"Before all else, be armed" - Niccolo Machiavelli

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

  

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

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.