Work Daze

Don’t deny it! I know the question you ask yourself at the start of each week. “What would I rather do -- go to the Monday morning staff meeting or get a root canal?”

Well, if you’re lucky enough to work for Genentech, you can answer – both! The biotech giant has a dental clinic right on the premises, so employees can have that root canal and the morning staff meeting, all in the same place. You could even invite your boss to come to your dental appointment. His droning blather will numb you faster than any injection of Novocain, and should you happen to mistake his Florsheims for the spit sink, who is to complain?

If the establishment of an on-site dental clinic is one of the more unusual perks available today, it is highly likely that your job description will soon include a healthy dose of health care. According to a recent article in “The Wall Street Journal,” employers are becoming increasingly concerned about the health of their employees. Where once it was enough for your supervisor to make you sick, now she or he wants to make sure you’re well.

Take Cadmus Communications, a publishing-services company in Richmond, Virginia. Two years ago, the company started requiring their 3,000 workers and their spouses to undergo a health-risk assessment before they could qualify for health insurance. Some workers refused. Described by an HR exec as “frightened and fearful,” these employees didn’t even try to sign up for health insurance because they were suspicious that the company would use any indication of a serious disease as a reason for termination. As if your department could get any more dysfunctional just because a few staffers suffer from mild cases of leprosy.

If you’ve ever stumbled on one of these corporate healthcare initiatives you know that no one ever talks about illness. These are “wellness” programs. Just as being fired is not about losing your job and your paycheck. It’s about gaining the freedom to pursue your dream of moving your family into a refrigerator box under the freeway and living on Fancy Feast.

As will be no great surprise, the benefit for the company comes in the cost savings. It’s much cheaper to identify the sickies early in their careers when they still have energy and aspirations than it is to pay for their medical expenses when they’re old, disgruntled and unproductive.

In the case of the Cadmus work force, the company managed to put about 140 employees on high blood pressure medication. This was considerably cheaper than treating them for hypertension in their declining years, but not as cost efficient as firing the managers who were causing the high blood pressure in the first place. Another 150 employees discovered that their cholesterol levels were too high. They also were medicated and can now enjoy muffin Monday, Twinkie Tuesday, Wasabi-burger Wednesday, Taco Thursday and, of course, the Friday Fried-Frankfurter Fandango.

When an employee who completes a health questionnaire is determined to have a potentially serious condition, he or she is contacted by a nurse. This applies to diabetes, hypertension and for those workers who filled out the form honestly, insanity. Your employer can’t force you to change your lifestyle, but let’s face facts. The economy is not so good and if the price of continued employment is to become a vegan, I say, “Pass the tofu.”

Some employers, including supermarket giant, Safeway, are so anxious to keep their workforce healthy that they waive co-payments for physical exams, pap smears and colonoscopies. And if healthy Safeway employees save the company money, is it such a leap to imagine that these bargain-priced services will soon be available to Safeway shoppers. I can see it now – a special on pap smears in Aisle 7, and in Aisle 3, a free colonoscopy with every box of Bran Flakes. Gee, I feel better already.

Not satisfied with screening its employees and their spouses, companies like Cadmus are so anxious to bring healthcare into the workplace it’s almost sick. Expect the beloved coffee room to be replaced by an on-site mammogram facility. Instead of pep talks by management nuts, we’ll be getting diet tips from a nutritionist. At Cadmus they’ve installed blood pressure cuffs at work sites so employees can calibrate exactly when they’ll blow their tops. They’ve also given away pedometers to encourage exercise.

Personally, I hope they start distributing alarm clocks. It would be extremely damaging to my health if I missed my afternoon nap.

The new year is off to a rip-roaring start, so I have to ask you – are you depressed? Do you dread coming to work and drag through every day as if a three hundred pound weight has been surgically implanted between your shoulder blades?

If you are depressed, I think I can help. [If you’re not depressed, no one can help. You must be crazy, or upper management, or both.] Allow me to introduce you to Drs. Kevin and Jackie Freiberg. According to a recent press release, the doctors are the authors of a newly released business book, “BOOM! 7 Choices for Blowing the Doors Off Business-As-Usual.”

