iPhony Plan

Within my company, managers are highly encouraged to have a company iPhone. Not a requirement, but definitely a strong suggestion. A suggestion that I ignore. When cornered, my answer is “Freedom Ain’t Free, Brother” followed by a shotgun blast in the air while enjoying a fresh dip of Copenhagen. Yes, the phone and data usage are paid for. But that payment comes with a cost. The ability to check your email. The ability to know whether or not you are checking your email. The ability to know whether or not you are checking porn. Or for those who are really ambitious, actually making your own porn film. It is all on the phone. Connectivity and traceability.

So you're saying we have to delete some footage from our phones?

Most employees submit due to the financial and portable convenience. Financially, the activity is covered. It is a significant savings per month to many of the ascending managers looking to minimize their expenses while maximizing their 401K’s. Portability is more con than pro to me. The definition of convenience is tricky. The great news is that it enables an employee to check email from wherever they are. The bad news is that it enables an employee to check email from wherever they are. A slippery slope that I refuse to engage in.

Call me anytime, pal. Money never sleeps and neither do I.

Convenience is the item that closes the deal. A portable electronic device is now at a manager’s disposal. Email is the driver. Check for new email. Read new email. Send new email. An open door for communication that never closes. Forget the door, it has been removed from the hinges and run through a wood-chipper. It is an open tunnel that keeps an employee a few keystrokes away from making a co-worker connection. No thank you.

Can we close this communication portal?
It's creating a draft on my personal life.

Never turning off work inadvertently co-mingles initiatives that can cause a person to short circuit. Making fish sticks and tater tots for the kids while trying to actively increase the latest profit margins is unattainable. It surpasses ‘not easy’ and flirts with impossible. The American business culture is fascinated with multi-tasking. It is a mythical standard many aspire to and fail. The promotion of an iPhone with access to the company server solidifies this myth.

Doing one thing excellent with singular focus is better than doing multiple things at once with ordinary results. Chipotle does burritos. A few select meats, combined with some veggies, beans and rice. Then end it with edible and attractive accoutrements. In the end, you have a great lunch. Golden Corral does everything. A multitude of fruits covered in a film of pesticide. Then combine it with a cornucopia of meats and cheeses that turns a colon into a pipe jammed with wet newspaper. Then end it with a chocolate fountain to run all your insecurities through. On the surface, it appears everything is to be had and in the end nothing is achieved. The buffet is swimming in a sea of below average.

Everyone back away from the buffet!
I have something we all can eat.

So shove it with the free phone plan. I may not check my email all the time, I may not be accessible in the wee hours of the morning. But when you see me online, I am accountable, I am a force to be reckoned with. And when I am offline, well, I am making my porn film on my personal iPhone.

Visionary Evasion

Innovation is the pipeline to new work. Visionaries use innovation to transcend day-to-day business operations. It allows them to capture a glimpse of what can be done if we dare to imagine. Visionaries push beyond an inbox. They harness their brainpower and pioneer into new intellectual territories of their respective fields. However, when it comes to real work, visionaries are useless as a screen door on a submarine. They evade the day-to-day work because they don’t understand it in the first place. A visionary double downs on this lack of everyday knowledge by requesting a brainstorming session.

It's a little clunky for a prototype. But give me 30 years and I think I have something.

A visionary’s “vision” often originates from an amalgamation of their subordinates’ ideas. Being a leader has its benefits. One of the benefits is co-opting a respective team’s intelligentsia and packaging it as their own. “Everyone get together and brainstorm.” is a euphemism for, “Let me cherry-pick the best ideas and put my name on it.” Meanwhile, in business land, deliverables are piling up and deadlines are fast approaching.

You are full of ideas today. Tell me more.

Those doing actual work are the lifeblood of the project. The contract survives on their activity. Current performance is a strong indicator of future wins. The client depends on the deliverables promised. Visionaries piggy back off this sweat equity to take a leap of business faith into the future. It is necessary. It is the nature of business. Innovate or perish. But sometimes it is relied on so heavily that the current engine running on the ground floor is dismissed for a blueprint in the executive’s office.

Not trying to be a wet blanket but these plans seem like an awful idea.

