I just endured a meeting at work today that was 40 solid minutes of nonsense. My manager went on and on about sweet-baby-jesus-knows-what and everyone listening had a mix of confusion and annoyance on their face. He opened it up to the audience and looked over to me for input. “What do you think” he inquired. I paused a second to wipe the glazed look off my face and said “Well, I feel that in this type of situation it is best to use a framework of structured flexibility and went on to use an analogy of building a house to reinforce my position. He ate it up. I had no idea what the fuck I was talking about. For the minutes running up to when he called on me I had been spaced out thinking about winning the lottery, flinging myself off of the office balcony or some-such thing. This made me realize something – any crackpot idea can be swallowed by someone as long as the idea is accompanied with a easy to understand analogy. Tough to understand the mortgage crisis? Compare it to car maintenance, or a baseball game. Need to explain quantum physics to an idiot? Say it is like a rubber band. Even if it doesn’t make any sense, people think they understand and will go on to believe whatever you just said. Go try it in a meeting, I guarantee it will work.
These kinds of meetings and conversations are really just a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. That problem is Corporate America. A place where no one works hard or gives a fuck but everyone (according to them) is “stressed out” and “sooooo busy”. It is a crock of shit. 80% of people work just hard enough to keep their job and most people do less than that but have become experts at hiding the trail of their laziness. In my 10 years after college I have seen incompetence get commended, brilliance get discarded and wasteful behavior get rewarded. I just got off the phone with a colleague who was confronting someone who had just stabbed her in the back. My colleague had email proof of the backstabbing yet the backstabber denied the allegations and said she was trying to be a “team player” and “strategic”. This backstabber is loved by management and is always getting promoted. How does that kind of shit happen? The more full of shit someone is, the more respect they get in the organization. That is fucked up. How has society been built to have everyone doing jobs that they don’t believe in to buy things that they really don’t need? Another good question – why am I always a whiny bitch about work on my Monday posts?
Better go swing by my bosses office before I leave because I stayed at the office late today! Ugh… I hate this shit.
The opening day of the Olympics was the first day that I was officially moved into my new place. Since I have been at home cleaning, rearranging and getting my shit together I have watched a ton of the Olympics. While putting my bookcase together I cheered for cross country skiers and as I was swearing at a half assembled desk in front of me curling was on in the background. I have never been a huge fan of the winter Olympics – instead of running, jumping and swimming of the summer games the winter has bobsled, ski aerials and the luge. Most of the events are more of a drunken dare than a sporting event. Regardless I have a few observations about the past 2 weeks: read more »