[Some of you may remember the Drs. Freiberg from a previous press release in which they described the “Dead People Working™ Syndrome – a trademarked, mark you, condition that represents “a nationwide epidemic sweeping through companies and cubicles causing massive daydreaming and serious lack of productivity.” In other words, business as usual.]

The Dead People Working™ Syndrome must have died a horrible death, publicity-wise, because now the Freiberg’s flack, Mr. Drew Schadegg, is flogging their latest work by suggesting it contains “4 Tips for Beating the ‘Post Holiday Blues’ at Work.” No stranger to statistics, the Freibergs assert that as many as 25% of people in the United States suffer from the condition. [That’s a real improvement over the 75% of us who show symptoms of DPW™S. I’m not sure whether the 25% represents a quarter of the 75%, or .1875%, or if Post Holiday Blues is a condition limited to non-DPW™S workers, meaning 100% of us have something wrong with us. I’m not even sure Post Holiday Blues is even a syndrome, or trademarked. All I can say in my defense is that the next time I get an email offering me a Ph.D. by mail, I’m signing up.]

Anywho, what’s important about our depression is that the Drs. Freiberg do have solid suggestions for how we could snap out of it. I’ll share their tips. I just hope it doesn’t get you even more depressed:

• Get focused faster. “Hitting the ground at full-speed” is the major idea here. Instead of moping in your cubicle, waiting for the ax to drop, get out there and show management why they should – no, why they must – consider you a peak performer. Or just continue moping. Chances are, your supervisors are even more depressed than you are, and by being up and at’em, you face the risk of alienating your boss. No one likes a mindless idiot, not even another mindless idiot.

• Make a New Year’s Statement. The Freibergs want you to use the new year to “exceed your own expectations. The work you do is your signature – make it a masterpiece.” I agree. Might as well make it a bold statement. Perhaps you could arrive at work on time, and stay until quitting instead of sneaking out early, hidden in the recycling bin.


• Think beyond yourself. According to the Freibergs, “the Post Holiday Blues is normally some form of self-loathing.” I’m not so sure. I do loath myself, but I loath my boss and my co-workers even more. I even loath the Freibergs and I’ve never even met them.

• Take bigger risks. “Experimentation and failure are prerequisites to creativity, innovation and growth” exclaim the good doctors. I think they have it exactly backwards. Creativity, innovation and growth are the prerequisites to failure and more failure. Hey, we’re experienced workers. We don’t need experimentation in order to fail. Failure is the thing we do best.

It may be my self-loathing creeping up on me, but I’m thinking I am a tad negative about the Freibergs and the ideas behind “BOOM!” I know I certainly enjoyed their previous two books, one of which is titled “NUTS!” and the other, which is called “GUTS!” I haven’t exactly read them, but I do detect a certain enthusiasm in their titles, as well as a tendency to use exclamation marks. I don’t know what we can expect next from these authors. I would suggest they consider KAPOW! PHOOMPH! and KA-BOOM! except those have already been used – by Batman.

But if taking these tips help you get through the next eleven months, I say – go for it. I love it when co-workers get so enthusiastic about their jobs that they work three times harder than anyone else. But please, cut down on sound effects. Some of us want to sleep.

If you’ve been wishing and hoping that someday you’d be able to work from home, I have excellent news. According to Sue Shellenbarger, the Work & Family columnist for “The New York Times,” more companies are offering their employees the opportunity to go to work without actually going to work.

Imagine! Your daily commute stretches from your bedroom to your bedroom, the first being where you set up your Tempur-Pedic and where, as they say on MTV Cribs, the “magic happens” The second bedroom is where you set up your laptop and where “nothing happens,” mostly due to the wide screen Plasma TV you purchased with petty cash so you can do all your work while you watch All My Children.

Yes, working at home is the bomb! Not only can you work on your own schedule, but you can also not work on your own schedule. And you can not do it in your own pajamas! That’s right. Forget about spending a bundle on stylish new clothes, which are out of date the moment you arrive at the office. Nehru jackets are out? Who knew!

