Monday, June 20, 2005

Sooner or later, whether you’re captaining your desk as a corporate slave or shoveling krill in an effort to further marine biology, you’ll have to cope with one of the cold inevitabilities of the working world: the idiot boss. It never fails. You can analyze dozens of profit reports and then discover, to your annoyance and your boss’s thinly veiled glee, she hid three dozen more under the coffeemaker. Spend all day editing a handbook to perfection, only to meet with righteous indignation from your supervisor because you indented with five spaces instead of seven. Collect 158 crustaceans, sort them by size and categorize by sheen, just in time to handle your passive-aggressive employer.

“Oh, shit! It feels like someone forgot to hoist the anchor again,” he declares, louder than a foghorn.

What defines idiocy is pliable. It could be poor managerial style, awkward interpersonal skills, the inability to remember to zip up the pants, the list has no end. This is why I peddle general guidelines, you see, because preparedness is golden. The next time you’re stuck in a tricky situation, remember that it’s not a matter of what you say or what you do, it’s a question of what you have.

Bring Plain Paper
Notice how news anchors shuffle their papers after every informative program? Do you have any idea why they’re compelled to organize their notes right then and there? It’s like they’re privy to a secret you cannot even begin to contemplate, which is basically that all those pages are blank. That’s right. What you think you see is a digest of the evening news, but what’s actually there comes from the wrong end of the copy machine.

Says a grateful client of mine, “I was in hot water one day and my boss was all like, ‘That’s the LAST time I catch you napping on the job, woman! You’re fi–‘ But right before he could say those two nasty words, I took out my sheets and shuffled as if my job depended on it, because it totally did, you know. He stopped mid-firing and said, ‘Ooo, the sound of paper.’ Then he leaned back and started looking out the window, so I left.”

Hear that? It’s the sound of unpreparedness, because you can’t stroll into the office with only a sheaf of 84 brights. Here’s the next item in your toolkit.

Bring a Blanket
Do you recall the days when your security blanket was your only friend? Perhaps nothing changed between then and now, in which case you’re in excellent shape. Your blanket is lightweight and portable, yet you can also use it to wrap your sheets of paper and–wait for it–an undisclosed third item. Most importantly, however, it is your only ally for dealing with passive-aggressive taskmasters. The process is simple. You talk to the blanket, and it answers for you.

For example, “I just consulted with Ragamuffin and he thinks it’s still a stupid idea.”

“Professor Patchkins claims you’re a dick.”

“Colonel Quiltsbottom told me to tell you I’m giving my resignation, right about now,” is another good one.

Above all else, remember to maintain good eye-to-hem contact, alright?

Bring a Snack
A bag of treats will not only feed you, it will also distract your boss. You know how fighter jets carry chaff, dropping it here and there to misdirect guided missiles? Snacks are like that, and they work even better when your manager isn’t the biggest warhead in the cache.

In a sterling show of reluctant testimony, an anonymous employer recounts, “I was yelling at my assistant once, but then he dropped a cookie and I walked toward it.”

This is brilliance by the bagful, dear reader, and I’m only sharing tonight.

“Your wisdom, from where does it come?” you ask, careful to avoid dangling prepositions.

My answer is so profound, it confounds. Here it is, like synergy arrested near the dumpster behind a Houlihan’s. I. Don’t. Know.