The Subtle Sabotage of Wasting People's Time
I discovered the Simple Sabotage Field Manual earlier this year when it was making the rounds on social media. Created in the 1940s during World War 2, the pamphlet was secretly distributed by the US government with the purpose of teaching regular people how to sabotage enemies.
Most of the instructions (to start fires and ruin electrical equipment) wouldn't work today since everything is recorded now, but another thing I noticed was how much the advice was to simply waste people's time.
Look at what it advises people to do who work in transportation:
Make train travel as inconvenient as possible for enemy personnel. Make mistakes in issuing train tickets, leaving portions of the journey uncovered by the ticket book; issue two tickets for the same seat in the train, so that an interesting argument will result; near train time, instead of issuing printed tickets write them out slowly by hand, prolonging the process until the train is nearly ready to leave or has left the station.
Or on roads:
Change sign posts at intersections and forks; the enemy will go the wrong way and it may be miles before he discovers his mistakes.
Or boats:
Barge and river boat personnel should spread false rumors about the navigability and conditions of the waterways they travel. Tell other barge and boat captains to follow channels that will take extra time, or cause them to make canal detours.
Or at telephone offices (back when those were a thing):
At office, hotel and exchange switch boards delay putting enemy calls through, give them wrong numbers, cut them off “accidentally,” or forget to disconnect them so that the line cannot be used again. ...
But probably my favorite are the tips for "general interference":
Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
“Misunderstand” orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.
Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions.
Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion.
When I started reading this manual, I fully expected tips on how to slash tires or make bombs, not instructions on "how to waste time." Honestly, the whole thing made me think of how I engage with social media. The doomscrolling, the infinite loading newsfeeds, the constant arguments about nothing, people trying to scare you on TikTok, people trying to distract you on TikTok — it's all, ultimately, just a huge waste of time. We know this, but productivity and "getting our time back" is still one of those issues that people struggle to solve, much like losing weight. You try a new diet, but eventually you go back to your old habits.
I think "wasting time" is more detrimental to society than we think. It lowers morale, creates confusion, increases depression. I'm not insinuating an "enemy" is doing this — we're doing it to ourselves in a form of self-sabotage. I guess my main takeaway here is to be more cognizant of the ways I sabotage myself every single day when I waste my own time, time that could be better spent elsewhere. It'll take time to change, but hopefully this is a good wake-up call.