The visionary pulls a Chauncey Gardiner by presenting the malleable blueprint. An unformed blueprint hijacked from the collective brainpower of lower level employees. With style and panache, the visionary completes a tight wire act. The laconic delivery is misinterpreted as wisdom when in fact is used for disguising an impostor. The client is both charmed and convinced of the idea. It goes off without a hitch.  It should make my blood boil, but it takes guts for the visionary to put themselves out there. It also holds the promise of future work. Day to day work. My work. Meh, job security.


Business is a state of mind.

No Dough My Dear

Fundraising on the company dime. The majority of working parents are guilty of it. Boosterthon, FunRun, Girl Scout Cookies, the middle school football club, the high school basketball team or the underwater basket weaving society. They all need money. Fundraising is a numbers game and there are a great number of working parents who see money inside a corporate skyscraper. It is filled with people. Working people. Reliable people. Direct deposit people. People with fucking jobs who cannot stiff anyone they see on a daily basis. Fertile grounds for a fundraising predator.

I see a lot of money in this place.

Except I’m the prey who says no...

 

No to your cookies. No to your fun run. No to your kid’s team. No to your cure for cancer. I don’t care if you are the equivalent of Stratton Oakmont in the world of fundraising, the answer is no.
 

 

Shove these Thin Mints and Do-Si-Dos right down Corporate Joe's fucking throat!

The proximity of work personnel along with their financial security makes fundraising uber-convenient in cubicle land. A mom or dad can knock it all out in one location. Most people cave. The pernicious stalking is tolerated since it is tied to a charitable cause. I’m sure the principle is worthy of raising money. Children will benefit, the world will be a better place, and I can sign up in the time it would take to brew a Nescafe coffee packet. For me, none of these items matter. My fierce resistance is for the sole purpose of compartmentalization.
 

 

Honey, I'd just rather not talk about work today.

No personal business at the place of business. I am not writing a check no matter how noble the idea. The reason is I am already in work debt. I owe my co-workers deliverables, a promised meeting, an updated excel spreadsheet or a round of drinks on the corporate AMEX. What I refuse to owe them is money from my personal account. Not a single cent. When it comes to finances, personal life and corporate life are mutually exclusive. Never the twain shall meet.

Arrived home from work today. My son's soccer team has a signup sheet for candy bars. Do you know who likes candy bars? My co-workers. I'll cast a wider social net and go one step beyond all the people I answered with a "No". Many working parents don't live by the same rules I do. I'll post this sheet in the pantry tomorrow.

Just sign up, damn-it. It's for my kid's soccer team.

 

Kiss-Ass Assassin

I have a rule: don’t kiss ass. Self-respecting individuals who are worth a damn in the business world are confident enough to know they don’t need it. And if you find yourself around people who do need their asses kissed, distance yourself. These people are not worth being around no matter how accomplished, wealthy, or recognized. In regards to this rule, the one thing I was not prepared for was someone kissing my own ass.

These fucking compliments are wearing me out.

The reality of my career is I am barely middle-management. No complaints, this is fine. The middle is often underrated. On one end of the spectrum, I do not fulfill work orders designed for production at lower levels. On the other end, I am not belittled by C-level executives while sitting across a sea of mahogany in fantastic lighting. My skill-sets fill the in-between. I convert high-level strategy to work processes, all of it based on orders from a much higher level and pay-grade. If someone is kissing my ass, their priorities are misaligned and their self-esteem is lower than whale shit.

Don't worry, I already took a dump in the ocean.

It started with gentle reminders about the workload. It was redundant but innocuous. That's fine, remind me what you are working on even though I already know what it is. It transitioned to suggestions for improvement on a process I created that was commented to be "superb." It escalated to unnecessary compliments on how well I was able to complete tasks that are, to be frank, mundane. Saccharine soaked compliments that would make Trump blush. Most people would take time to enjoy it. I'm too busy putting myself down to know what to do with a compliment. Self-deprecating humor is a bitch.

Corporate Joe, let me know when you want self-help advice.

My first attempt was to eschew the compliments. A simple ignore on my part in hopes to discourage the behavior. The compliments continued. My second attempt was to let the individual know there is a disconnect between their assessment of me and my actual achievements. Neither worked. Time to step it up a notch.

I am going to make this kiss-ass pay. For each compliment, another work item is assigned to their inbox. If this doesn't shut them up then I am sitting on a lottery ticket. A work masochist who is impervious to laptop late nights and early morning meetings. Together, we can rule the workplace. Cue the evil laugh and wringing of the hands.


Whatever you say boss.