Be Like Morgan – A story about work, laziness, AI, and knowing when to let go
Morgan was lazy.
There was no point pretending otherwise.
He hated waking up early. He hated meetings, especially meetings where eight people spent an hour discussing something two people could have settled in five minutes.
He hated filling in forms.
He hated copying numbers from one spreadsheet into another.
Most of all, Morgan hated doing the same thing twice.
Jude was the opposite.
Jude was already at his desk when Morgan walked into the office each morning.
His laptop would be open. His coffee would be half-finished. There would already be several chat windows on his screen.
“Morning,” Morgan would say.
Jude would glance at the clock.
“Morning? It’s almost ten.”
“Exactly. Still morning.”
Jude would shake his head and continue typing.
They worked on the same team, although nobody looking at them would have guessed it.
Jude was everything a company said it wanted.
He was hardworking, reliable and always available. He answered messages quickly. He accepted almost every request. When somebody asked for help, Jude’s answer was usually:
“Sure, leave it with me.”
Morgan’s answer was usually:
“Why?”
That one word annoyed a lot of people.
Why do we need this report?
Why do we update it every Friday?
Why are we entering the same information into two systems?
Why does everyone need to attend this meeting?
Why does this approval require four managers?
Why are we still doing this manually?
People sometimes thought Morgan was being difficult.
Jude thought so too.
“You know,” Jude told him one afternoon, “sometimes it’s faster to just do the work instead of questioning everything.”
Morgan leaned back in his chair.
“That’s what you said last month.”
“And?”
“And you’re still doing the same work this month.”
Jude did not answer.
He had a deadline.
Morgan Was Lazy, but His Work Was Done
Morgan was not the kind of lazy person who disappeared and left his teammates to clean up the mess.
His work got done.
That was the confusing part.
Sometimes it got done late in the day. Sometimes it arrived without a dramatic announcement. Sometimes nobody even understood how he had completed it.
But it got done.
One Monday, their manager asked the team to prepare a weekly performance report.
It was the kind of report that looked important but was barely read.
Every department had to collect its numbers, update a spreadsheet, create several charts and write a summary explaining why the numbers had changed.
Jude started immediately.
He downloaded the data.
He cleaned it.
He copied the numbers into the company template.
He adjusted the chart labels.
He checked the colours.
He rewrote the summary.
By lunchtime, he had finished perhaps half of it.
Morgan had not even opened the template.
Jude looked across the office.
Morgan was drinking coffee and reading something about automation.
“You’re going to be in trouble,” Jude said.
“For what?”
“The report.”
“Oh, that.”
“It’s due today.”
“I know.”
“You haven’t started.”
Morgan looked at him.
“I have started. I’m trying to make sure I never have to do it again.”
Morgan spent most of that morning building a simple script that collected the numbers and placed them into the correct sections automatically.
He used AI to create the first version of the weekly summary. Then he checked the claims, corrected several mistakes and rewrote the awkward parts in his own voice.
The first attempt was messy.
The second one failed completely.
At one point, Morgan accidentally placed last month’s figures into the current report and had to start again.
He swore at his computer.
He searched online.
He changed the script.
He tried again.
By late afternoon, the report was ready.
It was not magical.
It was not perfect.
But it was correct.
The following week, Jude spent another day producing his report.
Morgan pressed a button, waited a few minutes, checked the output and went for lunch.
That was Morgan’s kind of laziness.
He was willing to struggle once so he could avoid struggling every week.
The Company Loved Effort It Could See
There was one problem.
The company could see Jude working.
It could not see the work Morgan had removed.
Managers saw Jude replying at 11:30 at night.
They saw him joining early calls.
They saw his calendar filled with meetings.
They saw him rushing between conference rooms with his laptop and charger.
Jude looked important because he was always busy.
Morgan looked less important because he had created space in his day.
When Morgan automated three hours of work, nobody saw three hours being saved.
They saw Morgan leaving the office on time.
When Morgan prevented a problem, nobody saw the crisis that never happened.
They saw an ordinary day.
When Morgan shortened a process from twelve steps to four, nobody thanked him for the eight steps that had disappeared.
People rarely celebrate work that no longer exists.
They celebrate the person sweating in front of them.
So Jude was praised.
Morgan was questioned.
During performance reviews, Jude’s manager said:
“You consistently go above and beyond.”
During Morgan’s review, the same manager said:
“We need to see more engagement from you.”
Morgan stared at him.
“Is my work not getting done?”
“That’s not the issue.”
“Is the quality bad?”
“No, but—”
“Did I miss a deadline?”
“Not recently.”
Morgan waited.
His manager looked uncomfortable.
“You need to be more visible.”
There it was.
Morgan had solved the wrong problem.
He thought the job was to produce results.
The company also wanted him to perform the appearance of effort.
The Famous Bill Gates Quote
There is a quotation that has travelled around the internet for years:
“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job, because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
It is usually credited to Bill Gates.
There are articles, posters and social media posts built around it. One recent article describes the quotation as a management lesson about recognising people who automate repetitive work, remove unnecessary effort and focus on outcomes rather than activity.
