Month: January 2016

Quick Quiz – Which Corporate Employee Are You?

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Need an objective view as to how you’re holding up in the workplace? Take this quiz to find out if you’re on your way to the top or if it’s time to retire.

1. During a meeting where the logic of your idiotic process is being questioned, you:

a) tell the group that you agree the process stinks, but you are just doing what you were told. You then take this opportunity to hijack the meeting and spend 20 minutes complaining about how no one listens to you.

b) confuse everyone with a long-winded, somewhat incoherent explanation of how the process came about. You get so wrapped up in the history of the process that you forget what the group actually wants, which is that you agree to change the process.

c) pretend that the CEO is calling you on your cell phone and leave the room immediately.

 

2. Your boss needs you to work on an urgent assignment. You:

a) tell him that you’re too busy and will not be able to take on any new work until Q1 2017.

b) agree to do it but forget to ask him what he wants and when it’s due by.

c) zealously agree to help him out, because, after all, you’re always there for him when he’s in a jam. You then secretly pawn the work off on your lower-ranking colleagues who are too timid to say no. In the end, you make sure to take all of the credit.

 

3. When meeting with a manager at least 2 levels above you, you:

a) take the opportunity to loudly voice that you are overworked and stressed out. It’s hard working 40 hours a week.

b) fail to understand what exactly the manager is asking you. Rather than request clarification, you just ramble on about a topic of your choosing.  This makes sense, since relevancy really is subjective.

c) make witty jokes and compliment him/her every five minutes.

 

4. Your co-workers need your subject matter expertise. You:

a) tell them they’ll have to hire a consultant to answer their 3 questions, because you’re busy reviewing training materials.

b) happily agree to help. After an hour on the phone with them you’ve managed to take them down at least 3 rabbit holes without ever arriving at an answer to the first question. It was a “yes” or “no” question.

c) refer them to someone who works for you. Since you are a manager, you don’t really have to have any knowledge. That’s why you have a team.

 

5.  Your boss makes you in charge of a project already being worked on by 5 people, you:

a) put together a project plan but don’t have time to figure out if anyone’s actually adhering to it.

b) do the same work the others had already completed, since you forgot to ask them what pieces of the project had been checked off before you joined the team.

c) make one of the 5 people your “team lead”, have him/her put together a project plan and report back to you regularly. While you wait for status updates, you drink coffee and make vacation plans.

Scoring:

1. If the majority of your answers were a) then it’s time to throw in the towel. You’ve been working too hard for too long and need to be put out to pasture. Find a job at an ice cream shop during the winter months and at a ski resort in the summer.

2. If the majority of your answers were b) then you’re faking. Anyone who truly would answer b) is too confused to take this quiz. Find the b) people at your job and give them a hug. It’s hard to live in such a haze.

3. If the majority of your answers were c), then congratulations. You are a successful corporate douchebag who knows how to make yourself look good while forcing everyone around you to do your work. Watch your back, though, since all of the little people you stepped on will be looking for opportunities to run you over in the parking garage. Don’t be surprised if when you go to an ice cream shop in the winter, your scoop of chocolate chip tastes strangely like pee.

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Corporate Mentoring Series: 6 Business Terms Every Elementary School Kid Should Learn

learning

As a parent, I am concerned that kids in America are graduating without sufficient skills to be successful in the business world. Actually, this concern is probably better described as downright fear, since I see the results of our country’s sub-par education system every day at my job on the corporate hamster wheel.

When my daughters embark on their careers, will they be capable of using first-grade addition and subtraction to calculate time zones when setting up meetings with employees in different parts of the country? As I have learned from the numerous invites I receive to conference calls before 8 am, this is not a skill that has been adequately taught.

If my children choose a career in marketing, will they know how to spell the name of the company they work for? This is also not something that can be taken for granted…at least not where I work.

Since according to the self-evaluation portion of my latest performance review, “I excel as a true driver of change,” I’ve decided to take action here too and have compiled a short list of key corporate words and phrases, which kids should study. While this won’t help with time zone calculations or spelling skills, proficiency with every term on this list will at least promote a child’s ability to successfully communicate with their corporate peers and managers when the day comes.

Add some color:  to provide additional details. This does NOT mean you should add more blue and red to your art project.

Example: John, can you add some color to why your team’s results are in the toilet?

Appetite: level of interest (as opposed to level of hunger).

Example: There was no appetite in management to get us the resources for good results.

Throw someone under the bus:  to blame someone else. Do not take this literally…no one is actually tossed under a moving vehicle.

Example:  John threw management under the bus. He is now looking for another job.

Stakeholders: other people affected by your brilliant ideas. This is not a reference to your history lesson about gold miners claiming their territories.

Example: Beware of Sales; they have been known to hide their plans from the Company’s stakeholders.

