Work Daze

Have you got a secret? I’ve got a secret. To be more specific, I’ve got a
secret about The Secret, the same secret Secret that you’ve heard about on
Oprah and Larry King.

On the off-chance that management at your workplace does not give you sixty
minutes every afternoon to watch Oprah, let me fill in a bit of the back
story. The Secret is the name of a self-help book that teaches you a
technique for getting everything you ever wanted, as long as what you wanted
wasn’t avoiding self-help books. According to TheSecret.tv, the web site,
the secret has been known to successful individuals like Plato, Newton,
Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, and Einstein. But these tight-mouth
individuals kept The Secret secret, unlike one Rhonda Byrne, an Australian
television mogul who not only discovered The Secret, but decided to blab
about it.

And blab she did. Now everyone can learn The Secret in books, CDs, and DVDs.
The Secret has become so well known it has even spawned an industry of its
own, comprising of publicity-hungry hangers-on who are hoping to ride on the
skirts of The Secret with their own programs entitled The Secret Behind The
Secret, and The Secret of The Secret.

I am happy to announce that one of those low-life publicity suckers is me.

And what is The Secret? What is the power that is guaranteed to bring you
“unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you
have ever wanted?”

It’s called the Law of Attraction. Basically, like attracts like. So if you
put out positive vibes you will receive positive vibes in return. This is
the way you get the big bucks and the big love, unlike the meager money and
the marginal relationships that are currently attracted to the cynical,
snarky vibes you are now projecting.

To question whether any of this nonsense really works represents the kind of
negative energy that we secret-people abjure, especially when it comes to
the workplace. Thus I was quite smitten when the positive energy I project
in my desperation for relevant topics for these weekly sermons was answered
with a positive press release on the subject of using The Secret at work.

Dr. Noelle Nelson, author of the book, “The Power of Appreciation in
Business” is the latest glockenspiel to join The Secret bandwagon, ringing
in with tips for employers on the radical concept that companies that
demonstrate how much they value their workers receive, in return, “increased
performance, productivity and profits.”

For employers, Dr. Nelson advises management to “reward employees for good
work on a spontaneous and unanticipated basis” by “catching your employees
in the act of doing something right.” Looking beyond the implication that we
workers do so little right that it takes an effort to find anything to
value, I do endorse the idea of a management team out to “catch” their
employees.

I look forward to the day when I find a supervisor hiding under my desk or
curled up in a file cabinet, ready to spring into action when I manage to
pick up the phone within 20 rings, or admit to a good customer that I was
only joking when I answered, “You have reached our Bangalore call center.
Please hold until I finish this bowl of curry.”

Employees also can rely on The Secret, according to Dr. Nelson, who suggests
that “on your way to work each day, try to think of one thing you like about
your job.” This is a tall order, especially since they replaced the
mini-donuts in the snack machine with organic trail mix. Even the
super-positive vibe machine that is our author admits, “If you honestly
can’t [find anything positive], tell yourself instead, ‘Today I’m going to
find one thing I like about my job.’ Then make it a point to find
something.”

Good advice, I suppose, but not easy to do. You’ve been trying to find one
thing you like about your job since you hired on, and the only positive
aspect still remains, “Well, at least they let me go home at night.”

Dr. Nelson also points out that “you can never say thank you too much,” so
before I wrap up here, let me thank you for reading and thank you for not
mailing any more nasty emails to the publisher about how this space could be
better used for beauty secrets from Paris, Lindsay and Britney. You don’t
have to thank me. It’ll be our secret.