According to Shellenbarger, companies that are actively building a home-based work force include insurance companies like UnitedHealth Group and Safeco, financial giants like American Express, and technological powerhouses, including IBM and Sun Microsystems. These are not pyramid schemers, promising the stay-at-home worker the opportunity to make mega-bucks by badgering friends into buying organic soap suds or hawking vitamins L,O,S,E and R. These are real companies and real jobs – “full-time corporate jobs with benefits, available without the prerequisite of working for the company for a few years first.”

Get one of these out-of-the-office positions and you could stay on the payroll for decades, even if you do no work at all. In fact, it would be better to do no work! It significantly lessens the chances that anyone will know you’re employed.

The less than excellent news here is that the number of these dream jobs is limited. As the reporter puts it, “landing one often requires a serendipitous confluence of sought-after skills, experience, personal attributes and timing, along with a measure of luck.”

You also probably have to be a really focused individual with a sterling work ethic. In other words, the people who are most likely to be hired as home-based workers are exactly the people who won’t appreciate the opportunity to goof off in comfort.

The reasons for the rise in out-of-the-office office jobs include improvements in mobile-office technology and a drive to cut real estate costs. Companies have realized that it’s cheaper to wire their employees than a whole floor of an office complex. Your employer also saves money by not providing you a parking space, or an Aeron chair, or your daily dose of a coffee-like substance. You gain because Uncle Sam allows you to write off the part of your house that you use as an office, providing your company does not offer you a cube to use, and insists that you work from home. [Of course, when you sell your house, you may have to give Uncle a share of your profits, but let’s face facts, the government needs the money more than you do.]

Workers in hot professions are the most likely to be offered the work-at-home perk. Shellenbarger lists computer technicians, financial analysts, marketing managers, software engineers and nurses as current targets for bathrobe-based opportunities. While I can understand why computer jockeys could output anywhere there’s an outlet, I’m not sure I see exactly what a nurse could do from home – call patients at 5 AM to check that they’re sleeping well? Prescribe Lamaze breathing techniques to help the ill and injured get over the pain of seeing their hospital bills? The possibilities are endless.

One hot profession perfect for working from home is the executive recruiter. Chances are, if some headhunter is pestering you to take a horrible job in a miserable office, they’re probably doing it from their hot tub.

One tip provided by a UnitedHealth recruiter, Tom Valerius, suggests that you take care in crafting the reason you give for wanting to work at home. “If you say ‘I need to let my dog out,” he says, “it’s not going to work.” This seems completely reasonable to me. My pet Pomeranian could do my job much better than I can. If I hired me, I’d definitely want Pookie in the office from 9 to 5.

Guess what! I have a new hero. His name is Timothy Ferriss and I think he’s the smartest, brightest, bestest person on this planet.

The reason I worship Timothy Ferriss is because of his best-selling business book, “The Four Hour Workweek.” While the four-hour figure may be hyperbole to some, the idea behind the book is sound. According to Ferriss, if we simply cut down on all the information we receive and send, we could accomplish our 40-hour-a-week jobs in a fraction of the time – a tenth to be exact.

The 4-hour philosophy has been warmly embraced in Silicon Valley, which is rather ironic since it is the high-tech communication products produced in the digital domain that Ferriss blames for our information overload.

In other words, if you want to gain more time in your life, rid your life of the convenient communication devices that are supposed to make your life simpler. Block that Blackberry! Isolate that iPhone. Toss that Treo! Or, if you can’t stand to throw thousands of dollars of hardware down the toilet, at least, turn them off.

Ferriss, of course, has cut the cord, and more. “His methods include practicing ‘selective ignorance,’ reports reporter Alex Williams in the Sunday Style section of “The New York Times.” “Tuning out pointless communiqués, random Twitters, and even world affairs. (Mr. Ferriss says he gets most of his news by asking waiters.)”

