Every now and then you find an idea that is pure genius, wondering why you didn’t think of it first.
Savage Chickens was created by Doug Savage and speaks to every cubicle dweller that ever harbored the dream of leaving their job in style (or at least with some solid snark).
Enjoy these posts. (Get it? Posts?) And remember that there are creative ways to funnel your frustration right on your desk.
Haiku is a beautiful form of Japanese poetry that brings to mind images of flowers, tranquility and deep meaning. Classic haiku is only three lines long with a 5-7-5 pattern. Thus the first and last lines are five syllables; the second line is seven syllables. What I love about haiku is that it is an efficient form of writing where every word counts.
I apologize to the haiku enthusiasts for bastardizing the format by writing about office life.
Meeting ambles on
Long discourse about nothing
Bored employees sigh
See how much fun this is? Here’s another one:
Corporate lingo
Win-win, synergy, bandwidth
Baked-in silliness
My cubicle haiku lacks the artistry and elegance of the typical haiku, but it does get the point across.
My challenge is to create your own and send to me. I promise to share the good ones.
Another ‘must know’ to survive Corporateland is how to manage the professional goals the company insists you write for yourself. As we speak I am wordsmithing my annual development goals with thesaurus in hand. What I hate about this exercise is that I may be setting myself up for failure. Eight months from now a manager can point his finger at me, then at the goals I wrote, and tell me how I failed. Not only did I fail, I failed at something I devised and agreed to. Catch-22 corporate style.
So it was Kismet that I came across this blog post today.
I’m feeling better already….
To My Esteemed Colleague:
Hey, you! Yes, I’m talking to you! Shut the hell up, will ya?
I know you don’t like the new system we implemented this week. But don’t shout at me to get your point across. Telling me, or rather yelling at me, about what’s wrong with this new approach (and expecting me to be able to do anything about it) is like asking my cat to approve your expense report. Neither of us has the authority to do much of anything. Plus the next time you need something I can actually do for you? Well, let’s just say one of the few powers I do have is to prioritize you to the bottom of my list.
Take a look at the company org chart. See how the two of us are way down in the lower left corner? You’re barking at the wrong wrung in the ladder. Please redirect your wrath up a couple of notches. Then take a deep breath and begin again. You may get more done that way (or piss off a manager who has the power to surgically remove you from the company).
Helpfully yours,
The Alienated Co-Worker
If you’re a corporate drone you don’t need any explanation about this clip. It’s #1 on my list of recommendations for corporate survival. Enjoy!
Here at Corporate Girl I realize I have a responsibility to shine a light on the silly witless corporate lifestyle. Rather than just thinking about doing it, I decided to create this blog and post regularly in 2011.
I know it won’t be easy, but I’m determined to explore every nook and cranny on the cubicle farm. (Let’s be honest, I don’t have to dig too far to find good material in Corporateland.) But to keep me on track I’m making use of The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.
If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll (1) laugh and (2) encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way.
Once a day I head up to the convenience store in our office building. There I can purchase coffee, snacks, breath mints, energy bars and sandwiches. There is also a small selection of drugs – the legal kind, the sort you’d find in a Walgreens. Similar to an airport, these drugs are sold in small, single-use packets. There’s allergy meds, analgesics, heartburn pharmaceuticals and Advil PM.
Advil PM?! The stuff that makes you sleep like a baby?
Now I can imagine all kind of reasons why I’d toss down a couple Advil PM during a work day:
Or perhaps the dreamy medicine would take away the edge of listening to a cranky co-worker share (with anyone who’ll listen) tales about being overworked and under-appreciated. Maybe I would feel euphoric, less stressed and, oddly, happy about debugging that spreadsheet. Or I would be in such a deep sleep that I won’t give a damn about anything.
Not giving a damn…. Of course! That’s why there’s Advil PM is in our convenience store. It’s an evil plot hatched by management to make zombies out of us. We’ll agree to anything so long as we can lie down for a couple minutes, much like Dorothy in the poppy field. Later we’ll awaken to the flying monkeys and a green-faced witch (or is that the All Staff meeting?).
I can also take the Advil PM home so I can sleep at night without the tossing and turning, no doubt caused by the work anxiety.
I see the wisdom of offering this pharmaceutical to us. If I can get an IV drip I would have the best work week ever.
Have you ever worked your company’s booth at a trade show? It’s either a rollicking good time or the most boring day you’ve ever spent with the company, which is saying something given how adept companies are at boring their employees.
