Griniaris.com

Once upon a time, there was a guy named Caveman, an interim employee at a big corporate office. Caveman was brought in to cover for the real employee. On his first day, Caveman was handed a mountain of work—email chains, spreadsheets, PowerPoints, and all sorts of corporate jargon. It looked like a lot, but Caveman wasn’t worried. After all, his job was temporary. How hard could it be?

But as the days wore on, Caveman quickly realized there were two things he didn’t sign up for:

1. A mountain of work.
2. An entirely unmanageable number of meetings.

Cacveman, feeling particularly uninspired, zoned out, imagining a vacation in the Bahamas with a large fruity drink in his hand.

Suddenly, Bik snapped his fingers. “Caveman, what’s the status on that report? We need it by 9 PM!”

Caveman blinked, pulled himself back into the present, and nodded like a man who had just been hit by a bus. “Uh, yeah, of course, Bik. I’ve got it under control.” The problem was, he had no clue what she was talking about. But Caveman was clever. Instead of diving into the abyss of Excel hell, he did what any self-respecting interim employee would do: He turned to Karen.

“Actually, Bik,” Caveman said, his eyes wide with pretend confusion, “I was just about to ask you to review the data before I finish compiling the numbers. You’re the expert on this.”

Bik looked surprised, but then puffed his chest out like a proud peacock. “Well, of course! I’ve got years of experience.”He grabbed the laptop, and Caveman subtly shifted his chair, smiling to himself.

By 7:30, Bik was deep into pivot tables, completely immersed in the charts. Meanwhile, Caveman had been busy checking his phone for the latest cat videos. At 8 PM, Bik triumphantly emailed the report with the subject line: “Teamwork Makes the Dream Work!”

Bik didn’t respond to the email. Instead, he sent Bik a new task: a PowerPoint for next week’s big presentation. “Hey Bik,” he wrote, “you’re going to be amazing at this! Can you give me your thoughts on this deck before I finish it up? It’s going to be so much better with your input!”

Bik, feeling proud and exhausted from all the Excel magic he had done, didn’t hesitate. He replied immediately: “Of course! I’ll give it a quick once-over.”

The next week, Caveman was handed his walking papers—his short stint at the company had come to an end. As he walked out the door, Big gave him a big hug. “Caveman, you’re amazing. I’ve never seen someone contribute so much, and the reports—wow, just wow!”

Caveman smiled to himself. A job well done… without doing anything at all.

And from that day on, Caveman’s LinkedIn profile was updated with a new skill: “Team Collaboration: Leveraging Others’ Expertise.”