Book provides tips for doing less at work without getting the ax

Want to do less at work without getting fired? A new book offers tongue-in-cheek strategic tips for workers to gain control over their jobs . The author suggests that workers use the same tricks their bosses do. Be absent. Delegate. Use people.

Stanley Bing's new book titled "How to Relax Without Getting the Axe: A Survival Guide to the New Workplace" will be released on Nov. 17 according to Reuters. This "tongue-in-cheek look at the workplace" is an updated version of an earlier book authored by Bing called "Executricks, or How to Retire While You're Still Working." Stanley Bing, which is actually a pseudonym for Gil Schwartz, who is executive vice president of corporate communications for CBS Corp, told Reuters:

It is a handbook for people who haven't yet attained what they would consider powerful status, to be able to use some of the same tricks that their bosses do and make it work.

Strategic tips provided in the new book include how to delegate, how to create the illusion of an office door for privacy, becoming "a virtual person," and using other people. For example, even in an open workplace full of cubicles, a "virtual door" can be created by turning the computer screen away from other people, making the work space uncongenial to visitors, and cultivating "patterns of unfriendliness." According to Bing, "It also marks you as somewhat antisocial and difficult to deal with, i.e. executive," reports Reuters. Becoming "a virtual person" is easy enough, just be absent. Bing told Reuters, "A lot of people don't respect people they can reach too easily. You're immediately aggrandized by the fact that you are essentially a virtual person." Additionally, it is important to have an assistant or appropriate someone else's assistant. "You use other people. This is what successful people do in all business, in all walks of life," Bing said during the interview with Reuters. These timeless workplace tricks help people "to gain control over their job, their time and their life," Bing said. Further, Bing told Reuters:

The lack of control is what makes people unhappy, and supreme control is what signifies powerful, successful people. In between is the regular day that we all have.

Ultimately, the secret for workers is to learn and appropriate the tricks of powerful, successful people. "How to Relax Without Getting the Axe: A Survival Guide to the New Workplace" is published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins.