Work Daze

If today's column isn't funny, don't blame me. Blame Susan Morem. A business
consultant and author, Ms. Morem was recently quoted as judging any attempt
at office humor to be "risky."

"Most people want to laugh," the consultant opines, "but you never know who
you are going to offend. The more people you involve, the more likely
someone will feel embarrassed or picked on. Jokes can backfire, so tread
lightly with them."

While I certainly agree that you never do know who you are going to offend -
it's why I work so hard to offend everybody - I'm not sure the fear of being
more annoying than amusing is a sufficient reason to halt the comedy
cavalcade that is your workplace. The moment the spitballs stop flying and
the globs of peanut butter disappear from the seat of the boss's Aeron chair
is the moment when you should pack your whoopee cushion and head out for a
more simpatico gig.

I found Morem's unfunny quotes about office fun and games in an article by
Darin Painter on the web site, revolutionhealth.com. "Know Your Boundaries
at Work" was the title of the piece, and I have to admit that I was
surprised by the results of author Painter's research.

"There's generally no clear rule about where to draw the line," says
oft-quoted, party-pooping consultant Morem, "so a good rule of thumb is to
avoid issues that might make someone uncomfortable."

Now this may seem to be a reasonable policy on the surface, but when you
examine the topics of conversation that are judged to be verboten, you will
see the problem. Romance, physical appearance, health, race, religion and
personal finance are all considered to be beyond the pale. You know for
yourself - if you can't gossip about the love-sick fatties in sales who
spent their life savings having high colonics at a Scientology health spa,
what's the sense of coming in to work?

But that doesn't bother Morem and Painter. "Refrain from gossip," they
instruct. "Remember: Those who talk to you about others will also talk about
you to others."

Of course, this is the entire point of well-crafted office tittle-tattle.
The perfect morsel of gossip is a carom shot that not only provides the
opportunity to sabotage your co-workers, but also promotes your own career.
For example, "Andy has fallen off the wagon again, have you heard? I found
him in the coffee room, slumped over a box of jelly donuts, his face covered
with powdered sugar. But for heaven's sake, don't call the boss's assistant
at 422-3465. I'll just do his work as well as my own. I guess that's just
the kind of loyal friend I am."

Not only do the fun-fighters comment on what you shouldn't say, they also
have ideas about where you shouldn't say it. They caution against spreading
personnel poison in "elevators, hallways and bathrooms." This is why I try
to spend as little time as possible at my desk. If you really want to know
what's going on in your company, hope for a serious case of diarrhea. No
corporate annual report can equal the information you'll gather when shut up
in a bathroom stall.

The Internet has also changed the face of office gossip and the article
includes a comment from wet blanket consultant Morem about boundaries in
cyber-space. "It's easier to pass around rumors, gossip and tasteless jokes
to multiple people via email than word of mouth. If you think before you
speak, don't forget to think before you hit the 'send' button."

Well, I did think and what I think is that if everyone followed this advice,
we could lose one of the great advantages of technology - the ability to
spread salacious, malicious, totally untrue rumors about our managers
throughout the entire organization with a single mouse click. What other
weapon do we have in our fight against management? They have the power of
the purse, but we have the muscle of imagination. So your manager wasn't
really caught at the No Tell Motel with an underage Dalmatian and a Jeroboam
of Fancy Feast and. Your willingness to spread the unfounded rumor shows you
really care.

In fact, the whole business of business boundaries comes down to a matter of
caring. If you care about your co-workers, you'll keep them entertained with
wild and wooly stories about your idiot bosses that spread like warm chicken
fat through the entire organization.

Sure, it's crossing a boundary, but it's a lot more fun on the other side.

If you asked me to pick my peak workplace experience for 2007 I would have to say – eating lunch at the cafeteria at Google world headquarters. You may think of the company as a high-technology powerhouse, or a high-rocketing investment, or just a useful resource when you need to know the latest on Britney’s pink eye, but for me, Google is all about the food.

Really! The company puts out a spread for its employees and their guests that is the worthy of anything cooked by any of your Food Network faves. I mean, when’s the last time you were offered fresh oysters, chilled crab legs and polenta soup with rosemary at a fine restaurant, not to mention a company cafeteria?

And the best part – it’s all free. Eat as much as you want, as often as you want. No wonder Google employees are happy. No wonder Google employees are fat. Why, if I worked at that company, I’d gain 50 pounds the first month – the corporate equivalent of college’s “Freshman Fifteen.”

