Free Riders

I admire free riders. It's not too surprising since I'm not really a "hard-worker". My ideal world, just like yours, would be the one of a free rider's. One in which the rewards I reap grossly outstrip my efforts. I'm going to try to make a list of some free riders I can think of.

a) Roommates who can't to cook

b) Passive weed smokers

c) Rich families' dogs (any of their uncaged pets for that matter)

d) The reserves in World Cup winning teams

e) Beach lifegaurds

f) People acting as lifeguards

g) That black musician in the Tonight's Show. (What's he doing there??...ummm..getting famous!)

h) Immigrant Kids

i) Women Bill Clinton knew (Come on! They got Clinton!)

Please add to the list if you can think of more.

Acting Busy

Being busy makes you seem important. And the closest most of us will get to seeming important is while acting busy. There's a certain art in making people believe you are busy. You cannot blog for a while and make it seem like you are really busy. But that is obviously based on the premise that your blogs are read by a lot of people. So if you have a blog thats as unpopular as mine (which I suspect is the case with you if you are reading this) or if you don't even have one, you have one less option.

Over time I have employed several other strategies.

Ignoring phone calls - This is probably the most common and it tops the list

Ignoring phone calls only to call back later - This quite neat because you don't end up looking rude. Of course I wouldn't employ this tactic on weekdays, unless its between 7am and7pm (US cellular calls are free at these times).

Using monosyllables to respond - Quite useful both over the phone or online.

Using Monosyllables to respond while pretending to be on the phone - This is great to fool more than one person. The person on the phone and people around me.

Sitting in libraries - Some of my most unproductive hours have been spent in the library. Yet I have somehow managed to look important AND smart to a lot of people by just being there. Thats an added advantage of being in libraries.

Over the years I have come to realise the several advantages in seeming busy to people when I'm not. Try it out. It's great!