Thoughts From Upper Management: Quote from a recent meeting: "We are going to continue having these meetings, everyday, until I find out why no work is getting done". Quote from the Boss... "I didn't say it was your fault. I said I was going to blame it on you." A motivational sign at work: "The beatings will continue until morale improves." A direct quote from the Boss: "We passed over a lot of good people to get the ones we hired." My Boss frequently gets lost in thought. That's because it's unfamiliar territory. My Boss said to me, "What you see as a glass ceiling, I see as a protective barrier. My Boss needs a surge protector. That way her mouth would be buffered from surprise spikes in her brain. I thought my Boss was a bastard, and quit, to work for myself. My new Boss is a bastard, too ... but at least I respect him. He's given automobile accident victims new hope for recovery. He walks, talks and performs rudimentary tasks, all without the benefit of a SPINE. Some people climb the ladder of success. My Boss walked under it. Quote from the Boss after overriding the decision of a task force he created to find a solution: " I'm sorry if I ever gave you the impression your input would have any effect on my decision for the outcome of this project!" HR Manager to job candidate "I see you've had no computer training.  Although that qualifies you for upper management, it means you're under-qualified for our entry level positions." Quote from telephone inquiry "We're only hiring one summer intern this year and we won't start interviewing candidates for that position until the Boss' daughter finishes her summer classes.

Day Off So you want a day off. Let's take a look at exactly what you are asking for. There are 365 days per year available for work.  There are 52 weeks per year in which you already have two days off per week leaving 261 days available for work.  Since you spend 16 hours per day away from work, you have used up 170 days, leaving only 91 days available. You spend 30 minutes each day on coffee break that accounts for 23 days each year, leaving only 68 days available. With a 1-hour lunch period each day, you have used up another 46 days, leaving only 22 days available for work. You normally spend two days per year on sick leave; this leaves you only 20 days available for work.  We offer 5 holidays per year, so your available working time is down to 15 days. We generously give you 14 days vacation per year which leaves you only 1 day available for work.  And I'll be darned if you are going to take that day off !!!

Techniques on Being An Effective Employee 1.   Never walk down the hall without a document in your hands. People with documents in their hands look like hardworking employees heading for important meetings. People with nothing in their hands look like they're heading for the cafeteria.  People with the newspaper in their hands look like they're heading for  the bathroom. Above all, make sure you carry loads of stuff home with you at night, thus generating the false impression that you work longer hours than you do. 2.   Use computers to look busy. Any  time  you use  a computer, it looks like "work" to the casual observer. You can send and receive personal email, calculate your finances and generally have a blast without doing anything remotely related to work.  These aren't exactly the societal benefits that everybody from the computer revolution but they're not bad either.  When you get caught by your boss - and you will get caught -  your best defense is to claim you're teaching yourself to use the new software, thus saving valuable training dollars. You're not a loafer, you're a self-starter.  Offer to show your boss what you learned. That will make your boss scurry away like a frightened salamander. 3.   Messy desk. Top  management  can get away with a clean desk. For the rest of us, it looks like you're not working hard enough. Build huge  piles of documents around your workspace. To the observer, last year's work looks the same as today's work; it's volume that counts.  Pile them high and wide.  If you know somebody is coming to your cubicle, bury the document you'll need halfway down in an existing stack and rummage for it when he/she arrives. 4.   Voice mail Never answer your phone if you have voice mail.  People don't call you just because they want to give you something for nothing - they call because they want YOU to do work for THEM.  That's no way to live.  Screen all your calls through voice mail. If somebody leaves a voice mail message for you and it sounds like impending work, respond during lunch hour when you're hardworking and conscientious even though you're being a devious weasel. If you diligently employ  the method of screening incoming calls and then returning calls when nobody is there, this will greatly increase the odds that the caller will give up or  look for a solution that doesn't involve you.  The sweetest voice mail message you can ever hear is "Ignore my last message. I took care of it". If your  voice mailbox has a limit on the number of messages  it can hold, make sure you reach that limit frequently. One way to do that is to never erase any incoming messages. If that takes too long, send yourself a few messages.  Your callers will hear a recorded message that says,  "Sorry, this mailbox is full" - a sure sign that you are a  hardworking employee in high demand.

Reasons To Allow Drinking At Work It makes fellow employees look better. It gives you an incentive to show up. Suddenly, the dreaded staff meeting becomes an office party. It leads to more honest communication. Child birth expenses would be covered under Workers' Comp. Bosses are more likely to hand out raises when they are wasted. It helps save on heating costs in the winter. It reduces time off/vacations because people would rather come to work.

New Job Interview Techniques        Take the prospective employees you are trying to place and put them in a room with only a table and two chairs. Leave them alone for two hours, without any instruction. At the end of that time, go back and see what they are doing. If they have taken the table apart,  put them in Engineering. If they are counting the butts in the ashtray, assign them to Finance. If they are waving their arms and talking out loud, send them to Consulting. If they are talking to the chairs, Personnel is a good spot for them. If they are wearing green sunglasses and need a haircut, Computer Information Systems is their niche. If the room has a sweaty odor, perhaps they're destined for the Help Desk. If they mention what a good price we got for the table and chairs, put them into Purchasing. If they mention that hardwood furniture DOES NOT come from rainforests, Public Relations would suit them well. If they are sleeping, they are Management material. If they are writing up the experience, send them to the Technical Documents team. If they don't even look up when you enter the room, assign them to Security. If they try to tell you it's not as bad as it looks, send them to Marketing.

"The Computer Hillbillies" Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed, A poor college kid, barely kept his family fed, But then one day he was talking to a recruiter, Who said, "they pay big bucks if ya work on a computer..." Windows, that is... PC's... Workstations!.. Well, the first thing ya know ol' Jed's an Engineer. The kinfolk said "Jed, move away from here". They said "California is the place ya oughta be", So he bought himself some donuts and moved to  the valley... Silicon, that is... Intel... Pentium ... On his first day at work, they stuck him in a cube. Fed him some more donuts and they sat him at a tube. They said "your project's late, but we know just what to do. Instead of 40 hours, we'll work you 52!" OT, that is... unpaid... mandatory... So the weeks rolled by and things were looking bad. Schedules were slipping and some managers were mad. They called another meeting and decided on a fix. The answer was so simple... "We'll work him sixty-six!" Tired, that is... stressed out... no social life... The months turned to years and his hair was turning gray. Ol' Jed was working hard while his life it slipped away. He was waiting to retire when he turned 64, Instead he got a call and was escorted out the door. Laid off, that is... de-briefed... unemployed... Now the moral of the story is listen to when you're told, Companies will use you up and discard you when you're old. So gather up your friends and start up your own firm, Beat the competition, and watch the bosses squirm. Millionaires, that is... Bill Gates... Steve Jobs...