Yes, bosses are power-crazy and quite frankly weird - anyone who thinks that not taking their proper holiday entitlement for fifteen years and who believes reading a book full of exclamation marks about synergy makes them a perfect manager, must be on a different planet. (Has anybody also noticed the way managers compete with each other to have an office that resembles a Travelodge room in which someone has recently died, so devoid are they of the personal and ugly adornments of the rest of us?)
We thought we’d get that one out of the way first. Because we wouldn’t like to be unfair - bosses after all come in a wide range of types. If yours isn’t one of those described below, count yourself lucky and get down on your knees and pray that tomorrow never comes.
(1) ‘Frankly only good at one thing, bless, even if it was just writing an ISO 90 benchmark specification’ boss
We all know them: once an actual human being and competent in their original field but now hopelessly over-promoted. From being a brilliant analyst of mouse urine or deviser of stationery requisition strategies, they’ve been ‘groomed’ for greater things requiring skills they will never possess and in the process may succeed in destroying advanced capitalism. Guess who gets to pick up the pieces?
(2) ‘The empowerer who wants to empower you to have all their nasty jobs as well as your own’ boss.
New Age Nigel or Nigella only have your best interests at heart of course. That’s why they like sending you on courses with poncy titles like ’Emotional Intelligence and the Internal Communications Problem.’ With any luck these will leave you in a state of general mental mushiness so that you won’t mind being facilitated (told what to do) or even consulted with (watched eating a croissant in a focus group). This boss has the best body language in the business and won’t bat an eyelid as they tell you about resource re-balancing (you’re sacked) - they’re not stupid.
(3) ‘The corporate clone who worries about using the wrong colour ring binder’ boss
When the last mission statement was being written, your boss was probably there dotting the I’s and wondering how many times you can say Excellence in a sentence. From performance targets to watering the spider plant everything has a corporate process and procedure and woe betide the employee who isn’t living the brand. Whatever new management plan is being propounded expect corporate clone to be in their first, even if (as is usual) it contradicts everything that went before. Many of us can’t decide if this model is seriously psychotic or very sad but after much careful thought agree that they’re probably both.
(4) ‘The “I’m sorry I’m wearing funny furry clothes and look like a 1978 Dr Who” creative’ boss
Creative bosses with all their Eureka moments and wow factors sound like a whiz to work for; isn’t this your chance to limber up your own lateral thinking and have a wonky haircut to match? In your dreams maybe, but the reality is that your boss will have more important things on their mind than (a) most of the day-to-day work; (b) your career prospects. Nice chance though to see if anybody really cares if you dress up as a six-foot budgie in the office every day.
(5) The ‘you don’t have to do a Darren Brown course to read my mind, but it probably helps’ boss
Mysterious. Enigmatic. Remote. You’re sure that they must know what’s going on; after all they have a glass-panelled office and you live in a chipboard cubicle with a box of last year’s Christmas decorations. It’s just that they might as well be on Alpha Centauri for all they ever communicate to you. All you can do is assume that you’re doing the right thing and hope the Star Fleet gets through eventually.
(6) ‘The lovechild of Atilla the Hun and Lady Macbeth’ boss
The one thing you will say for Mr or Mrs Mean is that at least you know exactly where you’re going with them. Usually to HR to ask for your P.45 at the very earliest opportunity.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
If it's Tuesday, it must be Slough: The lows and further lows of sales conferences
Days away from the coalface, snug in an all-expenses-paid hotel. It sounds like the ideal break from work. But too many of us have been caught out by the annual sales conference before and won’t be getting too excited.
Of course you do hear of colleagues whisked off to Teneriffe for a long weekend of sun, sea and a little light presentation over the Sangria. But for most of us the destinations are closer to home: usually a hotel in a place where you’d never dream of staying, with traffic islands next to motorways a firm favourite. Yes, Grays Thurrock, Slough and Croydon are all hot spots in the sales conference pantheon.
Essential hotel ingredients include a ‘Conference Special’ package (share a room with an emo fan from Distribution and bring your own UHT milk) with food that was freeze-dried in Taiwan in the Nineties. And this is probably the high point.
Although the hotel claims to have extensive bar facilities, a sport complex and Jacuzzi, these are not for the likes of you. You barely have time to check out how many miniature executive hair gels you can remove from your room, when the punishing schedule whisks you away to your first meeting. Your unconscious can’t understand why you are drawing people with bubble perms on a hotel blotter when you should be flat out in the sauna.