Article:
There is only one problem.
There is no strong evidence that Bill Gates actually said it.
Fact-checkers and quotation researchers have traced similar versions much further back. The idea has been linked to people such as American industrial engineer Frank B. Gilbreth Sr. and former Chrysler executive Clarence Bleicher.
Research into the quotation:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/26/lazy-job/
Fact-check:
Perhaps the internet attached Bill Gates’s name because the quotation sounds like something a famous technology founder should say.
The attribution may be doubtful, but the idea still feels true.
There are at least two kinds of lazy people.
The first kind avoids responsibility.
They miss deadlines, produce careless work and leave their problems for somebody else.
That kind of laziness is not clever.
It is selfish.
The second kind hates waste.
They will still deliver the result, but they cannot tolerate pointless steps. They question the process, search for tools and look for a way to prevent the same problem from returning.
Morgan was the second kind.
He was not trying to escape the outcome.
He was trying to escape the nonsense surrounding it.
Morgan Was Demoted
Eventually, the company restructured the department.
There were new reporting lines, new job titles and several presentation slides explaining how the changes would make the organisation more agile.
Morgan was demoted.
Nobody used that word directly.
Companies rarely do.
His responsibilities were “realigned.”
His scope was “adjusted.”
The organisation had “evolved.”
Morgan listened as his manager explained it.
“You’re technically strong,” the manager said. “But we need people who demonstrate consistent ownership.”
Morgan almost laughed.
He had automated half the team’s repetitive work.
He had fixed systems nobody else wanted to touch.
He had solved problems before they reached management.
But he had not stayed late enough.
He had not spoken enough during meetings.
He had not made his effort look painful.
Morgan looked across the office at Jude.
Jude was working.
Of course he was.
Morgan packed his belongings a few weeks later.
There was not much to pack.
A coffee cup.
A charger.
A small notebook.
A plant that had somehow survived despite Morgan forgetting to water it.
Jude helped him carry the box downstairs.
“I’m sorry,” Jude said.
Morgan shrugged.
“You worked hard here.”
“That was probably my mistake.”
Jude gave him a tired smile.
“What are you going to do now?”
Morgan looked at the box in his hands.
“I don’t know.”
For once, he genuinely did not have a shortcut.
Life Outside the Office
The first few weeks were uncomfortable.
Morgan woke up in the morning and had nowhere to go.
There were no messages waiting for him.
No red notification badges.
No manager asking for an update.
No calendar filled with meetings he did not want to attend.
At first, the silence frightened him.
Then it began to feel peaceful.
Morgan started experimenting with AI tools.
Not because he believed AI could do everything perfectly.
It could not.
It made up facts.
It misunderstood instructions.
It produced code that looked correct but failed in embarrassing ways.
It wrote paragraphs filled with empty phrases such as “in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.”
Morgan hated that sentence.
But AI was useful.
It gave him somewhere to begin.
He used it to draft proposals, organise research and create rough versions of small applications.
He still needed to think.
He still needed to verify the work.
He still needed to understand the customer.
But he no longer needed to begin every task with a blank page.
Slowly, Morgan started helping small companies automate their internal work.
One client spent several hours every Monday collecting information from emails.
Morgan built a workflow that handled most of it automatically.
Another client manually prepared the same customer documents every week.
Morgan created a template and connected it to their existing data.
The work was not glamorous.
Nobody applauded.
There were no internal awards.
But the clients paid him because he made their lives easier.
For the first time, Morgan was not rewarded for appearing busy.
He was rewarded for making busyness disappear.
Jude Remained
Jude stayed at the company.
He was promoted a year later.
Morgan sent him a message.
“Congratulations. Drinks?”
Jude replied three hours later.
“Thanks. Sorry, crazy day. Maybe next week?”
Next week never came.
The promotion gave Jude a better title, a slightly larger salary and far more work.
When someone resigned, Jude took over their projects.
When the company reduced headcount, Jude inherited another team.
When a senior manager needed something urgently, Jude was the obvious person to call.
He was dependable.
He had spent years teaching the company that he could carry anything.
So the company kept placing more weight on him.
At night, Jude sometimes opened Morgan’s old automation tools.
A few were still running.
One of them had broken after a system update. Nobody knew how to repair it, so Jude returned to doing the task manually.
He told himself it was temporary.
Six months later, he was still doing it.
One evening, Morgan sent him a photograph.
Morgan was sitting near the sea with his laptop closed beside him.
The message said:
“Finished work early. Thought this view might annoy you.”
Jude smiled.
Then another work notification appeared.
He put down his phone and returned to the spreadsheet.
Jude still had the job.
Morgan finally had his life.
Bruce Lee and the Water
Unlike the Bill Gates quotation, Bruce Lee’s famous words about water came from Lee himself.
In a 1971 television interview with Canadian journalist Pierre Berton, Lee explained the importance of being formless and adaptable.
He described how water takes the shape of whatever contains it. Water placed in a cup becomes the cup. Water placed in a bottle becomes the bottle. It can flow gently, or it can strike with force.