The best time I ever had being a booth bunny was at a show in Las Vegas. I was the only person from my company to attend which meant NO SUPERVISION. This was my schedule:
Those were the days. Now I am at a different company and share booth duty with ten colleagues. We wear the same corporate logo shirts. I don’t know if there is anything more humiliating than dressing alike when you are not (a) in the military or (b) attending parochial school. I might show up one day in my Bedazzled, glitter-encrusted corporate wear just to express my individuality.
The most important thing a vendor can do at a trade show is give out trinkets. These events are adult trick-or-treat affairs. Each meeting participant gets a plastic bag which they fill up with whatever crap is being given away. Popular give-aways are pens, magnets, letter openers and other useless stuff that will collect dust in a desk drawer long after the show is over. Yet I’ve seen grandmotherly types shove burly men out of the way to grab a handful of tiny tape measures “for the grandkids.” Thanks, Mamaw. How did you know I wanted something you didn’t spend a dime on?
If you have nothing free to give away, not one person will come to your booth – which makes for a boring day. If you’re desperate, get some candy and make it as Halloween-like as possible. People will stampede your booth until the food runs out. Then you’re alone again to collect your thoughts or make small talk with your fellow inmates colleagues.
Bottom line: Going to a trade show is much more fun than working a trade show. I’d much rather be a trick-or-treater than the poor sap who pastes a plastic smile on her face and looks engaged and interested. I can fake that facial expression in an hour staff meeting but find it hard to sustain for a long day in the booth. Plus my face hurts after awhile.
Most days we don’t like our clients. Hell, most days we barely like each other. Our most productive days seems to be the ones when we get few calls and e-mails from the beloved customers who pay our salaries.
They say that the customer is always right. That’s bullshit. There are times, many times, when the customer is arrogant, delusional, difficult and flat-out w-r-o-n-g. Sometimes they don’t know they are so far off the correct path. I can live with that. Other times they know they are wrong and yet they will stick to their convictions just to prove that they are right. For some, it is more important to be right than to be happy.
I’m working with a client who is not a difficult person, but he just can’t leave well enough alone. Case in point, he approaches me with a laundry list of questions which is a follow-up to the numerous questions he had a couple of months ago. Apparently his hobby is asking questions about one issue over and over again. I’ll spend two or three days researching his latest concerns and send out a lengthy e-mail. We’ll have a phone call about it too and he’ll happily go his way — for about four weeks. Then he’ll e-mail me with another barrage of questions, most of which exhibit a misunderstanding of what I previously told him.
At one time I thought I wasn’t effectively communicating with him. I’m a writer and it troubles me (ok, freaks me out) when my words are misunderstood. After three iterations of this malarkey I’m convinced that he has post-hair stylist syndrome. Let me explain.
When I get my hair done I know it will never look as perfect as the stylist made it look. I could study her every move, jot down notes and recite back every trick she used. Yet when I stand in front of the mirror the next day I resemble the stylings of Edward Scissorhands. I understood exactly what to do and somehow lost the mojo, the key points. My client is much the same way. He perfectly understood what I said — until he returned to his everyday life. And then it became murky. And then the next e-mail arrives. And then I waste another couple of days explaining it all over again.
This particular client went up our corporate food-chain to tell management that we (my department) just aren’t providing very good service. I can do many magical things in the office: turn paperclips into picture hangers, appear interested when the CEO talks to the troops. But I can’t make someone understand. This client is my very own ‘Ground Hog Day’ and I’m Bill Murray.
So I don’t always like the clients. In fact I would be happy to fire a few though the corporate gods don’t give me that kind of power. The best I can hope for is that this client will tire of me and some other poor soul will be assigned to the account.
It’s the circle of life, don’t you think?
My cubicle is near many empty offices. Offices with doors, ceilings and walls that are not covered in cloth. They’re quite lovely and quite empty.
To get a coveted office one must attain a certain stature/status/level within the company. Let’s say due to some ‘tragedy’ all of these managers were gone/eliminated/fired. Those offices would remain empty forevermore — because rules are rules, dammit. It’s simply impossible to have the lower/lesser/smelly rank and file inhabit these sacred vessels.
Our department hired a new employee this week. Her cubicle, while on the same floor, is not even in the same zip code as the rest of the us. Much like New York City we are wedged together with no vacancies and practically have to take mass transit to visit our newest co-worker. Yet I can see a number of empty offices right over my wall. The right to a real office is part of the class/caste/social system of many companies. Cram the hordes together and let that pristine, empty real estate go unused forever — because the company has principles to uphold.
I look to history for examples on how to deal with this inequity: (1) storm the Bastille or (2) become a squatter. I say let’s start with #2 and then go to #1 when they kick us out.
The Adventures of Corporate Girl 