Most people in the NormanTebbit Conference Room are either tense (they’ve got to do something) or asleep (they haven’t). Considerately, the hotel management provides Mint Imperials, which enable at least one person (probably you) to have a serious choking fit and wake up the somnolent.
The lights go down and there’s an audible yawn as sales figures appear and company forecasts appear on screen. Your MD then proceeds with the most ecstatic speech you are likely to hear this side of the Mount of Olives. Is this really the company you work for or is there some mistake?
The VIPs are now escorted out - on one of any importance stays at a sales conference in Grays Thurrock longer than they can help it - the lights come on and the MD takes his jacket off. Then it begins. Employees are berated for their failings as if personally responsible for the state of the British economy. Reps are informed that if sales don’t improve they’ll be back in Toyotas.
Once this ritual is over a feeling of nausea overtakes you. It isn’t just the effect of having drunk 16 glasses of Perrier, but the thought that it’s your turn next. A sales conference isn’t worth its name if unsuitable introverted members of staff aren’t required to perform in front of everyone.
Don’t cheer yourself up by thinking about dinner. In order to promote networking management will sit you between a sanitary engineer and someone who cleans the telephones and make sure there is no escape by banning alcohol.
But do expect exemplary politeness and restraint from colleagues as the evening proceeds. Everyone is so aware of the possible tacky implications of a sales conference on a traffic island in outer London that there must be no errant body language. People walk along the hotel’s corridors as if welded to the walls. Keys are fumbled with at record speed. No one says good night lest they be accused of sexual harassment.
All you have to look forward to is a choice between Emmanuelle 38 or Lassie Comes Home on the TV. At least this close to the M25 no one can hear you scream.
Win a Great Getaways holiday break www.ihatetheoffice.co.uk
Of course you do hear of colleagues whisked off to Teneriffe for a long weekend of sun, sea and a little light presentation over the Sangria. But for most of us the destinations are closer to home: usually a hotel in a place where you’d never dream of staying, with traffic islands next to motorways a firm favourite. Yes, Grays Thurrock, Slough and Croydon are all hot spots in the sales conference pantheon.
Essential hotel ingredients include a ‘Conference Special’ package (share a room with an emo fan from Distribution and bring your own UHT milk) with food that was freeze-dried in Taiwan in the Nineties. And this is probably the high point.
Although the hotel claims to have extensive bar facilities, a sport complex and Jacuzzi, these are not for the likes of you. You barely have time to check out how many miniature executive hair gels you can remove from your room, when the punishing schedule whisks you away to your first meeting. Your unconscious can’t understand why you are drawing people with bubble perms on a hotel blotter when you should be flat out in the sauna.
Most people in the NormanTebbit Conference Room are either tense (they’ve got to do something) or asleep (they haven’t). Considerately, the hotel management provides Mint Imperials, which enable at least one person (probably you) to have a serious choking fit and wake up the somnolent.
The lights go down and there’s an audible yawn as sales figures appear and company forecasts appear on screen. Your MD then proceeds with the most ecstatic speech you are likely to hear this side of the Mount of Olives. Is this really the company you work for or is there some mistake?
The VIPs are now escorted out - on one of any importance stays at a sales conference in Grays Thurrock longer than they can help it - the lights come on and the MD takes his jacket off. Then it begins. Employees are berated for their failings as if personally responsible for the state of the British economy. Reps are informed that if sales don’t improve they’ll be back in Toyotas.
Once this ritual is over a feeling of nausea overtakes you. It isn’t just the effect of having drunk 16 glasses of Perrier, but the thought that it’s your turn next. A sales conference isn’t worth its name if unsuitable introverted members of staff aren’t required to perform in front of everyone.
Don’t cheer yourself up by thinking about dinner. In order to promote networking management will sit you between a sanitary engineer and someone who cleans the telephones and make sure there is no escape by banning alcohol.
But do expect exemplary politeness and restraint from colleagues as the evening proceeds. Everyone is so aware of the possible tacky implications of a sales conference on a traffic island in outer London that there must be no errant body language. People walk along the hotel’s corridors as if welded to the walls. Keys are fumbled with at record speed. No one says good night lest they be accused of sexual harassment.
All you have to look forward to is a choice between Emmanuelle 38 or Lassie Comes Home on the TV. At least this close to the M25 no one can hear you scream.
