Work Daze

Does the workplace make you mad? Are you chewing through #2 pencils until they crack? Bending paper clips until they cry uncle?

In short, is your temper short and your fuse shorter?

If you are angry in the workplace, I say – congratulations. Your rage shows that you still have hope. The only way you can be angry at your office is if you believe that it is somehow possible for conditions to be better.

If you want to disagree with me, do so at your own peril. People who disagree with my perception of anger make me very angry. Yet I’m not angry with Israel “Izzy” Kalman, a guy who thinks anger in the workplace – anger anyplace – is a problem.

Kalman, who is described in his publicity materials as a “nationally renown lecturer and school psychologist,” is the author of “Bullies to Buddies: How to Turn Your Enemies Into Friends.” In the book and in his nationally renowned lectures, Izzy shares “quick, powerful methods for teaching people to transform themselves from victims into winners.”

And if you don’t successfully make the transformation and disarm your temper, he beats you to a bloody pulp. [Just kidding, Izzy. Put down your dukes.]

Apparently Izzy and his organization consider me a victim and a threat, because I recently received an e-vite to attend one of the Kalman anger control seminars for free. From the looks of the email, it appears that Izzy is making the offer to a large group of reporters, but you can’t fool me – he’s really targeting me, but doesn’t want to take the chance of making me blow my top.

[In fact, I have never been a “screamer” at work. And though I have often wanted to be one of those people who send co-workers scurrying as they move through the hallways, a ticking bomb in Florsheims, my cuddly, kitty-cat personality was never up to the job. My loss. As you have probably noticed, while most companies discourage intense confrontation, a heated discussion rising from a passionate point of view is often considered a sign of being emotional invested in the business.] [I know it seems weird, but some people are obsessed with their job – you know, sort of like how we feel about “Celebrity Fit Club.”]

Kalman, who developed his techniques as a school counselor, has expanded his practice from schoolyard bullies to workplace baddies. In his opinion, “almost all problems in life involve anger. Anger destroys relationships, makes us depressed, and generates chemicals that eat away at us at the cellular level.” Now that makes me mad.

His materials are less clear about the techniques used to control anger, and this is understandable – the man has trade secrets and we shouldn’t expect him to give away the store. From what I can glean from his promotional material, what Izzy offers is a “copyrighted structured role-playing technique to make anger disappear effortlessly, and life immediately begins to get better.”

Since our careers are based on a structured role-playing technique, Izzy’s methods are likely to work for us. Even better, Kalman’s key technique is something called “the game – the single most effective and fun way ever devised for teaching anger control.”

According to its creator, “the game” is much more effective in anger control than the more traditional methods of deep breathing or counting to ten. This is good news since counting to ten requires math skills we don’t possess, and deep breathing would interfere with the loud, mournful sighs that get us through the long afternoons.

The technique is so effective, says Izzy, that he “accomplishes in one sessions what is often missed in months and years of regular talking therapy.”

Should you wish to take advantage of the Kalman method of anger control, you will be happy to know that his seminars are given throughout the country. He would probably also come and speak to the angry folks at your company, which could be a great career opportunity for you. With all the infuriated, exasperated and aggravated employees off playing “the game,” we lazy, laid-back louts could take over the company.

One last point – if Izzy’s techniques really do work, be careful about appearing too much in control. If your career suffers from the general impression that you really don’t care about the sales of widgets in Winnemucca, a good explosion of rage at the nearest co-worker or computer or soda machine can often result in an explosive promotion.

-30-

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.