The Non-Essentials: As Expendable as the Next Guy

There's a Dick in Every Office

2010-03-04T01:06:00.000-08:00

In every office, be it the Oval or yours, there is always a Dick in it. The Dick in my office was scary. Our blood would race as we quaked with fear in our cubby holes. We could feel her anvil-like tremors coming toward us as she Fee-fi-fo-fum-ed her way down the hall.

We were never quite sure if it was her pure evil making the floors shake or the sub-par flooring that we were so used to. We prayed that she would not stop at our little private hell of a cubby hole. For the poor soul she deigned to grace with her seething presence, we prayed.

With a sickly sweet, high pitched voice, that betrayed her grandness-of-assness, Dick was all rules and regulations. She knew when an email was sent out two years ago and everyone who responded to it. She made up forms for procedures and procedures for the forms. She would inevitably catch you in the smallest mistake. And when she did, she always had the damning proof in a pure white three-ring binder. Like her binders, her office was like the frozen tundra, blindingly white and cold as her soul.

The best part about Dick was that she was an equal opportunist. When our boss, GW screwed up with white binder in hand and a voice that made your teeth rot, she'd point to the email memo that showed how incompetent GW was. These were the days we all lived for. And this was how Dick ensured her and her peons' employment survival. GW was so managerial flaccid, that Dick could white binder her in to an autistic state of "yeses". By the end of the meeting, she had GW's oatmeal brain spinning with data, reports and memos. This is how Dick got anything she wanted and bottle necked everything she did not deem worthy of support (like upgrading my friggin computer for over a year).

I'm sure you have a Dick in your office. Someone who amasses so much power, that by the end of the fiscal cycle you realize she's been running the show. But like the Giant, Dicks always have an Achilles heal. Once we recognized her strategy, we learned from the bloody master. We began hitting her with any error she committed. It's great to see the big ones fall.

"Before all else, be armed" - Niccolo Machiavelli

2010-02-22T00:57:00.000-08:00

In my Feb 19 post, I wrote about the dangers of dressing better than your off-the-rack boss. However, there is always a caveat.

If you just can't help yourself and want to wear those killer pumps or Armani tie, then do so strategically.

When you essentially know you have one foot in the employment grave as I always did with with my idiot boss "GW", I began throwing caution to the wind like Capote threw down drinks and witty repartee.

First you must carefully assess your boss's deficiencies. After having done this, then you need to pick and choose your attire appropriately for battle.

To walk you through an example, let's take GW. Behind every cliche such as "dull as dishwater" is a grain or ocean of truth. She was the invisible woman. At high power meetings I watched as others looked and spoke through her. It was amazing. Of course once the meeting was done she would tear into the staff as a way to double check she was in charge. After years of her managerial-PMS, I had had enough.

GW was kankel queen with ortho shoes. (Fashion Note: If your coloring is just a little darker than oatmeal, don't buy matching mush colored shoes and clothes).

I figured if I was going to go down, I'd do it looking good. First I brought out my killer kicks, my shoes were to die for: 3" and 4" pumps, open toe, pointy toe sling backs, and boots, I had them all and they made me feel great.

It didn't matter that I nearly crippled myself, it was worth it. The pain in my feet distracted me from the pain in my ass. Soon after the stiletto parade began, I noticed that GW was wearing a new pair of...wait for it...oatmeal colored open toe shoes! (Yes Virginia they still make them.) But the shoes were not enough, she was wearing them with nylons.

Things were going well, but not fast enough, I brought out the big guns: Accessories! Coach purses, sterling silver watch, and pearl necklaces, bracelets and earrings (borrowed from siblings, but G-idiot-W didn't need to know this). These, with all of their glorious sparkle, paled in comparison to one simple wooden, beaded bracelet.

Now why would this simple wooden bracelet make the KMart suits quiver? People are funny. When they don't know what something is and you're in an office, no one wants to ask what a possible religious object is. And boy, these white women didn't.

My delicious sparkly accessories garnered a lot of envy and bitchy, back handed comments; and I loved every one of them. But the nail in their coffin was my Tibetan prayer bead bracelet. It was my amulet against their spirit sucking insanity. When I needed to go to that quite, mental place during a meeting, I would simply put my hands on the table, they would see the bracelet and their nervous, twitchy faces were all I needed to get me there.

Sometimes you don't need to drive a 4" stiletto into the heart of an incompetent boss, all you need is to play upon their igonrance and fear. Or you could do both, keep them on the ropes and have fun. I did.

The Dumber They Are the Better

2010-02-19T19:24:00.000-08:00

These are easy things to do and not to do, clearly things I have not mastered: Be Dumb.

If you want to keep your job DO NOT do the following:

* Make Suggestions: Never try to improve on ___ (fill in the blank with any thing you've ever worked on for your boss, i.e., project, report, etc.).

* Come in Early or Stay Late: If your boss does not know you're doing this don't bother. If you try to claim overtime they will say you are too slow and be told to get things done during work hours.

