Succeed at work (with minimal effort)

I realize some of you niggas are lazy as hell. As far as some of you are concerned, doing any of these things is "...too much damn work." All you want to do is sit at the crib, drink your malt liquor, and smoke some herbs. If you fall into this category, this book is not for you. But being the man that I am, I will still offer up some advice to help make your pathetically lazy life...well...pathetically lazy. Two words...'Uncle Sam'. You'd be amazed how many programs you qualify for if you tell a little lie and cheat just a little (Yep. It takes effort even to be lazy). Besides your regular unemployment checks and food stamps, you may qualify for disability, (remember you lost most of the feeling in your legs after you got that beat down from the police) subsidized housing, (get grandma to file the paperwork and proceed to 'pimp out' the crib. You can give her a room in the basement. She can't climb stairs anyhow).
Now for those who want to choose the path less traveled and actually get a job, I commend you because now you have become........................



CHAPTER TWO:
The working nigga.

So here you are, you finally got your ass off the couch and got a job. Be proud of yourself, you're on your way. As with everything else we've covered so far, you're going to once again make some decisions. Do you want to make a career out of this and climb up the ladder till you one day own your very own franchise? Or is this a stepping stone, a job you keep for a few months or a year and then move on to other things? Whichever way you decide to go, the goal is to get there with the least amount of effort possible. Anytime you can get paid for doing absolutely nothing or the very minimum is a good day. Why burst your ass for minimum wage and the occasional stolen chicken Mcnugget? It's not worth it bro. Working fast food is like slave labor, you work long and hard for very little compensation. It's like a slave who works hard all day in the cotton field and breaks the record for most sacks of cotton picked in a day only to find his reward is an extra helping of four day old molasses!
To make your transition from crew member to manager as easy as it can be, you need to apply some tactics. First thing you got to do is always look busy. Don't mistake this to mean be busy...no bro. Just 'LOOK busy. Walk around with a broom or a wipe cloth always in your hand. You aint gotta use it, but be sure you're carrying one whenever the store manager sees you. Every once in a while, pick up a piece of trash or wipe down a table. Also, you need to go to the manager from time to time and ask for work. This sounds counter-productive but trust me it's going to pay off. Make up something you just did that will take him too much of his time to actually go and check your work, then ask if there is something else for you to do, which of course, you will never do. Let me explain that further, you walks up to his boss and says "Wow...I just got done cleaning out the inside of the outside dumpster and was wondering if you have anything else you need done?" Notice how you pick a task that is almost impossible to verify. No manager is going to climb into the dumpster to make sure you really did the cleaning; he's just going to have to take your word for it. By asking what he wants done next, you do two things - First thing is he shows he's not afraid of hard work and you also puts the manager in a tight spot. Unless the manager is a former Nazi death camp officer, he not going to give Andre another tough task to do. When a guy tells you he just busted his butt in a dumpster, you don't follow that up by asking him to go scrub the floors. Chances are you will get something easy to do for the rest of the day and everyone is happy. The manager walk away thinking he has a hard working, dedicated employee and you get to slack off for another day.
Now that you have the respect of his boss, he'll have to milk it for all it's worth and keep finding ways to maintain the great confidence his boss has suddenly developed in him. The next step in the process is to align himself with a hard worker and get credit for the work done. There is usually a fresh Mexican immigrant working at most, if not all fast food restaurants. These guys are usually so grateful to finally be in America and working, that they will do almost anything for even less pay Than you. With such a man, you must become close. Make him feel comfortable and pretend like he's there to help him make the adjustment and show him the ropes. Once you get friendly, the manager will usually have you work with him and help him with tasks that need to be done. This is the ideal situation for our man Andre. This means he can practically go the whole day without having to actually lift a finger, just stand back and watch Manuel do all the work. You have to use some tact and make sure you're not just standing by leaning against a wall or something. Because you never know who's watching. Talk a lot...and make lots of gestures to give off the appearance that you're talking Manuel through the job (you can be saying lyrics from a Jay-Z song, just make it look good to anyone who might be watching), wait till the major work has been done then take over near the end. If the manager is going to come check up on you, it's usually after he expects the task to have been completed and guess who he's going to see working hard...yep!...good ol' dedicated Andre. Now you've shown the boss that not only can you work alone, but you also have what it takes to work as part of a team...you're a leader...a motivator...a team player. Not too bad for a lazy bum.
Now you've established that you can work hard, but what are you like at customer service? It wont mean much if you can do all the tasks you're assigned but cant get along with customers, because as we all know, fast food restaurants are customer driven. You can't gain love from customers by giving away free food, you'll eventually get busted, and everything you've built up will be destroyed. You need to use the resources at your disposal. Get friends and family to call every once in a while and compliment "...the tall guy with the bald head" (insert your own description here) and tell a tale about how great you were at helping them sort out a problem they had with an order. Have a friend come in and make a scene...complain about how his order is wrong and how people who work here never get things right. Have him finish with the words "...you guys are lucky you have you working here, when he takes my order I never have to check it 'cause he always gets it right". Then step in, apologize and offer to remake the order. The 'customer' immediately smiles and apologizes for his outburst. Everything appears to be fine once you step in...Once again you save the day. By now your stock is rising fast and word will begin to spread that you're about to make supervisor. To seal the deal, have a talk with the boss about your future. Tell him how much you enjoy working for him and how you want to reach new heights with the company. Re-assure him that you're in it for the long haul and you intend to make a career out of it. Then sit back and wait, in a week or two you should be assuming your new position as manager and a whole new world of opportunity opens.