Fortunately, I don’t work at Google, so I don’t have to worry about my lack of self-control when it comes to free food. And maybe if I did work there, I’d spend as much time in the company’s complimentary steam rooms as I would spend waiting in line at the company’s complimentary steam tables. We’ll just have to wait to see if there’s an opening in the Gourmet Gluttony Department.

Meanwhile, you and I must face the fact that even without a panoply of epicurean edibles offered to us three times a day, many workers respond to the winter season by growing a protective layer of fat. According to a survey conducted for CareerBuilder.com, 49% of workers report that they have gained weight at their current jobs. 28% percent have gained more than 10 pounds, and 13% have gained more than 20!

That’s a lot of extra poundage to stuff into your cubical, and may explain why you have recently been feeling claustrophobic. The job opportunities, perks and pay raises might be shrinking, but you’re expanding.

Naturally, the newly obese have explanations for their weight gain. “Holiday and end-of-year business obligations, along with the temptations of office treats and cold weather keeping workers indoors, all combine to make it difficult to maintain healthy habits,” says Rosemary Haefner, a CareerBuilder VP. I believe it. And the problem is even more difficult when you never had healthy habits to begin with!

There is a solution to winter weight gain, of course. Unfortunately, it requires self-discipline and moderation, two virtues we usually park at the curb. Instead of packing healthy lunches of fresh rutabaga sandwiches on 87-grain bread, with a thermos of beet juice, and a single grape for desert, 58% of us eat out at least once a week, with 12% eating out five times a week. Some of us may be dining out on wheat grass smoothies and grass fed beef, but I’ve never seen a health food restaurant with lines out the door, which occurs every work day at my local eatery, The Sodden Steer.

Before you point a finger of blame at those of us who are packing in the cholesterol at the drive-in, what about the 13% of workers who admit to eating lunch at the vending machine at least once a work? They’re probably the same people who want to show you up by being at their desk when the boss shows up at lunch time. Their reward for working over lunch will be arteries clogged with Reese’s Pieces and an early demise due to Plasticwrapitis, or pre-made tuna sandwich disease.

If lunchtime doesn’t fatten you up, snack time will. 69% of workers say they snack at least once during the workday while serial snacking is reported by 12% -- the Hannibal Lectors of the donut box.

The wafer-thin folks at CareerBuilder do have some suggestions for avoiding a pre-hibernation eatathon this winter. “Stock the shelves” they say, “Pack office drawers with healthy and filling snacks to elude comfort food temptations on chilly days.” I suggest you fill your drawers with tomato soup. It’s very comforting and you can find out if your mouse pad can float.

It is also suggested that you “keep your mouth busy” by chewing gum or chatting with co-workers. I can’t decide if I’d rather talk to the weirdoes I have work with or be fat. I’ll decide when I finish this maple bar.

Well, you’ve done it again. You’ve forgotten to celebrate the most important holiday of the year! Bosses Day has come and gone, Vaughn, and if you didn’t show up on Mahogany Row on October 16 with Vermont Teddy Bears for your managers, then don’t expect to get more than the bare minimum in terms of raises, perks and attaboys until Boss’s Day 2008 comes around.

That’s right, Dwight. You have 11 long months to muddle through until Boss’s Day rolls around again, and that’s assuming your head doesn’t roll first. It all goes to prove that you can blow off Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, but don’t mess with Boss’s Day. If you didn’t care enough to “send the very best,” then your boss might respond by sending you to the unemployment office.

If there’s any good news in this situation it is the fact that you are probably not alone. I know one group of folks who never fail to forget bosses day – the ungrateful group of misfits and losers who work for me. [Memo to staff: I’m sure it will be different next year. That’s why I’m firing you all today.]

One group of employees who never ever forget Boss’s Day is the PR staff working for the Marlin Company. They’ve been preparing for the big day by conducting an “Attitudes in the American Workplace” survey. The surveyors at Harris Interactive contacted 752 adults aged 18 or older and employed either full- or part-time. The results are surprising.

A full 72% said they would trust their boss to baby-sit their kids for a night. At first, I found this response incredible. I wouldn’t trust my boss to baby-sit my pet iguana. Then, I realized what was going on here. That 72% was affirming what we’ve always suspected – that our bosses have the maturity, poise and emotional intelligence of a 2-year old. Of course, the boss can baby-sit your kids. Where else will you find someone who is as immature, demanding and ungrateful as those jackals who you clutch to your bosom?

Another equally incredible response was the fact that 77% of those surveyed responded positively when asked if they would hire their boss. Again, upon reflection, you would have to agree with the majority. Just think of the fun you’d have bossing around your boss. Imagine the joy of sending the grand poobah to pick up your caramel macchiato. Consider the thrill of loading on assignments at the last minute so you could ruin his evening or her week-end. With your boss as your employee, coming to work would be something you could look forward to. At least, until October 16 when your sniveling shell of an employee forgot Boss’s Day.

