Work Daze

Well, it’s about time! We’ve been waiting for someone to celebrate the aggressive, can-do attitude we bring to our jobs, and at last, it has happened. A new book by Kate Luderman, the “Alpha Male Syndrome,” has just been published, so finally, the flotsam and jetsam with whom we swim in the polluted tide pool of business will be able to understand what makes thee and me so darn successful.

As Ms. Luderman would be the first to point out, the alpha male syndrome is not limited to males. There can be alpha male females, as well as alpha male males; the syndrome being a group of behaviors that can fall on the shoulder pads of either sex.

I assume that anyone who reads this column is alpha to their bones, but just in case you don’t spend every day on the fast track to corporate power, the author has provided some symptoms that will help in the recognizing the syndrome. Alpha individuals insist that they are always right, especially when they’re dead wrong. Alphas demand total loyalty, while busily stabbing everyone in the back. And of course, alphas claim a divine right to be in charge, even after a history of missteps, boo-boos, and outright blunders.

No wonder we alphas are so successful. No wonder everyone in the company admires us so.

An academic, Luderman divides the alpha male person into four different categories, each one more attractive than the next. There’s the alpha visionary who insists that everyone agrees with their vision, no matter how fuzzy. Alpha commanders don’t much care whose whacked-out vision they follow as long as everyone in the organization follows them into the flames. Alpha intellectuals devise complicated game plans that smack of mad genius, like firing everyone in the company over 5’ 10” so the ceilings can be lowered for better heating efficiency, but require alpha executors to wield the ax and bring their evil schemes to fruition.

Since alphas like you and I do not need – or take – advice, I will devote the remainder of this column to the one or three betas who might be reading over your shoulder. You would expect that these workplace goons would appreciate the opportunity to observe the wonderfulness of an alpha personality, but shockingly, that is often not the case. Therefore, they might want to study the tips Ms. Luderman offers for those who “wish to stay sane if stuck in alpha territory.”

• Decide which type of alpha you are dealing with.

It’s not enough to simply kiss the tuchus of your friendly neighborhood alpha. You have to know exactly where on the tuchus the oscillation should be placed. For example, if you are trying to convince a alpha strategist that there is no reason to open a sales office in Antarctica for your company’s new line of frozen penguin cutlets, you might opine that due the brilliance of their strategy, the fame of your product has already spread to the four corners of the earth and the product will sell on its own. In making the same argument to an alpha executor, you must detail the costs of shipping penguin cutlets from the New Jersey penguin processing plant. For the alpha commander, no rational argument will do, but you can always have the alpha commander lock the other three alphas in the freezer until they sees the light.

• Never ask alphas to defend their positions.

Instead, Luderman suggests you “show curiosity. Ask how the alpha arrived at a certain idiotic solution. Try something like this, “Boss, I am truly impressed. I didn’t think it was possible for any person to be quite so stupid. How do you do it?”

• Never complain to alphas.

Alphas see complaining as weakness. Luderman suggests you ask for help instead.
Try “Boss, you know I am a miserable, worthless employee who only has a job because of your extreme generosity and brilliance, but I am so stupid and incompetent that I could not manage the weather, and therefore you had to suffer fifteen minutes of rain at the executive golf retreat in Pago-Pago. Please teach me how I can be like you and control the elements.”

As the book points out, dealing with alphas is not limited to the workplace. There can also be alphas at home. I could tell you how I operate as the supreme alpha visionary, executor, strategist and commander in my house. I’ll do it, too, just as soon as I get permission from the Mrs.

It takes a big man to admit he is wrong, but as everyone who has ever been
in a relationship knows, when it comes to a woman telling a man he is
wrong—well, that’s a different story.

Take Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval of the hot advertising agency, the
Kaplan Thaler Group. These two high-achieving yentas have written a new book
that debunks the age-old idea that to succeed in business, one has to be a
mean, ruthless, grasping, brutal, cold blooded, heartless swine. This may be
true, but if you’re like me, you may not be completely ready to embrace the
idea. After all, look how many years we’ve worked to become mean, ruthless,
grasping, brutal, cold blooded, heartless swine.

The title of this revolutionary screed is “The Power of Nice: How to Conquer
the Business World with Kindness,” and if the concept of “Nice Power” has
you chortling up the sleeves of your Gap pocket-T, it is obvious that you
are either very experienced in business, or you are not very nice. Or both!

