Avoiding Work

Procrastination:

Putting things off is both effective and easy. With school, where you're graded on your work, it's not as easy as say a job where you're paid by the hour. When you're paid by the hour, you can accomplish nothing and still get paid. But you don't get paid to go to school and you don't get As for accomplishing nothing. Remember, you probably do your best work under pressure. Say the morning before the report is due.

Getting Others to Do Work For You:

There are people stupid enough to do your work for you. Don't look so shocked, you know it's true. Sometimes, teachers or moral fanatics will claim this method is "unethical". These people also believe you have hours upon hours to pour into writing a paper on the importance of automobiles on the Great Depression. They preach inane slogans like "work is its own reward". They may safely be ignored. We all have better things to do than loads of schoolwork. Like wax the streets or something.

I don't mean you should never do work. Being educated is important. However, most of the information we're taught in classes like math or drama have no practical application. My career path excludes all forms of math, and my drama teacher couldn't teach a dog to shake. When will I ever need to know how to calculate the cosine of the square root of the perimeter of a pentagon? These types of assignments don't matter to your future.

There are many ways to get people to do your work.

The Bullshit Approach:

There are nice people everywhere. Even some Thems or non-Lestatheists are pleasant, kind, sharing people. It may sound "cruel" or like you're "using" the person, but really they're glad to help. Just lie (like I said, the rules aren't really important). Come up with something like "I was doing English work all night and I couldn't get to my Bio work! I don't have time! Would you mind if I jotted down your science vocab definitions?" Make it sound genuine. And don't ask the same person too often or they might catch on. Just because they're too-nice-for-their-own-good-suckers doesn't mean they're entirely oblivious to the world. Simply close to it.

The Eye-Spy Approach:

Also known as "copying" or "cheating", this is actually a practical approach. Seeing as your peers are probably dumber than dirt, you might want to be careful. Don't cheat on tests, just work. If one of the math-whiz show-off Freshmen in a class too advanced for you as a Senior won't help you with an answer, you can just skim their paper until you get it. It's not your fault. They could have showed you how. They didn't. You solved the problem.

The Dumber-Than-Dirt Approach:

This only works for so long before teachers or fellow students catch on. But if you don't care what their opinion of you is, you can milk this for as long as humanly possible. Play dumb. Ask questions, over and over. When you ask the teacher about, say, question 5 -- what year did the French Revolution begin? -- and then you continue to question the topic, eventually the teacher will give you the answer.

Me: Ms. Smith, wasn't the first French Revolution started in 500 BC?
Ms. Smith: Oh, Vic, no. That's not even the right millenium.
Me: Oh... how about 22 AD? That sounds right.....
Ms. Smith: NO!!! It was 1789, ok?!

Sure, you look stupid, but that's one less answer you have to look up--or if you're feeling lazy, make up and hope no one notices.

Believable Lies to Cover Your Tracks:

"The dog ate my homework" is overused. By the age of six, everyone has heard it and is wise to it. Don't try it. There are certain lies, however, thanks to our modernization, which can get you that extension you need without actually asking for one.

"I did the assignment, but my printer broke and I couldn't print it out."

If you're lucky enough to have a computer incompatible with your school's (say, a PC rather than the Macs most school use) you can even bring a hard copy on disk, and they can't get to it.
"I did the assignment, but my hard drive crashed and lost it all." It's completely unverifiable--unless they ask for a parent's note, which you can fake--and there's nothing that can be done except give you more time.
"I don't own a computer"--which very well may be true--"and I couldn't gain access to one to type this paper." Make sure the assignment is required to be typed before you try it.
"I lost my binder/notebook for this class"--or it was "stolen"--"and I'm so sorry. I need more time." Also, ask for instructions for other assignments that "were in your binder" and then throw them out, because you have them.

Never admit you didn't do or finish an assignment unless it's vital to your health. This makes teachers angry with you. Blame it on society or computers whenever possible.

Be Prepared.
Dressing for Survival

More to come, don't worry!