* Become Friends with Co-Workers. They can often be your greatest liability: they talk.

* Be Enthusiastic: You will get more work dumped on you, and thus, kill your spirit.

* Seek Advancement: Your boss and everyone else will see this as a threat.

* Dress Better Than Your Boss: Should someone mistake you for the boss, you will surely get the passive aggressive comments and people will spread rumors that you make too much money.*

* Fix the Copier: If you fix any friggin machine in the office, everyone, and I mean everyone, will expect you to continue in this role and when you refuse to, you will be reprimanded.

* Be Smart: If you reveal that you actually can think independently, quickly, and coherently, then you will be threat #1 to your boss. Your insecure boss will try to destroy you by any means necessary.

A word to the wise: say stupid, complacent, mute, and best of all be a "lifer". Someone who pushes the papers, turns in their mediocre but acceptable work, and never asks questions.

*N.B., If you dress better than your boss, because your boss dresses Off-the-Rack-KMart, they will periodically bitch slap you with passive aggressive comments that you know will only lead to a reprimand down the line. And if you dress really well, this reprimand will show up in your annual evaluation.

Monster, the Beaver and Nigerian Princes

2010-02-18T23:54:00.000-08:00

In employment desperation, you'll often post your resume on anything. A telephone pole, a bathroom stall, even Monster.com. This is what I did. After some disgusting, but expected calls from folks taking a crap, I removed the bathroom readings and I should have removed it from Monster.

I worked and worked on my resume, cutting it down, moving things around, throwing it at my dogs who gleefully tore it up. At least they were having fun at my expense, better than, let's call my former employer "GW" (insecure, indecisive, vindictive with delusions of intelligence). Before I regale you with GW stories, let me get back to the tale at hand.

After posting my resume on Monster, a significant increase in my spam folder occurred. I tolerated this in hopes that that brass ring was coming my way. As I deleted and deleted, I saw a promising email. It was full of praise about my accomplishments. They felt me qualified to...wait for it...sell insurance. I read through the well crafted yet generic letter and responded with a thank you, but no thanks. I moved on and deleted and deleted.

Soon, I was receiving more and more insurance letters praising my skills and experience. It felt as if the Nigerian Insurance Prince(ss) had gotten a hold of my Monster resume and decided to put me on speed dial. Sure enough, she eventually did call! My brass ring had arrived. She said she saw my resume on Monster and decided to give me a call. She said there was a future for me with her company, they were growing fast and wanted me to be a part of their team! I was ready to say "Yes", when I asked, "by the way, what do you do?" I guess I knocked her off her script and she blurted out the dead-knell: sell insurance.

The moral of this story kids: Be like the Beaver on the Monster commercial. He plays his fiddle for folks, enters "Violinist" into Monster's search engine, takes the bus to the city, where he plays on street corners, subway platforms, dance clubs and finally gets an audition. He gets his own concert and ends up in the back of a limo's hot tub with a skanky blond. Nowhere in the commercial is it made clear that Monster actually helped the little fella'. Save yourself the spam, the insurance vultures and Nigerian Princes, keep applying, don't sell yourself short, and you never know, you too can end up with a skanky blond.

U R Non-Essential: The Tales of a Laid-Off Employee

2010-02-10T17:20:00.000-08:00

Did you ever find yourself sitting on the other side of the table from your boss as she tells you that your position has been deemed "non-essential"? We few, we happy few, all knew what she meant, that "I" was finally, wonderfully and most importantly for her legally non-essential.

We had butted and bloodied heads in the past and she was using the economic crisis as the perfect opportunity to clean house and sweep my ass out of there. As I stared unblinking into her eyes and the eyes of her lackey, whose lack of stature garnered him the nickname of "Frodo", they nervously rambled on with a limitless amount of management-for-dummies-self-help-guide cliches. I said not a word, just stared. I knew how nervous she got when her peons did not respond to her, so I just sat and stared. It was great.

As they nervously rambled on about how no stone was left unturned (cliche #1-actually, she got the cliche wrong, she said "rock"). That if there was any other way they searched for it (#2). If they could, of course they would keep me (#3, also a lie). They had no doubt that I would find another job, because I was so talented (#4).

The minute the compliments began rolling in, I knew we were close to the end of me having to suffer their presence. "Do you have any questions?" they nervously asked looking back and forth to each other and then at me. With thoroughly angry eyes and deadened emotion, I said "no". Oh wait, I did say, "are those my papers?", I grab them, then got up and left. It took me about 25 steps to get to my office. I let myself go into auto pilot, I knew it was the safest thing I could do.

By the time I got to my office I was in full control. I started dancing up and down, throwing my hands in the air like I just didn't care. And I didn't. I could not wait to get my severance, my paid out vacation time and go on the dole.

What have I learned from all of this? You'll have to check back as I relearn how to cook, stop "Rossing" (my shopping binges at discount stores), and learn how to laugh at those bosses whose managerial incompetence defies continued employment logic.

Ta' ta' for now. I have to go burn some chicken.

Unemployment Buttons by Irina Blok