A Word Of Advice.

There is a certain college fraternity back East that uses this motto:

"Wer war der Thor, wer Weiser, Bettler oder Kaiser? Ob Arm, ob Reich, im Tode gleich."

(Which translates thusly: "Who was the fool, who the wise man, beggar or king? Whether poor or rich, all's the same in death.")

It's part of an initiation where the candidate stands in front of four skulls, at the feet of which are laid a crown, a sword, a rough bag, and a priest's hat. He is asked whether they are the bones of a king, nobleman, priest, or a beggar. As he cannot decide, the president of the meeting says to him, 'The character of man is the only thing that is of importance."

Upon graduation, the candidate is given a grandfather clock, to remind him that time waits for no man.

In simple terms, the lesson here is that when Death finally comes, it isn't going to matter a damn bit who you were, or thought you were, in life. Everybody rots in the ground just as fast as everybody else, so it's best to get over yourself.

Often in my working life I have had to deal with people from corporate offices of what ever company employs me at the time. Each time I have to do this, I dread it intensely. Corporate people have often treated me in ways that I would never treat a customer. It's gotten to be proverbial -- how dare I disturb them in their thrones above the clouds? Because I'm a peon trying to talk to them, obviously I must be faced with something I'm too stupid to handle, therefore needing their grand corporate vision.

Let me give all the corporate people of the world a piece of advice. It doesn't cost you any extra to treat your subordinates with the same consideration you would give a valued customer, because when the worms are eating your dead body in the coffin, they're not going to give a flying f* what the nameplate on your office says.

MonkeyBusiness Office Lingo #12

"thumb-butt"

A simple term; it refers to a person who remains completely idle while coworkers are struggling desperately to keep up production.

Ex: "all morning he's been standing around with his thumb up his butt." OR: "don't assign that to Johnny, you'll never see it finished. He's such a THUMB-BUTT."

Here's How To Deal With It.

Mortified.

Ok, time for me to 'fess up. I'm going to tell you the real reason why I didn't make it in management, back in the day when I was on my way up and the future looked promising.

This afternoon was exceptionally busy at the restaurant. Corporate has been coming down hard lately on the local managers to bring numbers up. Tension and stress has spread throughout the store, conflicts are rising, and morale is falling.

It's one of those situations where corporate executives are completely incapable of grasping a basic principle of production theory from Economics 101. I'm referring of course to the "law of diminishing returns," which basically says that there always comes a point where pushing harder and faster isn't always better, and the production process suffers if that threshold is exceeded.

In layman's terms: "haste makes waste."

In any case, we're all going bonkers as a result, and everyone in the crew argued all morning. The grill man gave me all sorts of flack, and the customers were all in a real pissy mood. Right in the middle of lunch rush, right behind the register, I got struck by an anxiety attack to end all anxiety attacks. The walls were caving in, and I felt like I wanted to die. When the rush was over I begged to go home, blaming my allergies and sinuses. I was too ashamed to tell them the real reason.

At home it took me all afternoon and lots of medication to work my way down from feeling like I'm crawling the ceiling.

There are always the nay-sayers who will tell me to buck up and deal with it, pull myself together and get on with things. That only adds to my embarassment. I only wish it were that simple. I'd give the world for it to be that simple. They should thank God that they never have to deal with being totally debilitated like that, in the middle of public.

"He jests at scars that never felt a wound" -- Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2

More than once I have lost a promising position because of it. Daily I deal with the shame of professional failure, as well as the shame of being totally helpless to cope when these things strike.

MonkeyBusiness Office Lingo #11

"VORTEX"

Every work-place has at least one.

This is always the person who stands around and does nothing while everyone else is running about desperately trying to get their work done, desperate to escape him.

If somebody is unlucky enough to get sucked into the attention sphere of a "vortex," they'll find themselves trapped for ages, listening to idle prattle that doesn't amount to anything, while having to watch their productive minutes and hours waste away into nothing, like stellar matter being sucked down into a Stephen Hawking style black hole.

(In fact, I think that Stephen Hawking even mentions human vortexes in his physics books, remarking how their rapacious sucking power cannot be quantified by any kind of mathematics known to science.) (Just kidding.)

Even the fast food industry is not immune. We have a "vortex" at the restaurant where I work. We were exceptionally busy this afternoon. The manager finally had enough of listening to the vortex while watching him do absolutely nothing during the rushes. The manager finally sent him home. I went back to the manager and groveled at his feet, thanking him profusely for getting the vortex out of our hair.