Being generous of spirit, I am willing to give Mr. Ferriss credit for the concept of “selective ignorance,” though you and I have been practicing it for years. These days, I know so little about what I am doing at work that I need someone to remind me what I’m doing there in the first place. And my supervisor has come to the same conclusion! As for the idea of getting your news from waiters – that is genius. Who needs a Google news feed to tell you what dumb and terrible event occurred four minutes earlier? Hey, the worst news you’ll get from a waiter is that the kitchen is out of crème brulée.

Ferriss is also up on downsizing. As the former CEO of a sports nutrition company, my hero “reduced and outsourced his staff, from 250 eventually down to fewer than 15, and instructed underlings to deal with all but the biggest emergencies themselves.”

Emergencies -- like facing the wrath of 235 downsized employees as they march on company headquarters with torches in hand.

Ferriss also thinks outsourcing is in. “Pay someone else to worry about it – ideally in Bangalore,” he says in the “Times” article. “On a bet, Mr. Ferriss even hired low-paid, high-skilled workers abroad to find him dates online. (It worked.)”

Of course, there’s no need to go abroad to find low-paid, high-skilled workers. There are plenty of us right here in the good old U.S.A. Still, I do like the idea of exporting our problems to developing countries. They certainly won’t buy our cars. I’m less sanguine about outsourcing your date data mining chores. I asked my wife to do it and got a flat n-o.

The major enemy of Mr. Ferriss and his followers is email. Cut out the hours you spend reading and writing emails, it is suggested, and you truly can reduce your workweek to only four hours. Ferriss hires personal assistants in India and in the Philippines to vett his email, which he only checks once a day at 2 PM.

As people who check their email twice a minute, this kind of communication asceticism may be beyond our reach. How depressed would you be if Lindsay Lohan, having stumbled across your Face Book page, pinged you at 2:03, desperate to hook up? How awful would you feel if that big job offer came in right afterwards, at 2:04? Ferriss just doesn’t understand. It’s not because we get great news that we compulsively check out email. It’s because it gives us hope.

In conclusion, I am not 100% convinced that simply ignoring emails and information will reduce your job demands by 90%. Nor am I sure that you would want it to. Nobody wants to cut out all the productive hours we spend sharing office gossip, while grouching and complaining time is way too precious to lose. No, the best way to get yourself a four-hour workweek is simply to cut out work.

The Zero-Hour workweek. Now that’s an idea whose time has come.

Here’s a radical idea – instead of marinating your brain in the same old miserable job and complaining constantly, why not recycle your employer and start enjoying your work instead of hating it?

I know. It’s tough to make a change when you’re really good at something and, let’s face it; you are really good at whining. In fact, if whining and moaning were Olympic events, you’d win a gold metal (but you wouldn’t enjoy it, because it’s so darn heavy hanging on your neck.) But just in case the arrival of a new year has got you all fired up about firing your boss, a recent column in “The Wall Street Journal” may – quite literally – give you pause.

“People often dream about changing careers,” reports reporter Erin White, “But essential change takes a lot of work, and it may require additional schooling or intensive networking. Many people lack the stamina.”

Putting aside the discouraging words about your stamina – obviously, reporter White never saw you gobble your way through a tray of donuts – comments by noted career coaches echo her conclusion.

“[Career changers] invariably think it will take much less time than it really does,” says Nella Barkley. “A profound career change usually takes years.”

If you feel like a long prison sentence has just been handed down, join the club. Those of us in the Instant Gratification Generation do not want to wait years to start our thrilling, exciting, lucrative, rewarding new career. Unfortunately, change does take time. You may have to go back to school to learn a new skill, like working. And even those of us who are still capable of changing jobs may need an intensive bout of plastic surgery to help our middle-aged bodies catch up with our teen-aged psyches.

“Stabilization” is the career coach’s prescription for the first order of business for career changers. Make up with your co-workers. Significantly increase the effort you put into kissing up to your supervisors. You don’t want your current boss to pull the employment rug out from under you before you can hop, skip and jump to your new, plush pile, wall-to-wall career.