The flacks for the LaSalle Network were also working overtime in the run-up to Boss’s Day. The CEO of the Chicago-based recruiting firm, Tom Gimbel, used the holiday to deliver advice on how to work with “the bad bosses of prime time.” Referencing Michael Scott, the “deluded leader” of the TV show, “The Office,” Gimbel suggests that anyone working for a “bumbling, overly friendly boss” should only offer criticism in the form of “advisement.”

“Stroke his ego, be honest and show your loyalty,” councils Gimbel, which is definitely a smart strategy if you have the stomach for it. The problem is that most deluded, bumbling bosses are overly hostile. For this kind of boss, Gimbel says you have no choice but to look for another job. “But don’t worry,” he adds, showing that famous spirituality we associate with Tibet, Nepal and Chicago. “Karma will get him.”

If you did miss Boss’s Day on the 16th, there is another holiday coming up that could allow you to redeem yourself. October 27 is National Cranky Coworker Day. As with Boss’s Day, trust the PR community to both alert us to the danger of forgetting this important occasion and provide us with the perfect way to celebrate.

“Emily’s Dark Chocolate Covered Fortune Cookies are a ‘feel good’ food that boosts chemicals in the brain, thus promoting euphoria and calm,” explains the pre-Cranky Day press release from Emily and her minions. I don’t know if it’s OK to give dark chocolate to your cranky boss, as well as to your cranky co-workers, but it couldn’t hurt. I suggest you might melt the chocolate and pour it in the gas tank of your boss’s Bentley. That way the boss will be euphoric and calm while waiting for the tow-truck – and the karma – to arrive.

Answer honestly now. Does there lurk somewhere deep inside you, a horrible, terrible, all-consuming desire to become a boss? Admit it. Despite your reputation as a “regular Joe” or a “regular Jane,” there is, existing below your famous over-the-cubicle-wall raves and inside-the-lunch-room rants over the follies of your managers, a secret desire to be one yourself.

And not just one, but number one. Numero Uno. El Grande Queso. Face up to it, bunky. You want to be CEO.

Now that you’ve come clean about your secret dreams to rule the business world from behind a desk big enough to land a Gulfsteam jet, two of which you happen to own. Now that you’ve confessed your desire to step out of your German sports car in English shoes with the most recent statement from your Swiss bank rattling around in your Italian briefcase, now we’re ready to discuss how you can actually achieve your goal.

Well, Alan Cox is ready. Mr. Cox, a “noted author and consultant who has worked with, recruited, and coached the CEOs of many leading companies,” is ready, willing and possibly even able to, as he puts it, “unleash the executive in you.”

You could get Mr. Cox’s advice if you hired him a personal executive coach as personal executives at Kraft and Pillsbury have done, but that could cost multiple thousands of dollars a day, which could be difficult to scrape up if your top executive position with its top executive salary is still in the fantasy stage. Or you could shell out $24.99 and buy a copy of his latest book, “YOUR INNER CEO: Unleash the Executive Within.”

If you are beginning to suspect that brother Cox is all about unleashing hidden forces deep inside you, you would be right. In fact, both his consultancy and his book utilize – and I’m quoting again – “the Style-of-Life theory of famed Vienna psychologist Alfred Adler to help readers excavate and truly learn their hidden goals, strengths and weaknesses.”

This sounds exciting enough – bring in the Caterpillar D-10’s and let’s start mucking out that murky subconscious of yours – but it could also be dangerous. Imagine the chaos if everyone in your company started showing their inner feelings. There would be anarchy, if not outright war. And what happens when you, gentle reader, reveals the totality of your anger and hostility, rather than continuing your current approach of tamping down the rage by medicating yourself with jelly donuts?

I suppose we’ll have to risk it, because author Cox insists that “to succeed in the top job, people must attain grounding, a confident and accurate self-awareness that can guide them through all the tough situations and decisions they’ll encounter as a leader.” In other words, if the price of unleashing the awesome ambition in your addled brain is to embrace the work of Dr. Adler, so be it.

Since my personal Style-of-Life is too cheap to shell out $24.99, I turned to the book’s web site, yourinnerceo.com to learn more about the good doctor’s theories. Frankly, I was hoping that Adler was as obsessed with sex as Freud, but no such luck. Style-of-Life, according to Adler, according to Cox, is “an organized set of convictions of which the individual, at best, is only dimly aware.”

