This Guy Decided To Debunk The Motivational "Don't Work Hard, Work Smart" Poster

by Rachel

There's nothing wrong with motivational quotes, because, sometimes, we all need a little inspiration. "Don't give up!" and "believe in yourself!" are, although a little played out, harmless, but nevertheless inspiring. There’s one quote that has been circulating for a while which states “Don’t work hard. Work intelligent.”

A picture captioned with that quote was posted in the MurderedByWords thread on Reddit and users annihilated the poster; saying it was an excuse for laziness and not completing the job properly. The poster depicts a group of employees pushing cubes to their destination--except for one guy, the “smart” guy, who carved his into a cube.

Here is the original poster with the main criticism. "What exactly is the message being conveyed here? Feel free to sabotage the product for the sake of making your own job easier?"

L1ghtningdude on Reddit

The comments agreed!

S1lv3rw1nd:

"I prefer the one where the guy who ordered the blocks got upset" The comments agreed!

slamdunce on Reddit (via meme.xyz)

Users continued to add variants of the post, with the criticism getting simpler each time:

CallMeJeeJ:

"I remember seeing an even more simplified version where they drew a little dude with his sphere below and a guy standing next to him saying “I ordered a fucking cube”. That one gets to the point a little faster. Like our friend with the sphere." Users continued to add variants of the post, with the criticism getting simpler each time:

Users continued to add variants of the post, with the criticism getting simpler each time:

LucienMr on Reddit (via Imgur)

ranger51:

"I remember seeing an even more simplified version where they drew a stick figure with his sphere below and another stick figure standing next to him saying “Where cube?” That one gets to the point a little faster. Like our friend with the sphere."

LucienMr on Reddit (via Imgur)

Mappinus:

"I remember an even more simplified version somewhere where there's two big dots, and one has a smaller dot. The one without the small dot says "cube" and the one with says "no". That one gets to the point a little faster. Like our friend with the sphere."

LucienMr on Reddit (via Imgur)

TitanOfGamingYT:

"I remember a more simple one where it ws just the words "not cube." at the bottom. Its a little more manageable."

JMAN_JUSTICE:

"I remember seeing an even more simplified version where they pasted two emojis with a round blob between them and one emoji saying “cube?” That one gets to the point a little faster. Like our friend with the sphere."

mearrkk on Reddit (via Imgur)

And then the meme-loving users became self-aware!!

MChainsaw:

I'm starting to feel like we've reached the metaphorical sphere of this joke by now.

surprise_chump:

"We’ve removed 47.64% of the meme by now."

That seems to be the gist of the original poster!

SkepticalSpaghetti on Reddit (via Bored Panda)

"Hello? Cube Company?"

le_beret on Reddit (via Bored Panda)

EvryMthrF_ngThrd:

"An aphorism often mistakenly attributed to Abraham Lincoln applies here:"If I had four hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first two hours sharpening the axe."While the source is unknown, the soundness of the knowledge is not in dispute - proper preparation prevents poor performance. ;)"

Here is a criticism without the use of a meme!

best_dandy:

"The basic gist of "Work Smarter, Not harder." is supposed to be you putting in more effort to alleviate the need for effort in the future. As an IT professional, if I can automate a process to achieve the end goal, it is going to require a large initial investment that will pay off and make my job easier in the long run. It's not about destroying the end product to get it done quickly and head home. That's the difference between intelligent people working smarter and a dipshit working "smarter"."