Being a slacker is the American way. Why work any harder than you have to when you can do the bare minimum and still make the same amount of money? Think of it as reverse communism.

I have always worked in coffee shops, the Shangri-La of all ambitionless intellectuals and although I have hung up my Portafilter, I still have fond memories of my days as a slack-jawed barista.

Afternoon shifts were pretty slow at my last job; if it is true that necessity is the mother of invention, then boredom is the S.O.B. that knocked her up.

If you use 20-ounce paper cups as pins and a register roll, wrapped in newspaper and sealed in scotch tape, as a ball, you’ve got yourself a home made bowling alley. Make up some rules, actual bowling rules need not apply. A simple point for pin system works the best.

Send a dutiful employee on a beer run, re-enact a few relevant scenes from “The Big Lebowski” and viola, you have successfully transformed a sterile work environment into a slacker’s paradise.

Another way to goof off at work is to place some kind of goop on the earpiece of a telephone, i.e. chocolate sauce or, say, corn husker’s lotion. Make sure the intended victim does not see you setting up the prank or all you’ve done is create more work for yourself.

When everything is in place, make your move. Call your work from a remote location of the store and wait for your unsuspecting co-worker to answer the phone. Wait for the words “what the…” and soundly bellow with a “Ha Haaa.”

This prank rarely works on the same person twice, so use it sparingly. Also, you might want to watch your back for the inevitable onslaught of retribution.

Every job has someone there who gets on everyone’s nerves, and if you can’t think of anyone, then it’s you.

Effigies are a healthy way to release unneeded stress and creating them can be very entertaining. Make sure that when you are making your effigy, to comically portray the physical features of the person whose likeness you intend to deface. This will ensure that everyone involved has a good laugh at the expense of the person who is the cause of your laborious lament. If you are going to light your effigy on fire, be sure to douse it in some sort of flammable liquid; don’t worry about getting burned, that’s what worker’s compensation is for.

A friend told me about a creative contest he and his co-workers would have during those tortuous mandatory work meetings. The object was to see which one of them could make the person giving the meeting yawn the most times by yawning themselves. There was no prize to be had, no reward save successfully making it through another meeting.

If you’re thinking that these antics seem juvenile, I’m sorry I burnt your picture, but doing the least amount of work possible is every slacker’s innate right.

The only way to a make retail wages worth working for is to do the following: Do as little as possible, take everything that is not screwed down, make all your long-distance calls from work and only pledge allegiance to your co-workers.

Keep these ideas in mind and you can make it through any lame day at work.

We have the power to control how we perceive every aspect of our lives, including work. You are not an automaton who can be used to calculate how many lattes or sandwiches or corndogs should be made per hour to meet maximum productivity. You are not what you do for a living, so quit taking your job so seriously; they need you more than you need them.

If you have to earn the right to not be homeless, then you might as well take all the liberties you want.