Work Daze

It was in kindergarten that I decided that I lacked the personality and the desire to become a truly intimidating person. As result, I was not able to achieve every boy’s childhood dream of becoming a bully.

Like Ferdinand, the bull who refuses to fight, in the eponymous children’s story, my basically cheerful and cooperative nature has also prevented me from becoming a bully at work.

Lacking the basic ability to intimidate and terrorize, I was, naturally, no one’s idea of management material, and was thus condemned to having my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches ripped from my hands in the employee lunchroom, and my rare visits to the executive boardroom spoiled by “atomic wedgies.”

It was to counter my basic lack of punishing demeanor that I decided on an alternative strategy. Like the classic Charles Atlas advertising of the 20’s, in which the wimp on the beach transforms himself into a muscleman after having sand kicked in his face, I committed myself 100% of a program of physical fitness. It was a commitment that lasted a full 15 minutes at which point I realized that instead of lifting weight, I could be eating it.

And so began my rigorous regime of stuffing myself with cupcakes and candy bars and Ho-Ho’s and Twinkies. Thanks to this rigorous program of binging and not purging, I have added sufficient poundage to scare the watercress out of the slimmer-than-thou MBA-clones who occupy most executive suites.

You can worry about cholesterol, friend, but let me tell you, it’s worth a coronary to waddle into a conference room and know that if you can’t out-argue your boss, you sure as heck can sit on him.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I looked out over the edge of my triple-cheese calzone to discover an urgent email on how worker bees, like thee and me, can successfully keep weight off despite potential workplace “hazards,” like the food we are forced to inhale as we rush through airports, or the highly caloric buffets we spread out across our desktops as a reward when we loyally decide to work through lunch.

Since the corporate sponsor of the email was the buzz-kill crowd at NutriSystem, you really wouldn’t expect a panegyric to the heeling power of lemon-meringue pie. On the other hand, I decided there could be something to this business of being thin. The press release was full of so-called “facts” suggesting menacingly that being fat can lead to heart attacks, brain seizures, and major bouts of big-time depression. Since it’s highly depressing to come to work in the first place, I figured I could give up some valuable burrito time to review some NutriSystem tips to reduce our girth, get healthy, live longer, and work decades longer.

For example:

• Eat before you run out for a client dinner.

The idea here is to “fill your stomach with the right foods to prevent you from eating the wrong foods.” It’s a fine plan, but it never works. You fuel up with healthy soy milk yoghurt and organic kale smoothies, and then you get to the restaurant, where your client, not quite as enlightened as yourself, orders the triple-thick, 64-ounce Rancher’s steak, with French fries, baked potatoes, and an angiogram on the side.

What are you supposed to do? Order the wheat-grass salad with tofu dressing? You can’t nibble on a breadstick while your client stuffs her face, not without being branded a wimp, so you end up eating not one dinner, but two.

• Pack your lunch

Yes, bringing your lunch is a good way to control your calories, but be prepared for trouble unless you pack the appropriate food items. If you’re trying to project a power image, skip the egg salad. Rare roast beef is a better choice, especially if so rare the blood drips out over the edges of your Wonder Bread and pools on your desktop. Now that’s a manager!

• Keep a food diary

Writing down what you ingest could provide a Stephan King-like shock to your system. It could also help you identify the FDA-approved food groups you may be missing, like the chocolate cake group, or the banana split group.

Bottom line – if you lack the disciple to be very fat, thin could work. After all, the less of you there is, the harder it is to see you. And if they can’t see you, they can’t fire you.