In the “Journal” article, we are treated to a dramatic description of a career changer who radically revised his work life, transitioning from a boring corporate job to become a nurse. In other words, his change involved changing bedpans. But career changers do not have to throw out the baby with the bedpan. Another case history chronicles a commercial real estate agent who utilized the skills he developed hustling office complexes to form a new business teaching other professionals how to reduce their facility-related expenses.

While it is difficult to understand how anyone in their right mind could leave the thrilling world of commercial real estate, even for a glamorous career in facilities management, I do think it makes sense to inventory your current skills. This way, you can determine which of your many abilities could form the basis of a new career. For example, your talent for zoning out on your Aeron chair for hours at a time and still managing to look busy could easily qualify you for a position in the rapidly booming career of flag pole sitter.

Or consider your genius for dodging responsibility and blaming others for your failures. Sounds to me like you have all the skills required for a successful career as a politician [though, personally, I’d rather change bedpans.]

Now that you are totally psyched about a new career, I have to remind you that is the month of December and no one is hiring. Right? Wrong! According to a Perri Capell column in the same issue of the same newspaper, the idea that December is a bad time to look for a good job is a myth. Managers want to use their annual budget for fear of losing it, which increases the changes of hiring losers like thee and me. Plus, December is a terrific time for networking at the holiday parties, which you can crash since no one invites you.

Once you’ve made a contact at your new employer, Capell suggests you Google them, the better to call the next day with something personal about the person you can use as an “icebreaker.”

“It was terrific to meet you,” is an effective way to start the ice-breaking process. “Just what exactly did you do to get yourself on the sex offender data base?”

Let’s be brutally honest. When a business associate or corporate supplier announces that instead of giving you a personal gift, they’re going to make a donation to a worthwhile charity organization, don’t you feel a moment of regret? I mean, it’s wonderful that a cash infusion is headed in the direction of SCRAM [the Society for the Continued Rehabilitation and Advancement of Meerkats], but isn’t there a teeny-tiny twinge of regret when you realize that despite all the business you’ve shoveled in the direction of your contact, and all the guff that’s been shoveled on you, you’re still not going to get an X-Box.

[Of course, what you deserve is a new Jaguar XJ with a Bose 12-speaker system and 24-inch dubs. Heck, even a fruit basket would be nice. But no – you have to help the homeless and the hungry.]

[And what about the mysterious amount of the gift in question? Was it ten thousand dollars or ten cents? And what percentage was allotted to you and your karmic credit balance? Call me Scrooge, but when someone makes a gift instead of giving me a gift, my first reaction to ask for a copy of the check.]

Fortunately, there are holiday presents that satisfy the shallow and the selfish. One such gift idea recently crossed my email box with the intriguing subject line, “Life-Changing Gift Idea Available for the Holiday Season.” The gift in question is a resume, or as the flacks for Paul Freiberger at Shimmering Resumes put it, “a passport to a loved one’s future.”

“This is the season to give,” explains Freiberger, “But we seldom know what to give. We agonize and then we compromise. It’s so hard to give something that shows we care. [A resume] costs less than a low-cost piece of jewelry. Yet its impact can enable purchasing diamonds in the future.”

Even if the new resume fails to win the recipient a diamond-encrusted new gig. giving a resume for Christmas is a wonderfully subtle way of telling a co-worker or a manager that he or she is under-employed. Not only do you strike a blow to their self-confidence, but if the new resume works, you have decked the halls and cleared the decks.

While such a gift is beyond price, one can get a grip on the cost of a putting a new resume under the tree. “A Shimmering Resume gift certificate costs less than such gift ideas as a new suit,” explains Freiberger, “a leather jacket, Italian shoes, box seats at the opera, or one round of golf at a private club.”

I’m no CPA, but that means a gift resume probably costs more than a gift certificate for one lap dance at the Kit Kat Klub, which is my usual gift, but heck, if I can rid myself of even one supervisor, I say it’s worth it.

