Are your employees actually CIA spies?

That’s the question fed-up bosses may find themselves asking after reading the sabotage guide published by the intelligence agency

BY Nicola Middlemiss 06 Nov 2015

Is that unbearably annoying employee actually a CIA spy? That’s the question some fed-up bosses may find themselves asking after reading a recently declassified CIA file.

Published in 1944, the document – titled “Simple Sabotage Field Manual: Strategic Services” – details the various ways that spies should work in order to bring down companies and destroy productivity during the war – but the underhand tactics seem to have made their way into modern workplaces.

Among the many counterproductive recommendations are suggestions to hold meetings during important times, act stupid, be as irritable and quarrelsome as reasonably possible, and to be a jobsworth – applying all regulations to the last letter.

Take a look at some of the following suggests to see if you have a potential spy in your workplace:

When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration”. Attempt to make the committees as large as possible – never less than five.
Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
Misunderstand orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.
Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
Be unreasonable and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
Don't order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.
To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.
Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.
Spread disturbing rumours that sound like inside dope.