Win a Great Getaways holiday break www.ihatetheoffice.co.uk
Monday, October 15, 2007
The Corporate Bullshit Detector B - C
Balancing home and work - There’s bound to be one smug woman in your office who claims to have a recently thawed spinach lasagne or a pair of wet children’s pants in their bag. Where are they from - Planet Madonna?
Benchmark - If your brilliant, new state-of-the-art product can’t be benchmarked or compared with what somebody did last year in Basingstoke, you might as well forget it.
Competencies - Out go those long job histories and lists of hobbies. In come those traits and behaviours that prove our capabilities and even suggest we’re vaguely competent. Apparently.
Core worker - Somebody they can’t sack because they saw what the MD was doing on the photocopier at the last Christmas party.
Win a Great Getaways holiday break www.ihatetheoffice.co.uk
Benchmark - If your brilliant, new state-of-the-art product can’t be benchmarked or compared with what somebody did last year in Basingstoke, you might as well forget it.
Competencies - Out go those long job histories and lists of hobbies. In come those traits and behaviours that prove our capabilities and even suggest we’re vaguely competent. Apparently.
Core worker - Somebody they can’t sack because they saw what the MD was doing on the photocopier at the last Christmas party.
Win a Great Getaways holiday break www.ihatetheoffice.co.uk
Unaccustomed as I am to public squeaking ...
Wherever you are in the office hierarchy, presentations are the new tea-making. From briefings and staff seminars, to meetings and conferences, few of us can escape doing a visualisation exercise to pretend we’re an amoeba devoid of self-consciousness. The checklist below attempts to show that there is more light at the end of the tunnel - even if it is just your Powerpoint going on the blink as usual.
1. Be confident: tell yourself that we’re all born presenters deep down. How many times, after all, have you held colleagues spellbound with your theory of what a jar of Vaseline is doing in the sales manager’s office? As for after-work social events, it’s no surprise that you’ve been described as the next Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown. It’s now just a matter of transferring these essential skills to Quality System ISO900.
2. Think of it as an ideal opportunity for you to practice your new one-person Virginia Woolf stream-of-consciousness show. But remember there should be a beginning, middle and an end to your speech. If not, advise audiences about a long-haul ahead and issue them with some thrombosis socks and a 1991 Goldie Hawn movie.
3. Check out your venue. Is it so small that you can see everyone’s rude drawings of you, or medium-sized in which case you have to imagine them? Or will it be a Wembley Stadium size, where your pores will be live on a five hundred foot plasma screen.
4. If you’re still feeling nervous just imagine the members of your audience completely nude. After all, that’s what they’re probably doing to you right now.
5. Finally ask yourself what can possibly go wrong. Always expect any pictures to appear the wrong way up and for burning acetates to offer a startlingly authentic 1967 Pink Floyd psychedelic light show experience. Expect sad audience members to go hysterical: after all they know there’s not exactly going to be a lot to laugh at after this. Unless of course your Powerpoint then breaks down too and you end up having to do all the frolicking pie charts and funny voices yourself. But at least most of your audience will be asleep by this point.
www.ihatetheoffice.co.uk
1. Be confident: tell yourself that we’re all born presenters deep down. How many times, after all, have you held colleagues spellbound with your theory of what a jar of Vaseline is doing in the sales manager’s office? As for after-work social events, it’s no surprise that you’ve been described as the next Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown. It’s now just a matter of transferring these essential skills to Quality System ISO900.
2. Think of it as an ideal opportunity for you to practice your new one-person Virginia Woolf stream-of-consciousness show. But remember there should be a beginning, middle and an end to your speech. If not, advise audiences about a long-haul ahead and issue them with some thrombosis socks and a 1991 Goldie Hawn movie.
3. Check out your venue. Is it so small that you can see everyone’s rude drawings of you, or medium-sized in which case you have to imagine them? Or will it be a Wembley Stadium size, where your pores will be live on a five hundred foot plasma screen.
4. If you’re still feeling nervous just imagine the members of your audience completely nude. After all, that’s what they’re probably doing to you right now.
5. Finally ask yourself what can possibly go wrong. Always expect any pictures to appear the wrong way up and for burning acetates to offer a startlingly authentic 1967 Pink Floyd psychedelic light show experience. Expect sad audience members to go hysterical: after all they know there’s not exactly going to be a lot to laugh at after this. Unless of course your Powerpoint then breaks down too and you end up having to do all the frolicking pie charts and funny voices yourself. But at least most of your audience will be asleep by this point.
www.ihatetheoffice.co.uk
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