Slacking - First Meeting [Friday, Period 1]

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Max wasn't sure how a class on slacking had gotten scheduled so early in the day, but he found it vaguely amusing, really. He had already located his assigned classroom so that he wouldn't embarrass himself too much by wandering around lost. He even arrived early to class, but that was mostly so that he could prop his feet up on his desk, slip on his sunglasses (they were a great invention, and his trip to Fandom was probably worth it to discover the things even if nothing else came of it), and take a nap. He woke up when the first student arrived, but he didn't give any sign that he had. He wanted a chance to observe them.

Once the count of students matched the list he had been given he spoke without shifting position. "Welcome to Slacking. I am Tribune Antillar Maximus. You may refer to me as 'Tribune' or as 'Maximus' or as 'Max'. I'm not planning on this being too terribly formal." He sat up and slipped off his sunglasses. "That said, you are each here to learn, and I am here to ensure that you do just that. Keep that in mind during our sessions."

He pushed himself to his feet and settled into a relaxed stance, voice falling automatically into the steady cadence of someone who taught people how to stay alive. "The first thing we need to do is establish a shared definition of our subject matter. For the purposes of this course you should understand 'slacking' to refer to the productive avoidance of assignments. I suspect that each of you have found yourself in positions where someone in authority over you is incompetent, stupid, or both. And if you haven't yet, well, it won't be too long. Such situations are an inevitable part of life. When these situatiosn arise you find that you are much better at determining how to accomplish things than your sueprvisor is, and further you find that they tend to give you orders to do things in an inefficient or even counter-productive manner. Slacking allows you to get your incompetent superiors to leave you alone while you get real work done."

Max's gray eyes scanned the room calmly. "Since your incompetent superiors are, in fact, incompetent, they expect work to take far longer than it really does. This, in turn, allows you to spend much of your time relaxing. A successful slacker is able to deflect the attention of their superiors, get their real work done, and do whatever they feel like doing with the rest of their time."

"For today's meeting we're going to keep things simple. State your name and describe a situation from your own life where slacking has been useful, or where it would have been useful if you had been better at it. Then, since I have no desire to waste anyone's time, you're free to do as you wish. Talk to one another, talk to me, leave..." He shrugged his massive shoulders. "Oh, and if anyone is interested, I am looking for an assistant for this class."

[The assistant position is actually open here, so if anyone is interested feel free to chime in.]

Comments

Sign in

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

With your slacking-est icon!

Re: Sign in

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Effy Stonem

Before the lecture

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

There's a big man who is apparently taking a nap at the front of the room. Feel free to mingle, throw spit wads, whatever.

Re: Before the lecture

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

See, Alex could think about teaching as a career if he could teach like this guy. Well, maybe not be as big since...it would just never happen but sleeping during class? Definitely a plus.

Re: Before the lecture

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Effy had been out late, at Caritas.

If she was hungover, she wasn't going to admit to it, but if the teacher was napping, she saw no reason not to slouch forward on her own desk and watch him snooze, chin resting on her hands.

Re: Before the lecture

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

She wanted to go up and wake him up. Sleeping in class was annoying if done by a student, but when done by the professor was just wasting her time. She decided glaring would do the trick.

Re: Before the lecture

[defeats-buses.livejournal.com]

Prince Edward couldn't sit still for long! He did not sign up for this class! Did no one understand his enthusiastic nature?

Why was sleeping man sleeping? During the daylight!?

Re: Before the lecture

[wantstocheer.livejournal.com]

Claire was a little puzzled by the sleeping teacher. But given the name of the workshop, she supposed it was an effective first lesson.

During the lecture

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Max is paying rather a lot of attention to what people do when he lectures, but he's unlikely to call anyone out for not paying attention or for sleeping or anything else, really. At least not today.

Re: During the lecture

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Alex was still keeping up his relaxed, lazy, head on the desk posture since the teacher didn't seem to mind.

He was kind of digging this class. Slacking was something he could do well.

Re: During the lecture

[defeats-buses.livejournal.com]

Edward was looking at the teacher, then at the other students, then back at the teacher. And so on, and so forth.

Re: During the lecture

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

Valentine couldn't help grinning a little to herself as she listened, head tilted, to the lecture, especially on the part of incompetent superiors. She couldn't help being amused with thoughts of irony, wondering if, as this Max guy stood talking about incompetent superiors, he realized that he was a superior and therefor probably incompetent himself.

Re: During the lecture

[elephantgadget.livejournal.com]

Helen had NOT signed up for this class and she was not very pleased with not being able to get out of it. Still, what he said made a good deal of sense. There had often been times when the priests had assigned something to do that was quite ridiculous and got in the way of really important things, so maybe...

Re: During the lecture

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

Marco decided it would be completely allowable to sleep during this particular class.

Introductions

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on, you knew it was coming. Just don't forget to talk about your slacking experiences.

Re: Introductions

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Alex Karev," he said. Next time he went through a first week of class, he was just getting a notecard with this information on it. "And, on the bus ride to this place, I got some lady to buy me lunch because I faked sick and exhausted and poor. I didn't want to get off the bus so she went and got it for me. Sucker."

Re: Introductions

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"I'm Effy," she said. These introductions were getting almost second nature.

And now she had to come up with a slacking experience that didn't involve selling drugs or getting herself kicked out of school.

"Got some moron to do my friend's GCSE art coursework." In return for sorting out his love life. But she'd found that a rather entertaining scheme in the long run, so... slacking.

Re: Introductions

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

"Fiona Post," she said with a lift of her head, "and I... occasionally 'slacked' while at work in my hometown as our manager was an idiot who liked to work me harder than anyone else."

While the connotations had never actually struck Fiona, he'd also liked to see her sweaty with her clothing stuck to her.

...then he'd gotten a fryer vat to the arm on her birthday.

Re: Introductions

[defeats-buses.livejournal.com]

"I am Prince Edward of Andalasia!"

A slight pause.

"I have a manservant!"

That explained everything, did it not?

"Of course, he is still in Andalasia. Hm."

Re: Introductions

[wantstocheer.livejournal.com]

"I'm Claire Butler," she said. "And, um, I don't think I really have any slacking experience like you're talking about."

At least none that she could or would admit to in public.

Re: Introductions

[elephantgadget.livejournal.com]

"My name is Helen Haras-Uquara and I can see that there are a number of times where being able to convince the priests back home that I was doing as they asked, while actually completing important work would have come in handy."

She made a small face. "That said, I am not much of a one for avoiding work." Yes, she had to be honest, here.

Re: Introductions

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"Valentine Wiggin," she offered and, having thought about the answer a little, moved smoothly into something simply that wouldn't, hopefully, call for too much detail. "Being a slacker helped keep me out of Battle School, so I'm at least an iota saner than I would have been otherwise."

Re: Introductions

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

Marco's answer included the fact that he was napping already.

That's it!

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Max doesn't like to waste peoples' time, but you're welcome to stick around if you've got questions. This is also the place to talk to Max if you want.

Re: That's it!

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

She came up to him at the end of class.

She wanted to be a teaching assistant, as she thought it might satisfy her family in a few different senses, but so far her classes had involved things she wasn't particularly familiar with. This, she thought, was simple enough, and something she'd done once or twice in her life.

It was also rather easy sounding, as far as assistantship might go.

Feeling her motives were entirely in line with the class itself, she lifted her head and looked at her teacher.

"I'm interested in the assistant position?"

OOC

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Wooo! First class! *is a dork*