offence or an equivalent foreign terrorism conviction and sentenced to five years of imprisonment or more

The problem is that “Old Stock Canadians”, to use Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s phrase, are capable of committing three out of four of the offenses listed above, but can’t have their Canadian citizenship taken from them. It’s all based on a very arbitrary guess of the offender’s loyalty to Canada. The Canadian Bar Association has pointed out that there’s no reason to question the loyalty of dual citizens any more than an “Old Stock Canadian”, or why their loyalty should determine their worthiness to be a citizen (otherwise, you’d have to deport the Canadian conservative blogosphere, who not-so-secretly wish they lived in Texas).

The “loyalty to another country” concern is silly when you consider whose face is on a lot of our money…

…and the “my ancestors built this country” is equally ridiculous as it suggests that:

1. You’re riding in on your great-grandparents coattails, you lazy toolbag, and
2. The country is 100% finished, and can’t be built any more. Really, it’s done. No possible improvements, additions, or innovations. Cease all work immediately.

Monia Mazigh sums it up quite well at the end of her article in iPolitics.ca:

Terrorism is an ongoing threat, here and around the world. The current Canadian government is using the excuse of the terrorist threat to create two classes of citizens under the law, divided on the basis of their origins. But in treating terrorism as a special class of crime — and dual citizens as a special class of criminal — the federal government is perverting our laws, our citizenship and of our democracy … dividing our society, making it weaker in the process.

Also worth reading is the Globe and Mail article, Fifty Years in Canada, and now I feel like a second-class citizen. An excerpt:

December will mark 50 years since I arrived from India as a toddler. In Montreal, I experienced the fear of terrorism during the 1970 FLQ crisis and horror after the massacre of 14 women one dark December evening in 1989. My first voting experience was momentous, for I helped to keep the country together in the 1980 Quebec referendum. I did the same during the nail-biter of 1995. Along the way, I never felt any discrimination, any sense of being second-class.

Quebec and Canada allowed me to thrive. I remember the pride I felt when my Harvard University professors told me that Canadian graduate students were the best-prepared – a testament to our excellent undergraduate institutions. And the love I felt for my compatriots during the massive 1995 pro-Canada rally in Montreal. It reminded me of the hajj – a sea of individuals from near and far, united in their love for a noble ideal. Differences melted into a shared vision of the future.

However, the mood changed in Quebec after then-premier Jacques Parizeau’s “money and ethnic votes” comment the night of the 1995 referendum. For the first time, I was told to “go back home,” while walking my eight-month-old daughter in a stroller. When I moved to Ottawa, a man, proudly brandishing his Canadian Legion jacket, told me the same. Then came the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Although there were a few more incidents, I never feared for myself or my children. On the contrary – friends, neighbours and complete strangers renewed my faith in the basic decency of Canadians.

Now, things feel different. I never imagined that the federal government would use its hefty weight to vilify Muslims. Never in 50 years have I felt so vulnerable. For the first time, I wonder if my children will have the opportunity to thrive as I did. One is a budding environmental scientist; one has entrepreneurial goals; the youngest dreams of playing soccer alongside Kadeisha Buchanan. But the Conservative message is: You are Muslim, you are the “other,” you can’t be trusted and you will never belong.

I’ll close with this excerpt from the Globe and Mail’s recent editorial on Bill C-24:

In one respect, Bill C-24 is commendable. It strengthens Canadian citizenship by making it more difficult to acquire. The new law lengthens the residency requirement and asks for a statement of intent from would-be Canadians, to make sure they actually plan to live in this country. These are good moves that will undoubtedly reduce the number of “Canadians of convenience” – people holding Canadian passports for travel or consular assistance, but having little connection to Canada.

But the law has a flip side that is much darker. It gives the government the discretion to strip the citizenship of any dual citizen convicted of terrorism, treason or spying abroad. The consequences are disturbing and unfair for Canada’s 863,000 dual nationals. They run the risk of being treated as somehow less Canadian. There is an ugly, xenophobic side to this law, which may play well with some voters, but has no place in a modern, multicultural Canada.

The maxim may be true after all: “Conservatism is the dread fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as an equal.”

You can probably put this costume together with stuff you have at home right now.

Don’t get the joke? You must be new on the internet. Welcome! Here’s the context you need…

Quebecois comedian Guy Nantel has a routine where he conducts street interviews asking ordinary Quebecers with questions they should know the answers to. Wanting to see if English-speaking Canadians were as ill-informed as their French-speaking counterparts, he hit the streets of Toronto and asked some pretty simple civics questions. It went as well as as you may have already guessed…