A common enemy of workplace happiness is useless activities. Looking back at my career, I can see the potholes of futility. The Quixotic attempts I made to right the wrongs, fix what was broken, and eliminate the useless activities forced upon me by disengaged and all-knowing management.

Early in my career I worked for a family owned manufacturing company. It employed over 100 people, and had three office areas spread across a sprawling facility. We had one fax machine, and it was in the front office. This was in the days before e-mail was common, and good office skills amounted to being able to recite the alphabet. One day I committed the heresy of saying that we should have a fax machine in each office area, since having one fax machine was a huge waste of time. I was berated for thinking such a thing. Fax machines were expensive. It was no big deal to walk up to the front office to fax. So I shut up. But I didn’t shut down and suck it up.

A few days later, I timed the walk from the engineering office to the front office. I timed it from the sales office to the front office. I then interviewed (very quietly) our employees in each office area to determine how often they fax. All of this data was put into a spreadsheet, and a break even point was determined. We could pay for the fax machines for both offices within two weeks. The report was sent to the CFO. We got our new fax machines, and many people were happy to see it happen. They all hated the old way, yet none had tried to change it.

A few years later, I was assigned to manage a large cross-functional initiative. Our part of the project was one slice of a very large program. The next level up from us handed me a 12 page report template, and said they wanted it updated and sent to them every week. I opened it in front of them, and began to question why they needed to know such mundane things as how many #2 pencils were used to write reports, and the number of phone calls made to support the program. I tried to negotiate the form down to a reasonable 2-3 pages. After about 15 minutes of trying to reason, I shut up. But I didn’t shut down, and suck it up.

For week 1, I filled out the 12 pages. I did the same for week 2. By week 3, I filled out 8 pages. Then a couple of weeks later, I filled out two pages, and even went as far as writing “blah blah blah” on page three. The reports were never questioned. I guessed that no one was reading them, or at least not past page two. I’d decided that if I was caught, I’d say “oops, I attached the wrong version! I’ll get it right over to you”. But I was never questioned.

A couple of weeks later I sent the report late, testing the waters. Nothing happened. Then I skipped sending it. For a week. Then for two weeks. Then I stopped sending it.

The project was successful, and at the end, the program lead said our piece of the project was the most efficient, and he had the most confidence in our ability to deliver. This warmed my heart, that my foray into non-compliance wasn’t even noticed.

One of the people I coach was asking about what they should do when the work they are doing is pointless. Their boss thought it was a good process, and wasn’t concerned that the work was akin to a monkey pulling levers to get a banana. In our brief conversation, I was able to get some thoughts down for him.

Considerations for addressing useless activities

1. Is it designed by your boss?
2. 2. Has it been immortalized in a Power Point as something to brag about by someone higher up than you?
3. 3. Does it satisfy some organizational edict on how to work?

I’m sure there are more to think about, but I’ll just stop here. If you answered “no” to all of these, propose a better solution and take the credit for implementing it.

If you answered “yes” to any of these, you may not want to run into your boss’ office and show her how uselessly stupid the activity or process is. Many managers don’t appreciate feedback of this kind from an underling. Consider the your relationship with the person, and determine if you can propose changes. Be ready to be snubbed.

After a snub by their manager, some people would suck it up, and keep pulling the levers as the monkey master dictated. Sadly, I’m not one of them. And you don’t have to be one of them either.

How to eliminate useless activities

Win with math — quantify the work you are doing, and then quantify what you think is a better alternative, and present it as unbiased data (that it is).

Offer parallel processes — offer to run both processes in parallel so nothing can slip through the cracks. Bananas smell when they are left below the cracks.

Death by a thousand (process) cuts — if you still can’t change things, then try to improve the existing process. “Hey boss, you are brilliant! This process is AWESOME! I think if we make this teeny little change, your process will be AWESOMER!” Or some other combination of words that fit the situation.

Keep tweaking — until it is no longer useless

Extinction by omission — stop doing it, and see if anyone notices.