It was while contemplating the child-like expressions of joy on the faces of my work friends when they opened their brand new resume, I realized there is one person I know who totally needs a new career. I’m talking about Santa Claus. Just in case no one leaves a gift certificate to Shimmering Resumes by the fireplace along with the cookies and milk, here’s a first pass:

Claus, S.
North Pole

Experienced Executive Looking
For Year-Round Position Managing
Reindeers and Elves.

Famed in story and song, this dynamic leader is capable of delivering on-time results throughout a global enterprise. Deep experience in labor relations and just-in-time delivery systems. Master of crisis control due to off-shore manufacturing and quality-control issues from outsourcing. Comfortable with business travel.

BUSINESS EXPERIENCE

4th Century BC – Present: delivering presents to good girls and boys.

NOTABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Created extra income flow by turning reindeer poop into bio-diesel. Licensed proprietary spying techniques to CIA. Sold information on naughty behavior to “National Inquirer.”

JOB REQUIREMENTS

Looking for a position that would allow me to expand my management abilities into new areas. Prefer Falcon 2000DX Business Jet to reindeer and sled. Strong interest in managing a basketball team, or any organization whose average height is above 3-feet and whose employees do not wear bells on their shoes. Organizational dress code must allow white beard, but am willing to consider a comb-over. Payment must be in cash, not cookies. Preference given to companies with headquarters in Hawaii. Salary and perks are open for discussion, except for one non-negotiable demand – will not work on Christmas day.

Are you a shy-guy or a bashful babe? At parties, would you rather talk to another guest or network with a potted plant? Do you cringe at confrontation and run away from run-ins? If so, you may be an introvert. You may also be wondering how and where in the world you can get work that works with your particular personality profile.

Well, it’s a happy day for introverts. The extroverts at JIST Publishing have produced a new book with the liberating title, “200 Best Jobs for Introverts.”

Imagine! Instead of hiding under your desk when the boss calls a meeting, now you can put your finger on a gig that not only tolerates your inability to make eye contact, but rewards it.

According to the publisher’s press release, nearly a quarter of the nation’s population are introverts. [There may be more, but when the survey team knocked on their doors, the introverts inside were too freaked to answer.] “Typically, introverts prefer to work alone,” the news release continues, “in the quiet, and with as few distractions as possible. These characteristics make it increasingly difficult for introverts in an economy that thrives on communication and teamwork.”

Personally, I can’t imagine how a person would not embrace every distraction that comes their way. It’s the distractions that keep us from doing our work and therefore, keep us sane. But I do understand why it may be difficult for an introvert to get a job. The idea of going for an interview is enough to send any introvert running for a nice quiet closet where they can cuddle up in the dark with their blankie.

But even if you can muster up the nerve to master an interview, the job possibilities are shrinking for people who don’t like people.

“The U.S. economy has shifted toward service industries such as health care and hospitality,” points out co-author Lawrence Shatkin, Ph.D. “As result, more and more opportunities will be found in jobs that involve a lot of interpersonal contact, and chances to work alone will become more scare. Even jobs in manufacturing are increasingly being done by teams of workers.”

To ascertain which industries are introvert-friendly, Dr. Shatkin and his team of workers first determined which jobs allow you to work alone. [And no, we’re not talking about your job. You work alone because no one wants to work with you.] This measure they called “Independence.” The team also looked at a “work-context feature called ‘Contact with Others.’” This variable reflects how frequently you have to deal with other folks over the telephone or in the dreaded “face-to-face.”

Jobs with high Independence ratings and low Contact with Others scores are considered ideal for introverts, as well as for leprosy sufferers and career criminals in the witness protection program. The final twist on the rating system was to determine which jobs had the best growth potential. I suppose growth is important to make the book valuable to the future generations of lonely, weirdo outcasts.

As you might expect, the best jobs for introverts involve computers. Network system analysts and computer software engineers lead the list with technical writers not far behind. Medical scientists turn up as the #3 best gig unless you are so profoundly introverted that you not only can’t communicate with people, you also can’t relate to lab rats. Whatever it is these people do, hydrologists rate the #4 position. [I supposed I’d have a better fix on the profession if the hydrologists out there would come out of their caves and show themselves.]

