The Classless Director

We held one of those "celebrate the completion of a project" happy hours. It's always fascinating to me to see people who get a few drinks in them start to morph into something else and show their true nature. In this case, we hold up a Director level manager as a prime example of someone who thinks a great deal of himself and will talk nicely to your face but behind closed doors goes out of his way step on you. He has obviously achieved his place in the company by stealthily trashing people on one hand and buttering his superiors on the other. On a normal day, I see him occasionally walking up and down the aisles obviously spying on what people are doing at their computers and acting like he there for a reason. Hey nimrod, what reason do you have to be in every aisle??

Anyway, on this day of celebration, and after several hard drinks, he began to tell a story with the attempt at being the center of attention while telling a humorous joke to his people, or in his mind, his inferiors. His story started with a tone of contrived sympathy as he mentioned he was contacted by someone he knows at a company who was looking for background information on a prospective employee. This employee had just been layed off several months earlier from the same company and group where this Director continued to work. The Director was a peer of this employee and on many occasions they had played racquetball and golf together.

As the Director continued, his tone of sympathy turned into one of superiority as he laid the supposed punch line on the group listening. "I wrote him back stating that our company policy precludes us from giving information on former employees" he stated while cackling like some male witch. "And I received a response back that simply said 'Got it'" at which point his cackling turned to some sort of drunk laughter as he looked around at people for approval of the joke.

As I looked around at the people listening, I noticed a nervous conformity as even though they felt uncomfortable, they felt they had to deliver a laugh in order to not get noticed. All the while, I could tell that they felt the same way I did.

The aspect of giving an inquiring company information about someone with whom you have previously worked is a normal every day occurence. But his true intent was to degrade this person under the guise of company policy and he was proud of it! At the very least this is extremely unprofessional. At the very worst, its classless and he's fucking with another man's living.

It is obvious that this Director is towards the classless end of that spectrum.

Answering the cell phone while on the office shitter

I'll never understand this. I'm sure the person who created the cell phone never intended for its use to be right in the middle of our bowel movements. And yet here we are in 2009 over exaggerating our own self-importance to a point where we find it necessary to answer our cell phones right in the middle of our grunts and groans. What's even more ironic is the most often response of people is "hey listen..can I call you back in 5 or 10??". Dumb ass...don't answer in the first place. Are you so productive and yet so lazy at the same time that you can't find the energy to finish up your nasty business and then dial the few numbers you need to get to your voice mail?? I guess they figure checking voice mail is unnecessary and that by answering they have saved themselves about 30 seconds of time.

And then there are those people that answer and then try to have a conversation while keeping their progressive movement as silent as possible. To these people I say everything is fair game son. When these "opportunities" come my way, I always grab the horse by the reins and try to either push harder in order to create as much sound as possible or start flushing repeatedly in order to completely disrupt any conversation from happening.

As a note of ironic observation, it seems that every time I come across a person who answers their phone and continues the conversation, they are always sitting in the handicapped stall. Now I have been known to use this more luxurious stall myself from time to time, but I always try and finish up as quickly as possible. I don't know if there is a law against using these stalls if you are not handicapped, but their definitely should be a law against using these stalls if you are not handicapped and talking on your cell phone.

So for all you people fed up with being rudely dissrupted in your own moment of bodily cleansing, here are some other suggestions for striking back:

• whistle the theme song from "The Andy Griffith" show
• increase/decrease the ring volume on your own phone repeatedly
• roll the toilet paper dispenser round and round
• have a coughing fit
• have a sneezing fit
• Act like your having one of those I ate too much spicy food movements

Have fun!

People have lost their Zen

Where's the humanity people? We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis in our generation and I look around and all I see is people being selfish and looking out for themselves. Part of what is going to help get us out of this mess is starting to look out for each other.

Yes its scary. Yes we are all losing our money, possessions and everything else that we have worked so hard to build. But where's the perspective? Is the accumulation of THINGS the goal of your lives?

No better example exists than in the terrible and painful process that corporate America is currently undertaking. Layoffs, RIFs (reduction in force), streamlining, rightsizing, creating more efficiencies..whatever you want to call it. People are losing their jobs. And the people remaining in their jobs are so driven by their own fears and so absorbed by their own insecurities that they just move on without so much as lending a helping hand to those that have been let go. They act like those people somehow have a disease that does'nt make them worthy enough to work at the company anymore.

And worst of all, they don't even refer to what happened in truthful statements. "Oh he left the company". What? Are you fucking kidding me? He did'nt leave the company. He was told to pack up his belongings in the next 10 min and then escorted to the door without being able to say goodbye to those people he worked with. "It's a legal issue". I see..you're afraid this person is going to get into your network and steal something or lock down all access so no one can get into anything anymore. Yeah, there may be some crazies out there that may attempt this....but this is no excuse to treat people who you called valued co-workers yesterday like second-class citizens today.

How about showing a little heart...you know heart? The thing that beats in your chest keeping you alive? People have lost their Zen and we need to get it back.

It's simple. Let people know you care about them. Offer them a helping hand even though you feel you may not have the time to do it. Offer them a listening ear even though you may not want to listen. Show your humanity again because you'll find it actually improves your life as well.

Zen look at the office bathroom

Oh my...I found this great video on our favorite subject...bodily functions at work. This is a great summary and strategy lesson for all of us who hate going at work.