Then he ended with the words:
“Be water, my friend.”
Bruce Lee’s official website discusses the philosophy here:
https://brucelee.com/podcast-blog/2016/7/20/2-be-water-my-friend
A recording from the 1971 Pierre Berton interview can also be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t3EOfgfq4I
Bruce Lee was talking about martial arts and life, not office automation or artificial intelligence.
But the idea fits this moment strangely well.
Many people have built their identity around one way of working.
They are the person who writes the report.
The person who prepares the slides.
The person who edits the photographs.
The person who writes the code.
The person who knows how to operate the complicated internal system.
Then AI arrives and begins doing part of that work.
The natural reaction is fear.
Some people become rigid.
They defend the old method because the old method made them valuable.
They insist that using AI is cheating.
They continue carrying the boxes by hand while someone else finds a trolley.
Morgan would not do that.
Morgan would become the water.
If AI could create the first draft, Morgan would become good at directing and editing it.
If AI could generate code, he would focus on architecture, judgment and understanding the real problem.
If AI could create a presentation, he would spend his time deciding what the presentation should actually say.
He would not fight the new shape of work.
He would flow into it.
Hard Work Is Not a Shield
Jude believed that hard work would protect him.
Many of us believe that.
We tell ourselves that if we arrive early, stay late and accept every assignment, the company will remember.
Perhaps it will.
But companies restructure.
Budgets disappear.
Projects are cancelled.
Management changes.
Jobs move to other countries.
Software replaces processes.
AI allows one person to produce what previously required several people.
Hard work can make you valuable.
It cannot make you untouchable.
Jude was not wrong to care about his work.
He was wrong to believe that suffering proved his value.
There will always be moments when hard work is necessary.
Some problems cannot be solved with a prompt.
Some skills require years of practice.
Some responsibilities cannot be automated or delegated.
Sometimes there is no shortcut.
Morgan knew that too.
The difference was that Morgan checked before sacrificing himself.
Jude sacrificed himself first and asked questions later.
AI Does Not Remove the Need to Think
Morgan did not blindly trust AI.
He knew it could produce nonsense with great confidence.
He knew a generated answer could be wrong.
He knew that sending unverified AI output to a customer was not efficiency. It was carelessness wearing a technological costume.
His laziness had rules.
The result still had to be correct.
The customer still had to be protected.
He still had to take responsibility.
AI could create a starting point.
Morgan had to decide whether the starting point was useful.
AI could suggest ten solutions.
Morgan had to understand which solution fitted reality.
AI could write code.
Morgan had to know what the code would do when something went wrong.
That is the difference between using AI and hiding behind it.
Morgan used AI to avoid unnecessary effort.
He did not use it to avoid accountability.
Be Lazy in the Right Way
Be lazy about repetition.
Be lazy about meetings with no purpose.
Be lazy about reports nobody reads.
Be lazy about copying information between systems.
Be lazy about producing work only to prove you were working.
But do not be lazy about thinking.
Do not be lazy about checking the result.
Do not be lazy about understanding the consequences.
Do not be lazy when somebody is depending on you.
Do not create extra work for Jude and call yourself innovative.
The goal is not to do nothing.
The goal is to stop doing things that achieve nothing.
Before beginning your next task, pause.
Ask yourself:
Does this really need to be done?
What outcome does the person actually need?
Has somebody already solved this?
Can I reuse something?
Can AI create the first draft?
Can a tool perform the repetitive part?
Can I remove a step?
Can I create a system so nobody has to do this again?
And perhaps the most uncomfortable question:
Am I doing this because it creates value, or because I want people to see me working?
Who Won?
From the company’s point of view, Jude won.
He stayed.
He was promoted.
He became important.
Morgan was demoted, overlooked and eventually pushed out.
But years later, Jude was still at his desk, carrying responsibilities that grew faster than his salary.
Morgan was outside.
He had fewer titles and less recognition.
But his time belonged to him.
His mind was quiet.
His soul was finally at peace.
Perhaps neither man was completely right.
Morgan could have communicated his value better.
He could have helped people understand what he had built instead of assuming the results would speak for themselves.
Jude could have set boundaries.
He could have questioned the work before accepting it.
He could have learned that reliability does not require self-destruction.
But if I had to choose, I would still choose to be more like Morgan.
Not because laziness is automatically wise.
Not because AI can do everything.
And not because effort is meaningless.
I would choose Morgan because he understood something many of us learn too late:
Your employer pays for your time, but that does not mean you must hand over your entire life.
So work.
Care about the result.
Keep your promises.
Help the people around you.
But do not worship exhaustion.
Use the tools available to you.
Automate what should be automated.
Question what should be questioned.
Let go of methods that no longer make sense.
And when the working world changes—as it certainly will—do not stand rigidly in front of it, hoping that your willingness to suffer will protect you.
Remember the lesson commonly, though probably incorrectly, associated with Bill Gates:
The easiest method is sometimes discovered by the person who hates unnecessary work.
Remember Bruce Lee:
Be formless.
Adapt.
Flow.
Be like water.
And, whenever possible, be like Morgan.