In 1955, an outstanding grandfather, Victor Mills often stayed with his grandson to look after him. The man absolutely adored the child but he was too lazy to change and wash the bed sheets all the time. That’s when the creative Mills invented diapers! And these weren’t the first or the last genius invention that derived from sheer laziness.
We at ViralSection think that sometimes laziness can be useful and productive, and here are 14 stories to prove this point.
- I was a temporary employee. I got hired for the day to print 30 packets with 100 pages each. “Why would it take a day?” I asked. “Our printer doesn’t collate the pages so it will take you a day to sort the pages into the 30 packets,” they said. Right. It was a standard office xerox printer. It took me all of 30 seconds to find and click the “collate” button. Clicked the “staple” button while at it. All got printed by itself into nice stapled packets and I got paid to browse the internet for the day. They thought I was a genius for “fixing” their printer and gave me glowing recommendations to the temp agency that led to more jobs. © wilksonator / Reddit
- I saw something interesting. Lazy Coworker #11 has been leaving around lunchtime to go to the gym. Except I had to get something out of my car and I saw her (in her workout clothes) eating out of a tub of fried chicken. I didn’t say anything but she walked back in 15 minutes later saying how sore she would be tomorrow. She “works out” every day. My boss has a policy that if you’re going to work out you don’t have to clock out, which means Lazy Coworker #11 essentially gets paid to eat fried chicken in a jogging suit in her minivan. © NotYetDomestic / Reddit
- At my last job, a truck suspension shop, we did inventory every December and it was someone’s job to count all the washers and screws of every size. It was my first inventory and I casually mentioned that they should just weigh one screw or washer, then weigh them all and divide the weight to get the count. Everyone looked at me like I had given them the key to the universe. © codymreese / Reddit
- I read a comment on here a while back about a college kid who picked up an office job over one summer. He became friends with an older lady at the front desk who always needed help figuring out Excel. He kept finding shortcuts for her and eventually wrote scripts for her that took a load of work off her plate. By the end of the summer, he had made her job so easy that they decided they didn’t need her to do it anymore. They fired her. © seancurry1 / Reddit
- The convenience store near my house shut down and moved directly across the road. I decided to give up my lifelong addiction and quit smoking because I hate crossing roads. I’m at 11 months now, so it turned out to be a good thing. © iamapizza / Reddit
- In high school, we had to do 4 book reports every year. A friend of mine did his on each The Lord of the Rings books and The Hobbit freshman year and turned in the same 4 book reports for the rest of his time in high school. You switched English teachers every year so no one ever caught on. I was never brave enough to try the same thing. © AngelusCaedo / Reddit
- My co-worker would leave at 4 pm to “go to the bathroom,” leaving the office light on, his chair at an angle, and the computer on — no power save. He would disappear until 9 am the next morning. Boss never figured it out. © midlothian705 / Reddit
- I’m extremely lazy. Like, too much. This is why I try to do everything around the house or at work as fast as possible in order to just fool around after. So, for the second year in a row, I’m the best employee in my company and I’m an exemplary husband. This is how my laziness works out for me. © “Overheard” / vk
- A programmer outsourced his own job overseas, paying Chinese programmers one-fifth of his salary to write code for him while he spent his days surfing Reddit and watching cat videos. His performance reviews praised him for the clean, well-written code and called him “the best developer in the building.” © cramias / Reddit
- When I worked at an inpatient unit, one of the tasks we’d get would be to do a check-in with every patient (there were about 100 when we were full). Nobody wanted that task — it would usually get split up — except this one guy who was pretty lazy always wanted it and I didn’t understand it was because he was lazy. Finally, one day I was walking out for a break and I figured out what he did. He plopped himself right beside the food line door and wouldn’t let people go in until they did their check-in with him. That’s not how it was supposed to be done — it was supposed to be a chance for clients to connect with the staff. But he’d get it done in an hour or so for the whole unit and be done for the day. © CouchlessTherapist / Reddit
- I just couldn’t lose weight. I kept giving up and I tried a lot of different methods. As it turned out, all I had to do was move out of my parents’ place because cooking every day and going grocery shopping was too much work. I’ve lost 3 lb in just 1 week. © “Overheard” / vk
- In one of my early IT jobs, I spent about 2 months automating everything I did. Thereafter, I spent my days in air-conditioned isolation reading, hacking out entirely unrelated programs, engaging in protracted debates on UseNet and responding to the very rare client problem. Things seemed to be running smoothly so I took a couple of weeks off on vacation. When I returned from the holiday I was told that everything had run so smoothly in my absence that my services would no longer be needed. I had lazied myself redundant. © EmirFassad / Reddit
- Automated 70% of my job in a large finance firm as an intern. I never disclosed it and got paid easy money for 6 months. I spent the time doing courses and applying for grad school. I got my admission letter during the final 2 weeks of my internship and never looked back. © clickerroy / Reddit
- I had a terrible boss at a restaurant. This lady was trying to be promoted so hard and was just so extra about everything. She wanted me to count every salt packet, lid, straw, and packet of ketchup in any open box. Like, I couldn’t say 3 boxes and 3/4 of a box. I had to say 3 boxes and 872 salt packets. If I gave the numbers too quickly she’d know I lied. So I’d come up with reasonable-sounding numbers and then spend 10 hours playing Pokémon. Eventually, I left and went on to bigger and better things. I went by the mall years later and she was still there in the same job. © kperkins1982 / Reddit
Do you know of any situations when laziness actually led to something positive?
Preview photo credit CouchlessTherapist / Reddit
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