Workslop is the junk. Botsitting is the unpaid job of catching it. Botshitting is the next step, and it is worse.
That is when people stop understanding the output, stop questioning it, and finally stop owning it. The file goes out under a human name. The thinking never passed through a human head.
Open-source workplace research has started using that word on purpose. Heavy users of these tools admit, at high rates, that they have done at least one of three things. Offloaded the understanding. Offloaded the judgment. Offloaded the responsibility. Managers show up in that data a little more often than the people below them, which makes sense if you have ever sat in the seat. The boss wants an answer now. The team wants a review. The fastest way through the squeeze is to let the machine talk and hope nobody asks the second question.
I’ve watched it happen in a briefing that looked polished from the first slide. The presenter never looked at the room. Eyes stayed on the text like it might vanish if they left it. When someone asked where a number came from, there was a small freeze. Not the pause of a person hunting for the right phrase. The pause of a person who never had the number in the first place. My Profitable Body Language book treated that kind of break as a hotspot. The mouth is still moving. The rest of the person has already left the claim.
Sun Tzu had no patience for a force that could not explain its own position. He wanted commanders who knew the ground, knew their people, and knew when a report was smoke. Deception is a tool you use on the other side. When your own shop starts deceiving itself with finished-looking pages nobody can defend, you are not being clever. You are marching on a map that does not match the field.
This is how it usually slides. First the person stops reading the draft closely because the tone sounds right. Then they stop pushing back because pushing back takes time they do not have. Then they send it. If it blows up, the sentence is already waiting. “The tool did that.” Forty percent of workers in one open survey went there. Responsibility leaves the room and the name on the email stays.
I wrote about a close version of this in my Redirecting Rejection book. When you accept the first frame you are handed, you work inside someone else’s story. Botshitting is that habit with a better printer. The machine hands you a frame that sounds complete. You pass it along. You never take the ground back.
If you lead a team, watch for the tells that have nothing to do with the software. People who used to argue a point now nod and forward. Questions in the meeting get answered with a glance at the screen. Nobody can say what they would cut if the page had to be half as long. That last one matters. If they cannot cut it, they do not own it.
Make ownership visible again. Not a speech about integrity. A simple rule. If your name is on it, you can explain it without opening the chat history. If you cannot, it stays in draft. That will slow a few people down. Good. Speed without a mind attached is how bad decisions get a nice cover sheet.
If you are the one sliding into this, catch it early. Read the thing out loud. If a sentence embarrasses you coming out of your own mouth, it is not ready. Ask what you would defend in front of a skeptical boss who already hates surprises. If the answer is “most of it, I think,” you are not done.
Sun Tzu said the victorious commander wins before the fight. That starts with knowing what you are actually sending into the field. A shop that signs off on the machine is not using a tool. It is renting a voice and hoping the bill never comes due.
The people who stay dangerous in this environment will still use the tools. They just will not hide behind them. They will be able to look you in the eye and stand on the sentence.
Stay Strong, Stay Disciplined, Stay Dangerous,
–S