Harmonize:  to ensure your thoughts are accepted by stakeholders; the opposite of hiding your plans. This has nothing to do with forming a choir with the other students.

Example: Sales didn’t harmonize with the Legal Department before launching their product; the company is now being sued by the government.

Mission statement: your stated purpose. Do not confuse this term with the opening sentence in your fourth grade report on the California missions.

Example: The Sales Team’s mission statement is to make as much money as possible and leave for the Bahamas when the company gets sued by the government.

11 Signs Your Co-Workers Have Lost Their Minds

coworker crazy

If you work in Corporate America, you have certainly asked yourself “Is it me?” It’s often hard not to wonder if you’re the crazy one or if everyone else is crazy. In all honesty, it seems unlikely that 95% of the people you encounter in the workplace are completely nuts. Therefore, you begin to ask yourself the next question in this journey of self-analysis, which is “Am I being punked?” This is often followed by a quick sweep of your office for hidden cameras and bugs.

While these situations tend to occur in meetings or when reading e-mails, you may find that you are either questioning your sanity or looking around for Ashton Kutcher during any activity at any point between 8am and 5pm. Rest assured that you are neither insane nor the subject of an office prank. Instead, your co-workers have lost their minds. In case you are still not convinced, here are some signs that they, not you, are the ones who are cray cray (as the kids say):

1)  Your colleagues in another time zone force you to attend a meeting at 5 am.  Then, at 4:45 am you receive a notice of cancellation, after you have forced 2 cups of coffee down your throat to ensure you can communicate intelligibly.

2) Your company does not believe it is necessary to spend resources training employees to do their jobs and tries to convince everyone that osmosis can also be telepathic.

3) Department meetings turn into an episode of Ellen, with surprise guests, comedy routines and sometimes dancing.

4) Senior management is confused by what you thought was a simple concept. (If this has happened to you, do NOT let your statistical team anywhere near management or you will end up forfeiting your next 3 free weekends in an attempt to bring your boss’s bosses up to speed on how all of this stuff works.)

5) You are given top secret assignments, but in order to complete the assignments you need the help of the people you are supposed to be spying on.

6) You regularly find a half-eaten donut (with bite marks) in the box on Donut Friday.

7) There’s a “lunch thief” who steals people’s turkey sandwiches.

8) Your company spends thousands of dollars paying consultants to do a project and no one reads the results. When you take a look at their work papers, you realize even the consultants didn’t read the results.

9) The audit team is auditing processes that were discontinued 5 years ago.

10)  They’ve never found an error.

11)   Their breath smells like turkey.

Confessions of a Mid-Level Manager

Maintenance_Management_CMMS_Software

I enjoy my job in corporate America, but my day to day life at work is somewhat different than I would have imagined in college. As a mid-level manager, my role consists of two main tasks: 1) leading meetings with people about topics I don’t understand and 2) creating PowerPoint presentations.

As to the former, here’s a snippet from a conference call I led yesterday with 2 statisticians. As you’ll see, by using a few well-placed, vague comments, I managed to pull off my role as meeting leader without being discovered for the fraud I really am.

Jim:  My concern is if  statistical formula , then   statistics 2  So, by including that set of values associated with variable X in our regression model, we’ll have the problem of perfect separation.

Me: I see.  (Actually, I have no idea what you just said.)  Steve, do you agree with this analysis?

Steve: Yes, Jim makes a good point. Let’s not forget, however, that  eetips_wrap1

Me: So, Jim, can you please refine the regression model based on Steve’s suggestions?

Jim: Yes, I’ll do that this week.

Me: Great, I’ll send out an Outlook meeting invite for Monday to circle back on this action item. (Phew, I made it through without completely embarrassing myself.)

Side note: Because I managed to use “circle back” and “action item” in the same sentence, I earned 2 bonus points on my corporate scorecard.

The bulk of my job, though, revolves around less frightening work – creating PowerPoints.  In fact PowerPoint is the main tool of communication at my company. We start a project, I draft a timeline in PowerPoint. We finish a project, I summarize the results in PowerPoint.  I have an idea, it goes into PowerPoint. I need to use the restroom, I take my PowerPoint. In other words, I live out my days in PowerPoint Purgatory (PPP).

As I’ve observed, to make it out of PPP you must either 1) rise to a higher level of management (the preferable solution) or 2) fail miserably and be forced to go back and join the ranks of the people actually doing the work described in the PowerPoints.

Since a pre-requisite to upper management is being able to sound like an expert in your area when you’re not even sure who reports to you, I’m hopeful that a few more meetings with the statisticians just might spring me from purgatory.