The rest of the afternoon was mercifully, blessedly quiet.

MonkeyBusiness Management Secret #26

"FEES"

For some strange reason I like to browse the Britney Spears headlines once in awhile, just to see what she's up too, since there's never a dull moment in her neck of the woods.

Lately, Ms. Spears' attorney is arguing in court that K-Fed's attorney fees are too high, and that Britney is not a blank checkbook. (Court rulings say that Britney has to pay K-Fed's bill.) Rather than the $900,000 K-Fed's attorney is charging, Britney's attorney says the fees should "only" be about $175,000 -- $190,000 (give or take.)

If there is one lesson I learned from that little tidbit, it's this: I should have gone to law school.

It only goes to show that if you are an "expert" of any kind, especially an educated one, you can charge whatever the hell you like for your "fees." Print some business cards, call yourself a consultant, whip up phony reports with impressive looking numbers and graphs on your spreadsheet program, have KINKO'S print and bind it, and then deliver it to your client with your invoice for any kind of ungodly sum you can think of. It helps if you scan the dictionary every day to find as many big, ten-dollar words as you can. Use them in your spiel, to make it sound like you really "know."

Hell Hath No Fury...

Hell hath no fury like four young women getting on each other's nerves while working the drive through and grill together on a Sunday afternoon, with one of them pregnant, the other one loosing a boyfriend, the third being totally new, and the fourth dealing with a painful back injury.

Luckily the manager had me work the front counter this afternoon, but I had the pleasure of listening in on the fireworks as they exploded in the kitchen. All day the girls had their claws out, ready for battle, and battle they did. The girl on the grill started to give me flack, too, but since I have a fondness for the ladies, I let it go and went home after my shift. They're all "my girls," so I just chalk it up to being one of those days.

The manager wasn't happy with them because their bickering interfered with good customer service, so he repeatedly had to call them into the office and straighten things out. I had to apologize to the customers a few times for the disturbances.

Interestingly enough, I'm feeling the Spirit of The Sabbath, enough to want to use what Cedric, my alternative spirituality friend, taught me how to do. As I write this, I've been visualizing and affirming for peace in my workplace. I realize this runs counter to my usual pissy, cranky, swearing self, but that's one of the beauties of being bi-polar. Today I'm feeling generous, so I'm praying for peace and healing amongst my co-workers.

Revelations.

I've made frequent mention of my buddy Fred in previous posts. Fred worked over at Wal-Mart about the same time I worked at Target. Many times we would talk shop over a coffee or soda at the Starbucks in my store. Not too long after I left Target, Fred left Wal Mart. Interestingly enough, right after I found a "replacement" job in the food industry, Fred went to work for one of my company's competitors, as well.

Once in awhile I'll visit Fred at his place. The weather has been bitter cold lately, and Fred likes to put a couple of beers out on the porch for a couple of hours in the late afternoon to chill them up. On days like today they can get downright frosty. I'll sit with Fred while he sips a few.

Fred told me a couple of interesting things about what goes on in his restaurant. One of my favorite menu items that his employer has is their chili. That is, until Fred told me that they use the old, crusty, unsold meat patties from the grill. They boil them in a pot of water for awhile, strain them, and mash them. Then they put it in the chili. NOT good eats. During cold weather like this, people line up to the door almost just to buy some. They just rave about it. Not me.

One of the interesting things about the fast food industry is the characters who work there. It's sort of like the The United States Army or the French Foreign Legion. They accept all the misfits and malcontents who have no place else to go. My workplace is no exception. Single moms pregnant out of wedlock, recovering alcoholics, ex convicts on propation, women fighting each other about their shared exes, mobile disc jockeys working the grill between gigs, immigrants with no English, anorexic high school athletes, cashier girls with hickeys the size of Toledo...you name it, we got it.

It's sort of like a certain clown character we all know, posing with a menu in one arm, holding aloft a shake in the other, with an inscription on his feet: "give us your poor, tired, and huddled masses." (Only in this case they'll get exploited with minimum wage.)

Learning The Lingo.

Today my fellow front man introduced me to a couple of fast food terms.

The fry vat had to be emptied and cleaned out. When that was done, I found a large pile of shriveled, rock hard, deep jet-black looking things the crew had left sitting on the counter. My front man explained "we call those little darkies."

"Let me guess -- the raw, frozen, uncooked pale white fries in the bag we call little honkies." My front man confirmed my estimation.

"Dude..." I chuckled. "That is SO wrong! Lightning is going to strike, you know...."

