Prejudice is never pretty, but what could be uglier than the widely held discrimination against laziness?

Really, I don't know how this outrageous and unfair injustice has become acceptable! On the other hand, maybe the widespread bigotry against the slothful is understandable. After all, we're not going to organize a march or protest loudly in front of our workplaces. We're just too lazy.

Trust Eilene Zimmerman, a New York Times reporter, to be on top of this scandalous example of workplace intolerance. In a recent "Career Couch" column, Zimmerman assembles a highly energetic group of workplace consultants and psychologists to examine the matter, but instead of trying to find techniques to cure the anti-lazy faction of their hurtful ways, the reporter serves up ideas on how the "hard workers" in a company can inform -- and even inform on -- those colleagues who they consider to be productivity-challenged.

This is so unfair, since, as you know, being lazy takes a whole lot of work. It's true! You have to work really hard to not do any work in this rotten economy. Kudos to you, indolent reader, for surviving in a dog-eat-dog work environment while not contributing anything to your company, except holding down an Aeron chair.

Zimmerman starts her column with this question: "You work with someone you think is lazy and resent him for it. He doesn't seem to carry his load, wastes time socializing and misses deadlines. Is it possible that your perception of him is wrong?"

"Yes," says Zimmerman, and though she is 100 percent incorrect, she is backed up in this opinion by Ben Dattner, a New York consultant. "How much time you perceive someone is working is not necessarily a valid reflection of the effort they are expending or the results they are achieving," explains Dattner.

"They may have terrific time-management skills, stay late or work weekends."

It's thinking like this that keeps us lazy folks in our jobs. Still, you have to admit it is difficult to imagine how anyone could observe you lollygagging through the day, spending endless billable hours chitchatting, and still come away with the impression that you had terrific time-management skills, or, for that matter, any skills at all. Continued...