The math gene must somehow be tied to introvert DNA because actuaries, appraisers, accountants and auditors also appear in the top ten. And you do have to admit that very few CPAs stand out as fun folks to have a party. Unless, of course, you have free food and complimentary cocktails. The green eye shade crowd may not be very sociable, but they can’t resist a free meal.

The most surprising job category on the ten best list is animal trainer. What’s surprising is not that it’s a good job for introverts, but that it carries a growth potential of 20.3 percent. This is certainly good news for Sigfried or Roy, whichever one survived the most recent mauling and is looking to get back in the cage.

So maybe animal trainer is a good job. I’m no introvert, but I know I’d sure rather face a Siberian Tiger than come face to face with the director of HR.

Here’s bad news for anyone with a doctor’s appointment in December. If sitting in the waiting room isn’t painful enough at any time of year, in December, you may come in contact with the most recent issue of “Money” magazine, one dog-eared copy of which every medical professional, by law, must have in their reception area.

In addition to the usual, unusually chilling articles explaining why you won’t be able to retire before you’re 106, a column called The Boom Years by Dan Kadlec is focused this month on a particularly timely and scary subject: “Four Ways to Thrive in an Office Shake-Up.”

It is Kadlec’s contention that the end of the year is prime time for job cuts, and I have to admit, he does present a good argument for a bad end to an otherwise rotten year. “Mergers and downsizing often come in a flurry about now,” he writes, “as bosses trim their bottom line to get a fresh financial start in the new year.”

Efficiency and productivity are two of the reasons usually sited for year-end blood baths. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not it is sheer coincidence that size of your manager’s bonus increases as the size of the staff decreases.

Not that you need any more reasons to expect that Santa will be riding his sleigh this year sitting thigh-to-thigh with the grim reaper. The fact that your office has been moved from a cubicle next to a window to a coffee-room corner next to the microwave does suggest you’ll be opening your Christmas cards in the unemployment office.

What’s even worse about the end of 2008 is that we’ve lived through similar nightmares before Christmas in 2007, 2006, 2005 and before. As Mr. Kadlec so correctly opines, “At our age we’re more vulnerable…and less likely to have the energy to fight hard for our job yet again.” Considering it takes a triple-shot double latte with a Prozac chaser to get you out the door in the mornings, the man has a point.

But you don’t get to be a writer for “Money” without being able to put a positive spin on a screwball. In his article, Kadlec does provide tips for surviving the annual Christmas massacre.

One technique I totally endorse is to determine “the possible winners atop your company and your division and do a Google search to find out as much about them as you can, including personal interests.”

Once you have the information – or as I like to call it, the dirt – about your superiors, the next step is to “make a concerted effort to meet them as opportunities arise.” For “Money” readers, that means a “trade show or a corporate event.” I say – why wait? The most efficient way to spend quality time with the big bosses is by triggering a firm alarm. As top management comes running down the stairway, you jump into the arms of your manager, allowing him or her to carry you to safety, displaying not only your savior faire in the face of danger, but also the intimate knowledge you’ve gained from your search.

“I hope standing in the parking lot isn’t too rough on those handsome shoes,” you comment casually as the fire trucks roll up. “I saw your entry on feetfreaks.com, and I know a nice polish is very important to you, Mr. Sexy4Florsheim43.”

Another tip for saving your job is to actually work harder – “kick it up a notch,” Kadlec calls it, but I think we can ignore that nonsense. You could kick it up six notches and still not reach slacker status. Or you can “make age your asset” by leveraging your “institutional knowledge.” Good luck! Knowing three foolproof ways to sneak out before 5 PM may have made work life bearable for you, but probably won’t mean much to a new hotshot supervisor.

No, the best way to make age your asset is to have a heart attack in the middle of the Christmas party. It’s unlikely that they’ll fire you during open-heart surgery, but if they do, at least, you’ll have health insurance. And who knows – if you can make it to 2009, your work life may actually improve.

It’s true! I hear that they have very good donuts at the unemployment office and the people you meet there will understand you better than your previous boss, even if their Florsheims don’t have that sexy polish.