O O Ø O O O O
Boggled
Laugh, and the whole world seems insane.
A couple months ago, I had an epiphany. I had been pulling my hair... err... stubble out from the insanity surrounding me. I was headed for an ulcer, because I was increasingly frustrated by the buck-passing, finger-pointing, responsbility-shirking, and ass-kissing that was making my life more challenging than it should be. I’ve mentioned some of my experiences along the way, and thought that I had reached the breaking point. As it turned out, I hadn’t. I just needed to figure out that I should stare in wonder for a bit and then go about my business instead of just getting mad.
It’s a lot more fun to giggle at how ludicrous things are than to elevate my blood pressure by raging against the machine while bitching to friends. Don’t get me wrong, I still bitch, it’s just that now it’s more like an expression of wonder than a complaint. It’s no longer “woe is me, this ain’t right” but is more along the lines of “Woah, that’s fucked up... how are we in business again?”
From all this, I’ve come across some practices for folks who may want to fit into an insane environment. I wouldn’t think of trying them out, but maybe you or someone you know won’t have the same qualms. Apparently they work, or I’d probably have a whole bunch of new colleagues to play with. If you can laugh at them as you see them, the desire to jump out the window will disappear completely. No, really. Here’s some of the more popular choices:
- Pretend you don’t know what your job is, and demand that everyone else tell you what you should be doing. Take all the responses and collate them, put your name on a cover sheet, and present it to management as your plan. Receive accolades, and watch management get their teams to do all the work based on your plan. Brilliant.
- If you’ve screwed the pooch royally, transfer laterally. There is an unwritten rule that should you transfer out of a job, no matter how badly you messed up, all accountability and responsibility for your mistakes will be transferred to the poor sod who took your place. Get up and go, and all your troubles will be left behind. Bonus points for welcoming your replacement to the new job and offering to help out, then ignoring any attempts at communication from them.
- If you need information quickly because you have a report due that you’ve known about for two weeks, don’t panic. Send a request for the information to the manager of the person you should have asked two weeks ago (don’t forget to cc: your manager) and state that you’re waiting on said information to complete your report. Phrase it such that it’s not apparent this is the first request you’ve made for the information, and only volunteer it if confronted.
- Identify the group that everyone hates, and blame it on them. It doesn’t matter how absurd your claim will be, if everyone hates them already, a little more fuel on the fire will help them see past things like reality and give them even more reason to make the whipping child’s life more miserable.
- Never, ever use the phone for time-sensitive matters. You may actually talk to someone and solve a problem within five minutes, which could set annoying expectations of productivity with your management. Always send an e-mail-especially if you know the recipient receives hundreds of e-mails per day-and use the “Urgent” or ”High Priority” flag to identify it’s importance. After two weeks, send a second e-mail containing a copy of the first, and cc: everyone in god’s creation explaining how urgent the matter is, and that the target should phone you back ASAP because it has been sitting with them for two weeks. You’ll get a pat on the back for staying on top of things, and have a response from your target the same day after their manager chews them out.
- If you want to get one of those recognition awards, point out how badly you’ve screwed up your areas of responsibility without admitting that you actually screwed them up. Lay out a plan to fix them which essentially lists all the things you should have done, but with other people’s names in the “Actionable By” column. Watch people do all your work, and get all the recognition and maybe even an award for it. Transfer laterally upon receipt of the award, as it is a good time on many fronts to do so.
- Deny, deny, deny, and deny responsibility for anything. When someone points out that it’s your job, point to someone in the company directory and explain that it was their responsibility, but that they transferred laterally last month.
That’s what I’ve learned the last little while. Now I do what I do, watch everyone else, giggle to myself at the insanity of it all, and toss knuckleballs at the people trying to get away with making things my problem. There’ll be no making lemonade, I’m hucking those things back at them at high velocity.
The sad part is that I continue to see examples of the above multiple times. The funny part is it continues to work. It will catch up with the folks practicing these methods in the end, the only question will be whether the environment wakes up and bitchslaps them out of existence, or that it continues to slumber and sink into the depths.
We’ll see how it works out. In the interim, I’ll do what I think needs to be done, and hatch a nefarious plan to invade Calgary and points West in the near future. I’ll also continue to laugh, because it’s not my whole world. Boy did it take a long time to learn that.
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
PD DCLXXVI
P.S. If you were expecting something on the circus down South, I apologise for disappointing. I figure they’re all big boys and girls down there and hope that they know what they’re doing. If you’re looking for entertainment, just tune to CNN and watch them spin everything out of nothing.