If your convictions are no better organized than your file cabinet, it will not be easy to find out if you have what it takes to be a CEO. It must be done, however, since a destructive Style-of-Life “serves as a looming threat and needs to be replaced.” How you replace something so difficult to see is, well, difficult to see. This is why a protégé of Doctor Adler’s came up with three fill-in-the-blank sentences guaranteed to reveal your self-image, world view and ultimate purpose – the basic building blocks of a Style-of-Life.

So shut your office door, if you have one, and complete the following:

I am…

Life is…

My central goal is…

Was that good for you? Are you beginning to see what needs to be excavated and what needs to be unleashed? Personally, I am DUBIOUS about the value of psychological mumbo-jumbo in helping you become a CEO. I also believe life is TOO SHORT to even try. But, then again, my central goal is to MAKE IT TO THE LIVING ROOM COUCH WITH A FROSTY BREW IN MY HAND BEFORE DANCING WITH THE STARS COMES ON. And if that isn’t the goal of a top CEO, I don’t know what is.

It must be the astrology, because I have recently received two press releases announcing breakthrough theories on how to deal with toxic coworkers. Personally, I’m impressed. I didn’t think anyone but thee and me realized we are not only managed by idiots, but surrounded by them, as well.

The first news flash comes from SnagAJob.com, a web site for people looking to snag hourly work assignments. I can’t say I identify with the desire, since hourly workers are generally expected to be immediately productive, while we yearly laborers can go for weeks, months, even decades without ever doing anything.

According to a survey of 7,000 visitors to the site, the most annoying classes of coworkers came out as a statistical tie – the “slacker” and the “kiss-up” each garnering close to one-third of the vote. [No, they didn’t ask what people thought of slackers who are also kiss-ups, so we’re safe – at least, until the next poll.]

The “gossip hound” came in third for unpopularity, which I think is highly unfair. It’s the gossips in our workplaces that make it possible for us to get through the day. Admit it – if you didn’t know you’d pick up one or two juicy tidbits about the rich and foolish on Mahogany Row, you’d never get out of bed in the mornings.

The “loud-talker” was forth, and coming in last, with only 4.6% of the vote, was the “hypochondriac.” We must view this last place finish with some suspicion. No one is more annoying that the office hypochondriac with their medications spread out on their desktops like a pharmaceutical buffet, and their endless lectures on the downfall of traditional medicine and the effectiveness of herbal healing. The problem is they’re out sick most of time, so they don’t really have the opportunity to annoy us to the max.

The second piece of hot news comes from another web site, LifeScript.com. I don’t know why I never knew about this online resource, since it’s full of the kind of helpful advice on avoiding disease that always leaves you really depressed. [See “hypochondriac” above.] I was directed to the “Healthy Living” section of the site that I found “5 Tips for Dealing with the Coworker from Hell,” by Jennifer Gruenemay.

Ms. Gruenemay may be trying to be helpful, but her report is quite scary. “The stress and anxiety of dealing with negative people can oftentimes be too much to handle,” she writes, “especially as you become more susceptible to the heart disease and lowered immune function that accompany high-stress situations.”

If that piece of news doesn’t have you dialing 911, I don’t know what will.

On the positive side, the article does bring forward a number of suggestions for avoiding “a physical and mental breakdown,” assuming it hasn’t happened already. Tip #1 advances the idea that the negativity projected by our obnoxious coworkers may be “deeply rooted within many years of heartache.” In other words, you should pity your annoying coworkers, instead of throwing spitballs over their cubical walls or putting super-glue on the seats of their Aeron chairs.

Tip #2 is to rehearse upcoming confrontations in your head, working through how you’re going to handle the toxic encounter. This can backfire. By the time you finish playing through the accusations and counter-accusations and counter-counter-accusations, you’ll be so angry that you’ll throw a tantrum – and probably, an Aeron chair – the moment your evil coworker says hello.

Tip #4 is to “lend a helping hand.” As the author puts it, “sometimes difficult people are looking for an ally – someone to spill their heart to and vent their pent up frustrations to.” Highly possible, but who wants to listen to a bunch of whining and bellyaching, especially when you’ve got your own whining and bellyaching to do.

“You may be able to give suggestions on how this person could improve their attitude,” the author posits. I suggest you try helpful phrases like “Did you mistake me for someone who cares?” Or “if you think you’ve got trouble, you should hear my problems.” In fact, make sure you get in your spilling and venting first – then your coworker will really have something to be annoyed about.

The final tip is to show the white flag. Walk away from toxic coworkers and into a great new job. Ideally, you’ll be able to avoid trouble by working with people as wonderful and perfect as you. If that’s not possible, work for yourself.

That way, the only toxic coworker in the place is you.