Work Daze

As a service to busy executives like thee and me, The New York Times publishes a Sunday summary of the kind of critical business articles we would definitely read if we didn’t make a top priority out of napping.

This public service, while rarely providing the career-changing illuminations you find every week in this corner of this newspaper, does at least allow you to sound halfway intelligent when meeting with the quesos grandes in your workplace. I know eyebrows are invariably raised when I interrupt the morning chit-chat on the latest TV reality show to remark how much I enjoyed the article on the strategic uses of enterprise architecture in the Harvard Business Review or the Economist’s priceless take on the unexpected benefits of Sarbanes-Oxley legislation.

“I mean, I laughed until I cried,” I tell the assembled mouth-breathers. “Sarbanes and Oxley are the Abbott and Costello of our generation.”

Alas, this Sunday’s compendium of conversation killers left me dazed and confused. From a summary of a Psychology Today article on how to accept criticism in the office, I learned what to say when receiving your regular pummeling from the boss. But a précis on a piece in Men’s Health provided a list of a different choler. It outlined the type of comments one should never, ever say under penalty of firing, or worse!

Perhaps the best course of action would be for me to summarize the summaries, so that you can decide for yourself when and where to open your mouth, and when and where it is better to “zip it.”

To start on the positive as we always try to do, let’s consider what the Psychology Today author, Judith Sills, suggests you say when the boss lashes out with a lengthy and lethal critique of your job skills. Basically, what Ms. Sills recommends is to say exactly what you should have been saying since Day One: “Yes, boss. You’re right boss. You’re a genius, boss. And I’m a crummy, craven, catastrophic excuse for an employee who should have been canned a long time ago, and only receive my overly generous paycheck due to your kindness and compassion.”

In psychology speak, this is called “validation,” and it will, Sills writes, make your supervisor’s irritation with you vanish well before your job can vanish. Just don’t let the boss see you crossing your fingers.

Should you happen to disagree with your boss’s assessment of your skills, Sills recommends that you allow three days for sulking before offering a rebuttal. Frankly, I don’t think three days is enough time. I have been sulking ever since my fifth grade teacher gave me a B- on my summer vacation report, and I know the cloud of disagreeability that hangs over my head has saved my job many times. No one may want to lunch with an employee who walks around the office, muttering “I’ll show her…I show her…” but, on the positive side, no one much wants to criticize you, either.

In the what not to say department, Men’s Health’s Sarah Baldauf counsels against criticizing the boss, gossiping about co-workers, or revealing your secret plot to overtake the office competition. This is plainly ridiculous. If we didn’t criticize or gossip or plot, there’d be nothing to do at work all day, except work, and what fun would that be?

“Assume whatever you say will get back to the boss eventually, because inevitably it will,” says the magazine, demonstrating the opacity you should expect from a publication that puts a higher value on achieving washboard abs than developing the kind of big balloon gluts that allow one to sit at their desk all day without their butt cheeks going to sleep.

Of course, your boss will hear what you say about him or her. That’s why you say it. “I really don’t see why McMurphy stays with the company. With her abilities, she could definitely get a higher paying job without any trouble.”

By the time that ear candy gets back to McMurphy, she’ll already be polishing her resume and searching for greener fields. The magazine also suggests that you don’t make generalized comments about co-workers, like “Giddings is an idiot.” Instead, it suggests you specify your co-workers’ failings, to make you appear like a builder-upper instead of a tearer-downer. I agree. My suggestion would be “Giddings is an idiot, because he so stupid.”

In short, remember the golden rule of work: if you can’t say something mean, don’t say anything at all.