Work Daze

Attention, please. This column is about women in business, so get ready to dip your mouse in poison and let the hate email begin. Before you start hyperventilating, it is important to state that I have had both male and female bosses, and can attest that sex doesn’t matter when it comes to managers. They’re both equally awful.

But what about the long, hard slog from the sludge at the bottom of the workplace barrel to the over-compensated froth at the top? Even after decades of hard work by the women in the women’s movement, fewer than 2 percent of Fortune 1000 CEOs are missing a Y-chromosome.

This statistic probably explains why those of us who find ourselves at the bottom of that barrel find so many women beside us, treading water. Frankly, I had always thought that these under-achieving females, so superior in every way, had simply decided to leave the clawing and climbing to other, less evolved human beings – our bosses.

But now I realize that women have not chosen to be workplace sloths, but have been held back by unfair social conventions. If this is news to you, too, we must send a bread-and-butter note to Nina DiSesa, a super-successful Madison Avenue advertising executive and the author of a hot new book, “Seducing the Boys Club: Uncensored Tactics from a Woman at the Top.”

According to a press release that recently found its way into my in-box, DiSesa, “didn’t become successful by playing by the rules or letting her brains, talent and work ethic speak for themselves. During the course of her career, Nina figured out that S&M—seduction and manipulation—is the real secret to winning over (and surpassing) the big guys.”

While I like a little S&M as well as the next pervert, I have to admit that I find myself flummoxed by Ms. DiSesa’s admission that success is not to be won by following the rules of the fairness laid down by the Marquis of Queensberry. Instead, those of us who want to reach the top will have to become acolytes of the Marquis de Sade.

Either way, with de Sade or DiSesa as their role model, women will now have the tools they need to crawl over the well-whipped backs of their male co-workers to achieve the top spots. And at the risk of receiving a sound and delicious thrashing, I am going to reprint some of Dominatrix Nina’s “practical, outrageous, and even controversial maxims for making it.”

In the language of DiSesa’s press agents, this should help my female readers “meld their feminine characteristics (nurturing, compassion, listening) with the traits of their male counterparts (competitiveness, decisiveness, combativeness) to expand their professional horizons.” It will also help my male readers understand what to expect from a new onslaught of high achievers in high heels.

After all, if there are going to screams of pain in the workplace, we might as well enjoy them.
“Learn to appreciate men. Men like women who like them.”
And ferrets like ferrets who like them. Still, DiSesa is on to something here. Just don’t forget that men also like men who like them. This is why it is important to pretend to respect our hateful managers and hang on their every idiotic word.
“Remember that women are biologically wired to succeed.”
Yes, when it comes to work, men and women are equally likely to screw everything up. Comforting, ain’t it?
“If you want to make a name for yourself, find a mess and fix it. A secure and comfortable job only holds you back.”
And if there is no mess to fix, make a mess yourself and blame it on a man. Then you can fix the mess and the man.
“Don’t assume that men never listen. They listen like a dog does.”
Indeed. Men can also roll over, play dead, and pee on the carpet.
“Don’t be a quiet achiever.”
OK, but it’s much better to be a noisy failure. That way the bosses will know they have nothing to fear from you and you could be promoted.
In the press release, columnists are offered the opportunity to interview DiSesa who promises to explain when it’s okay to cry at work and how to “flirt with integrity.” I considered calling the author, but decided against it. I am helpless against the wiles of a talented flirt, and I don’t care how much an author wants publicity, I absolutely refuse to let her see me cry.