The Kaplan-Thaler-Koval hypothesis is that one does not have to possess a
dog-eat-dog mentality to end up top-dog. In “flipping the age-old mantra of
‘nice guys finish last’ on its head the two women believe they are ‘poised
to spark a dramatic change in corporate values and the way success is
achieved in the business world.’”

I suppose this could happen, but I’m not sure it leaves me and thee in a
stronger position, workwise. Can’t you just see your supervisor pounding on
your desk and hollering, “Jumping Jelly Beans! I’m going to have to let you
go if you don’t become a whole lot nicer.”

Before you run out and buy up the contents of your nearest Hallmark store,
let’s review three of the “strategic niceness skills” our nice authors are
offering so nicely. You go first! Please! Really, I insist!

1. “Treat everyone you meet as if they are the most important person in the
world – because today’s intern could be tomorrow’s CEO.”

Nice idea, but dumb. Suppose a nicer you gives the low-salary intern the
opportunity to take over aspects of your high-salary job. Suppose you are so
darn nice that you lavish the intern with praise in front of your boss. I
can’t guarantee that today’s intern will become tomorrow’s CEO, but I’m
pretty sure that today’s nice employee will definitely become tomorrow’s
unemployed doofus.

2. “See yourself as others do – as a supporting actor in their movie, not a
leading actor in your own. Ask yourself what kind of character you’d play in
their movie, and write down five ways to make your ‘character’ more
sympathetic.”

#1, my character can become the kind of blind, deaf, autistic coma victim
that always wins Academy Awards. No, forget it! At work, no one would
notice. #2, my character could rob the petty cash drawer, and use the money
to cure the boss’s cockatoo of shingles. #3, my character could put Super
Glue on the boss’s Aeron chair and then set his office on fire. #4, my
character could join the French Foreign Legion and plan suicide assaults on
the coffee room, #5, my character could pull off his face to reveal a
blood-sucking alien vampire.

Gee, I’m feeling more sympathetic already.

3. “There’s no need to squabble over who gets the biggest piece of pie –
just bake a bigger pie.”

This example of strategic niceness confused me and I wondered how it would
apply if you didn’t work in a bakery, or didn’t like pie, which I do,
especially blueberry.

But then I realized the whole pie thing could be what professional business
book authors call an “analogy,” referring to the author’s injunction against
utilizing “negative energy rushing to grab that slice first.” In other
words, instead of battling over who will take credit for a thin-slice idea
like implanting electrodes in the forehead of every IT worker so they could
receive electric 20,000 volts when you need them, a nice person will
“broaden their horizons and create a new recipe for success.”

Here’s my recipe: Take one teaspoon of sugar, and one teaspoon of spice, mix
with a cup of sunshine and sprinkle with smiles and giggles. Pour lavishly
over honey ice cream and serve to your co-workers. While they are eating,
run to the boss and report them all for terminal niceness. Then take over
their jobs and their paychecks.

You may not be nice, but you will be rich, and let me tell you – being rich
can be pretty nice, too.

Note to self – when compiling our list of the “Biggest Business Cry Babies
of 2006,” be sure to include the 400 employees of Radio Shack who were fired
last month.

I call these dearly departed worker bees “cry-babies” not because they lost
their jobs in a tough economy, and certainly not because they didn’t deserve
to be fired. I’m sure the fired four hundred Radio Shack folks will quickly
get jobs at Pizza Shack, and they definitely were not responsible for the
bonehead decisions that sent Radio Shack profits into a tailspin. Only a top
manager would bet the business on a Talking Fish Two-Way Wrist Watch or
whatever other nonsense the gadgetmeisters tried to stuff down our throats –
and our stockings – last Christmas. [Too bad, because my watch keeps perfect
time. It’s always a quarter to tuna.]

No, the cry of pain from the fired four hundred was because they received
their pink slips via emails.

To many, an email termination demonstrates a cold and uncaring management.
To get a pink slip out of the blue strikes these softies as the ultimate
insult, especially when it comes in an electronic format.

I disagree. We live in a digital age, folks. We meet our mates online and
buy our undies online and we definitely apply for jobs online. Why shouldn’t
we lose our jobs online, as well? Moreover, an electronic firing saves
paper, so it’s more environmentally sound. I can hear the spin now -- Radio
Shack may not be able to save jobs, but we’re doing all we can preserve the
rain forest.

But the biggest advantage of being fired remotely is that you avoid the
awful and demeaning and embarrassing and uncomfortable meeting that
invariably follows those fatal eleven words, “Frobisher, may I see you in my
office for a moment.”