How cool is this? Just a few pages ago, you were a lazy, good-for-nothing 'scrub' and now you’re a manager at the local fast food spot. His mama is proud of him, his homies are like "damn nigga...you a manager now?", and his baby mama acts like he's the best thing to come along since malt liquor. Now he's wearing 'the white shirt' and he doesn't even have to hide fries in his pockets anymore. The upside is great, but I have to tell you there is a downside to being a manager. As a regular crew member, you can fake a lot of things; you can pretend to do tons of stuff. But the sad thing about management is that you can't fake paperwork. It's either done or it's not. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. So for the bro who can hardly write his own name without making spelling errors or the man who thinks 'apostrophe' is his cousin's ex-girlfriend, you might want to reconsider accepting the management position. I said reconsider, not that it can't be done, because with a little savvy, most things can be done. That's the great thing about life, that's the best thing about America. It doesn't matter how untalented or unskilled you are, if you got a little smarts, you can go pretty far.
Ok then, so now you are a manager and things are pretty good. He soon realizes the volume of paperwork he needs to do, he has to make schedules and count cash every night. He's got to take inventory and monitor employee hours, and the volume of responsibility is wearing on him. This manager stuff is not what he thought it would be. The answer to Andre's problems? A protégée. A young nerdy white kid, a know-it-all who thinks he can do all things, preferably a high school senior. There are a lot of them around who get fast good jobs so they can earn enough money for the prom or to attend the next 'final fantasy' convention. Once the perfect candidate has been found and hired, he must be 'groomed'. Tell him there is something about him that stands out and that you believe he will make a great manager someday. Flatter him and tell him you will teach him how to do 'managerial' stuff so he's read once he gets promoted (the decision lies with the store manager, but you're sure it wont be long). Make sure the schedule is made for the protégée to work on the same days as you do and show him how to do all the stuff. When the time comes for the paperwork to be done, invite him in and tell him it's time for him to 'practice'. Time to take inventory? More practice for the kid. Scheduling? How else can he learn but by doing? Don't worry, the kid wont complain, he'll be too busy going home bragging about how he's doing great with management type activities, he wont even care that you spend the time he spends working talking on the phone with your dawgs about that hilarious 'Chappell's show' episode ("I'm Rick James bitch")
Now that you're a manager, you won't have the luxury of having family, and friends come in and flatter you with unmerited praise anymore, you will have to deal with real life pissed off customers. It will do you no good to 'keep it real' and cuss out a customer cause he called you a 'burger flipping nigger'...well, maybe that's a little too much, anyone call you that, you have the right to whoop his ass...no job is worth your dignity. But for the average customer who is mad because his double cheese burger had extra onions, mayo and no cheese when he had asked for no onions, mustard and extra cheese, you must handle him with tact. The most important asset you posses in 'burger conflict resolution' is the ability to be fake. Like I said, this is not a job for peeps who like to 'keep it real' cause that will only get you back where you started...broke, unemployed and on your mama's couch. Just learn how to smile when you feel like screaming, say 'I'm sorry' when you want to say "Fuck you", shake hands when you really feel like kicking ass and you'll be just fine. Don't get me wrong guys; the 'fake rule' in no way undermines your authority as a manager. You still run shit around there bro. You wear the big 'apron', you da man! Most restaurants have a policy that reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for whatever reason. So you don't need to take abuse all the time, you get enough from your mama and baby mama you don't need it on the job. So when someone walks in trying to feel too slick and yell at you...throw his ass out!...dang!...he's probably not going to spend more that $4.50 anyhow! All you need to do to turn your job into a career is to continue to do what you do and kiss ass every once in a while and opportunity will open up. You'll slowly move up the ladder till you one day become store manager at your own store. You are now the top gun, the money will be good enough to get your own crib and pay your baby mama child support. (You don't have to pay her a whole lot, but we'll talk about that in a later chapter)
You, however, dont want to stay working at fast food. You want to move on to bigger and better things, you wants a desk job, a job that will make you sound and look important in the hood. The key to finding such a job is networking. A lot of working professionals will come in to his fast food restaurant to grab a bite at lunchtime. This is when you have to be on point. You must tactfully work your magic by any means necessary. An extra slice of bacon, a few more chicken nuggets, or a large sized coke when a medium was paid for. At this point, it does not really matter because the stuff he's giving away aren't his and besides, he's about to leave anyway. Eventually, he will get on first name basis with some of the professional customers. At this point the seed has to be planted, you must start to make it clear that you are unhappy at your present job and would like to get something better, something that "...Is more tailored to my skills." You and I both know you aint got no damn skills nigga! but the customers don't know that. Besides, most jobs are given based on relationships with the employer and not on skills or qualification. There will be an opening, and Andre will be notified by his professional 'friends'. Obviously, it won't be a great job, but it will be better than you have right now. It might be a mail room gig or a stint answering phones or something similar to what he has at an office cafeteria. It's a step up and he gets to wear a tie to work. Imagine the envy of his homeboys when they see him ("Hey! Andre got like a real job yo") and the pride in his mama's voice as she tells the neighbors that her boy works for a big corporation in "...that big building downtown." Beats working for KFC any day buddy!
Now that Andre has a steady job, he will be able to move out and get his own crib. If he's truly in love with his baby mama, this will be a happy time for both. No more sneaking around waiting till his mama fall asleep to have sex, no more awkward positions in the bathroom. No more having to listen to the bed springs squeaking and mama screaming "right there papi" on the nights 'Uncle' Jose comes to visit.