 

Corporate Mentoring Series: Ask an MBA

 

QA

I was recently chatting with my friend Brenda when the subject turned to corporate life. We quickly realized that we were confounded by similar situations at work. After further discussion, we came to the conclusion that this gap in our ability to comprehend certain corporate phenomena was most likely tied to the fact that, while we each had a B.A. and 20+ years job experience, neither of us held an actual degree in Business. It was clear that if we were going to ever find resolution to our questions, we would need to corner someone with a bona fide business degree.

Enter our friend, Marsha. Marsha has not only earned an MBA from a top university, but she is also one of the sharpest, well-adjusted people I know. If anyone could save us from ignorance, it was Marsha.

Marsha graciously made time for us over lunch and we took turns peppering her with questions. As follows are the highlights of our Q&A session:

Question #1

Brenda: I receive daily news feeds in my Outlook inbox from my company. I appreciate the company’s desire to help me stay informed, but it’s challenging to find time to read everything they send me and still finish my PowerPoint slides by the deadline.

Marsha: Learn to embrace the delete key.

Question #2

Brenda: Who is crazier, me or IT?

Marsha: IT

Question #3

Brenda: How do I resolve this?

Marsha: Your best bet is to find someone who has the Flu and get them to sneeze on you. Then you can stay home in bed watching soap operas and drinking Nyquil instead of dealing with the crappy data IT sent you.

Question #4

Me: We used to have an office whistler who whistled loudly all day long. Her specialty was holiday tunes. Why was I the only person who found this annoying?

Marsha: People like holiday music, even in mid-summer. Too bad the whistler is gone or you could have connected her to the Marketing department to help bring in more business.

Question #5

Me: She showed up at this year’s Christmas luncheon, despite the fact that she left the company a year ago. Who invited her?

Marsha: IT

Question #6

Me: Why do companies hire argumentative customer service reps? Wouldn’t it be more efficient for the customer service rep to resolve the issue, so he/she can move on to the next call?

Marsha: Maybe, but you’re missing the point. In the corporate jungle, efficiency or even common sense don’t necessarily drive decisions. It’s all about “cover.” The guy running the customer service department may not be qualified for or capable of doing his job but is being covered by his senior manager. Chances are this senior manager has either never called the call center or, even more likely, doesn’t know there is a call center that reports up to him.

Question #7:

Me: How is it that the senior manager wouldn’t know that he has a call center under him?

Marsha: Most decisions affecting people are not well-communicated. Often you have to rely on an independent news source to tell you that you were actually let go three weeks ago. So, if your company’s stock price is tanking or you think you might have a call center reporting up to you, then you should definitely check out Reuters.com.

Question #8:

Brenda:  How can we keep people focused, so that they don’t waste everyone else’s time during weekly meetings?

Marsha: Keep a log of the amount of time each person has wasted. At the end of each month, make a PowerPoint chart and pass it out. Explain that the results will be aggregated at year-end, and using the below formula, each time-waster will be forced to pay out a portion of his annual bonus to all meeting attendees made to listen to him drone on about irrelevant topics.

Since no one will understand this formula (or want to risk looking stupid by asking how it works), the group will be terrified into compliance.

statistical formula

Question #9:

Brenda: What if an executive manager is one of the time-wasters?

Marsha: Whistle holiday music when you hand out the chart. Three weeks later google your name on Reuters.com.

4 Super Crappy 2016 Resolutions

new year resolution

In the spirit of the New Year (or as my company’s language-challenged marketing department calls it, “The New Starts”), I have come up with the following list of resolutions to make myself a better person.

1. Stop referring to that kid in Corinne’s first grade class as a douchebag, just because his parents gave him a pretentious Italian name.

After all, his great grandfather’s cousin’s neighbor’s dog’s brother’s owner did come from Sicily. In all fairness, this really does make him nearly full-blooded Italian.

Italia.png

In fact, given that two of my eight great grandparents immigrated from Tuscany, I am going to rename my children. From now on, they will have to answer to Raffaella and Alessia. It might take some getting used to, but it’s all about your heritage, right?

 2. Be less ambitious.

low aim icon

If I stop trying to produce accurate results at work, I won’t be annoyed when my efforts are blocked by idiots. As I’ve learned from my friends in IT, the data doesn’t have to actually be correct if no one is going to check it.

 3. Play more strategic board games with my kids.

board game

The idea here is not to enhance their cognitive abilities, rather it’s to improve my self-confidence. There is really no better proof of one’s own intelligence than beating a 10 and 6 year old at Clue. In fact, by conveniently forgetting to explain all the rules, I can greatly improve my chances of continual game domination.

 4.  Find out what my offspring are actually watching on YouTube.

This is particularly important since Elizabeth has been talking a lot about Bronies (adult dudes who like My Little Pony).

brony

In other words, I probably need to intervene before some 35 year old Furry in a Rainbow Dash costume shows up at my door.

That said, if his name is Massimiliano, he works in IT and likes to play Monopoly, then in the spirit of the New Starts, I should probably welcome him in.