As a person who has both fired and been fired, I have to tell you that
performing this task by long-distance is a definite improvement for both
sides of the desk. For the firing manager, it completely removes the
possibility of an enraged, soon-to-be unemployed employee spoiling your day
by throwing the keys to your Jaguar at your head or worse, spoiling the
shine on your Ferragamos with his tears.

For the firee, an email notice means you truly don’t have to spend one extra
minute in the presence of your awful boss, but can quickly and quietly pack
your pillow and blankie and slip unnoticed into the ether, pausing only to
stop at the cubicles of the co-workers you who owe you money before heading
for the bar, the unemployment office, and the chambers of your barrister
where you immediately file a million-dollar suit for “Unlawful and
Impersonal Termination.”

Despite all the advantages of email firings, I doubt we can expect the
practice to spread through corporate America. Gifted managers enjoy the
firing process too much to give it up. They may take the personal touch out
of day-to-day relationships, but the opportunity to see their direct reports
squirm and whimper is just too wonderful to give up.

Employees also have tools to avoid digital terminations. With everyone so
security conscious these days, how long will it take for Norton Utilities to
add a new utility, the “boss blocker.” With this excellent tool, you could
have been fired months ago and still not know it! “But I never got the
email,” you explain when showing up for your back pay checks. And who in
payroll could deny you? They probably never got the email, either.

Of course, there is always the possibility that some entrepreneur will
create a new e-business marketing customized e-firing emails. You can
already send birthday e-cards and anniversary e-cards; why not termination
e-cards?

Imagine the joy you will experience when an animated message pops up in your
email, with – let us say – a cartoon executioner dragging an electronic
employee to the guillotine in a cartoon tumbrel. There will be a funeral
march in the background (also available as ring-tones), and a bright piece
of doggerel to make the message clear:

Someone in the company is getting the ax.
This email will inform you of the facts.
Your job has been eliminated and so have you.
You get 2 weeks severance, unless you choose to sue.
But remember we love you, so do not grieve.
You have exactly 5 minutes to pack your junk and leave.

Take it from me, when it comes to being fired, that’s the way to go!

To tell you the truth, I used to think I was the only person with a difficult boss.

Oh sure, other people had “cranky bosses” or “demanding bosses” or “incredibly ignorant buffoon of a boss,” but only I had a supervisor who woke each morning with only one thought on his little pea brain: how can I make life miserable for Bob.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered there is not only a world full of bad bosses, but an entire industry devoted to coping with these monsters of the work place. It’s true! Coping with difficult bosses is not just a curse; it’s a profit center.

My first hint into the universal problem of the bad boss came when I stumbled on the web site of one Steve Quinn at difficultpeopletips. com. Quinn must have worked in the direct marketing industry, because his site most resembles one of those endless junk mail letters you get, describing a vitamin supplement you must swallow, or a politician who simply wants you to swallow their line of guff. His site not only has a “P.S,” the ultimate sign of the classic direct mail pitch, plus a “P.P.S,” a “P.P.P.S” and a “P.P.P.P.S.” by which time you are ready to purchase whatever it is Quinn is selling for $137, just to get his digital foot out of your electronic door.

Unfortunately, while Quinn spends endless pixels haranguing his readers about the evils of bosses who manipulate, ignore, bully and abuse, he withholds the nature of his “11 techniques” and his “7-step process” for those who pony up the $137. [Reduced for thee and me to “an incredibly low $47” if you ACT NOW.]

Badbossology.com is much more giving, if not forgiving. The site is basically a compendium of bad boss stories and cures, most culled from other publications and web sites. There were some truly excellent bad boss examples to be harvested from badbossology.com, like the supervisor who reprimanded an employee for running out of a plant without his safety glasses simply because he was trying to save his wife who was caught in a fire nearby. Now there’s a bad boss. (though really, how much time would it take for the worker to slip on his safety glasses.)

The solutions on the site are less interesting. Typical ideas include acknowledging the situation in order to “externalize the problem and reduce self-blame, rather than holding it in and finally exploding."

Personally, I think a good emotional explosion now and then is an excellent solution for a bad boss. Let the jerk or jerkette know that you are just as capable of irrational behavior as they are. They will not only back down, they could also start thinking of you as management material.

At careerknowhow.com I found a helpful article by Rachelle Disbennett-Lee, MS, PCC, CTC. [What this alphabet soup behind her name means, I have no idea, but I do think it’s impressive, and I may borrow a few letters to replace my own professional signature, Bob Goldman, high-school equivalency diploma.]

Ms. Disbennett-Lee also suggests talking to friends and loved-ones about your jerk of a boss and she brings up the very good idea that you document everything that occurs between your bad boss and your good self, the better to be prepared when he or she starts accusing you of being a lazy shiftless bum. May I suggest that you document your documentation, just to be sure, and then document your documentation of your documentation. This will not only protect you, but it will fill up those empty hours between nine and five when you have nothing much to do except goof off.

It didn’t take much web surfing to realize the problem of difficult bosses represents a global epidemic. At www.betterhealthchannel.vic.gov.au I learned that the Aussie solution to the problem is to “Be Assertive.” This might work in the land down under, but it surely will be a bust in the U.S. The suggestion that we “use assertive language such as ‘I feel’ and ‘I think’, rather than wimpy language such as ‘You always’ and ‘You never’ “ will never work here. Just imagine telling your boss “I feel you are a big jerk” rather than the more passive, American “You’re always a big jerk.” Besides, if being assertive doesn’t work, you can’t take the next step available to an Australian and fill the trunk of your boss’s Bentley with kangaroo dung.

But it’s a lovely thought, isn’t it, mate?

Are you a “caged animal, an internal cauldron of hostility?” If so, there are only a few possible career routes for you. Either you will be promoted to a top management position, probably in Human Resources, where your caged animal hostility will make you feared, hated and highly compensated, or you will suffer from a major attack of “career burnout.”

Or you will become another Michael Staver.

It was Mr. Staver, the president of an eponymous executive training firm on Amelia Island, Florida, who found himself floating in that hostile cauldron, filled to the brim with burnout stew. Fortunately, Staver was able to save himself from this all too common fate of the overworked, overstressed and underappreciated. Slathering on the unguentine of pop psychology, he not only healed his own case of burnout, but went on to create a successful business teaching other wage slaves how to stay cool, calm and collecting their paychecks.

As it happens, I’ve written about Mr. Staver before. It wasn’t until I reached the end of a profile of the burnout guru in The New York Times that I realized that this was the genius who invented the “low-tech alarm clock” for waking yourself up before a 10-minute power nap becomes a 10-month doze in the unemployment office. Staver’s idea – which I personally believe is worthy of a Nobel Prize – is to hold a key ring in your hand when you start your power nap. After about ten minutes, you will be so relaxed that your hand will open, the keys will fall nosily to the floor, and you can get back to work, refreshed and ready for achievement.

[For the purpose of full disclosure, I must warn you not to imitate me in choosing for your low-tech alarm clock, your boss’s Steuben crystal golf trophy. The glass will shatter as will your career.]

The Times article was chock full of other good tips from Mr. Staver on how to diagnose and cure the fatal effects of burnout. Even if you don’t currently have or care about a job, these suggestions are worth noting in relation to other long-term commitments, like marriage. “Mr. Staver thinks he’s probably burned out on the concept of marriage,” the reporter reported on the twice-divorced consultant. But I say it’s worth your time and effort to apply these techniques on your partner. If they married you, they’ll believe anything.

• Don’t assume you need calming down when you may need revving up.

Staver suggests you start each day with music that “pumps you up.” This will give you the confidence and energy to solve the insolvable and schmooze the unschmoozable. I would add that you need not limit your music stimulant to your morning shower. The ubiquity of the office iPod makes it easy to compose a sound track for your work day. The hard-charging horns in “The Ride of the Valkyries” makes an excellent background when approaching a challenging task, like trying to get an expense check from accounting. And a sappy love song, like “You Are So Beautiful” will help set the mood for those daily groveling sessions with the boss.

• Don’t be a news fiend.

Staver suggests that you spare yourself unnecessary pain and suffering by turning a deaf ear to the most depressing aspects of the news of the day. Personally, I actually enjoy listening to and participating in news discussions and political debates, just as long as everyone at the water cooler shares my opinions. You may think this is closed minded, but look how well the technique works for President Bush.

• Fix it, then forget it.

Fretting over past blunders can definitely lead to burnout, especially when you have so many blunders to fret about. But as Staver points out, the person who makes a mistake has learned a lesson and is now a different person. And what is the sense of blaming a person who no longer exists?

This may seem like sophistry, but try it the next time the boss scalds your tender, pre-burnout behind. “You can’t fire the me who made that mistake, because that me is the old me, not the new me, and new me is the kind of employee that you want the old me to be.”

The boss will be so confused, he or she will forget the whole matter and walk away mumbling. He or she may even decide that they’re burning out and immediately quit. And wouldn’t that make old you and new you happy?