Monkey Business Management Secret #25

FENG SHUI

It's not something you have the vet do to your cat.

It's the latest craze in fast food restaurant design.

Yes folks, soon a McDonald's near you will be asking "would you like some extra Chi flow with your fries?"

According to an article at MSNBC [link], some McDonald's owners are using the ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui in the decor for their restaurants. They say that the use of certain "lucky" colors and materials increase customer's feelings of well being and contentment, and drive them to purchase more.

For those who cannot afford a consultant to remodel their offices with Feng Shui, simply hire a guard to stand in the corner with a whip, and let him lash those employees who don't produce. That'll get things moving, and you don't have to pay hundred of thousands of dollars.

The Sword Still Hangs.

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.


SHANGO.

Would You Like A Serving Of "F* You!" With Your Order?

Today I had a real A*H*LE come through my line. He made his order, I gathered everything together for it, collected the sandwich from the grill team, and as I'm serving it to him he asks:

"Does that have ketchup on it? I don't want ketchup on it!"

I thought to myself it would have been nice if he had told me before hand, so I can be sure he got what he wanted. I took the sandwich back the grill man and asked for another one without ketchup. The grill man was struggling to keep up and was not having a good day. In frustration he said "well, they sure didn't tell me that!" and threw the sandwich on the floor. I understood what he was feeling, because I've been there. I apologized to him and explained the customer's lack of foresight, and told him I would help him.

Unfortunately, the customer saw our exchange, and when I brought his corrected order to him he was angry at the grill man. He chewed me out for it. I thought to myself "well, f* head -- next time show some consideration for us servants beneath you and tell us beforehand what you want. Get out of my face d* head, and let me serve the hungry senior citizens waiting patiently behind your rude, sorry, red neck construction worker punk ass."

Of course I didn't physically say that. I just smiled wider than Ted Kennedy on the witness stand after Chappaquidick.

Monkey Business Office Lingo #10

New Corporate Buzz Words for the 21st Century

Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

Seagull Manager: A manager who flies in, craps all over the place, makes a lot of noise, and then leaves.

Chainsaw Consultant: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles.

Idea Hamsters: People who always seem to have their idea generators running.

Mouse Potato: The online, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

Prairie Dogging: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

SITCOMs: What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.

Squirt the Bird: To transmit a signal to a satellite.

Stress Puppy: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

Tourists: People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. "We had three serious students in class; the rest were just tourists."

Treeware: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

Xerox Subsidy: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

Alpha Geek: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. "Ask Larry, he's the Alpha Geek around here.

Assmosis: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

Flight Risk: Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.

GOOD job: A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

Irritainment: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime example.

Percussive Maintenance: The fine art of attacking an electronic device to get it to work again.

Uninstalled: Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voicemail of a Vice President at a downsizing computer firm: "You have reached the number of an uninstalled Vice President. Please dial our main number and ask the operator for assistance." See also Decruitment.

Vulcan Nerve Pinch: The taxing hand positions required to reach all the appropriate keys for commands. For instance, the warm re-boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control Key, the Command key, the Return key and the Power On key.

Would You Like Some Clearasil With Those Fries?

One of the competing fast food companies in town runs commercials sponsored by the local franchise holder, featuring an outstanding youth from the ethnic community that the franchisors belong to. They'll show a profile of the young person and detail their academic and athletic achievements during the length of the commercial, then play the jingle, and then fade out on the company logo.

When I see those commercials, all I can think is "jeez, where do they find kids like that -- they sure as hell don't have them where I work!"

My employer sorely lacks them. That's the whole reason I prefer to work days, because the evening shift is full of incredibly lazy, incredibly stupid teenagers. Weekends are the worst. When they see me actually working and trying to get things done, they get mad because it makes them look bad, so they try to slow me down and purposely get in my way. Total punks, they are. I told my boss as much. He said he understood.

I may be a loser who's had upteen bazillion jobs in his 42 years, but I sure as hell am not a stupid and lazy one. I try as best I can to bust and haul, to get things done. Time and time again, other people get jealous and pull all sorts of backstabbing garbage on me. I'm getting really tired of it.

Don't Be A Squidward.

My kids love watching SpongeBob Squarepants. They know most of the episodes line for line. One episode features Squidward, one of SpongeBob's co-workers at The Crusty Crab Restaurant. Squidward is known for his never ending pessimism and cynicism. This particular episode showed Squidward in all of his business-killing notoriety.

Squidward had to take an order at the counter from a customer who stared at the menu board with a blank expression, and who couldn't make up their mind. They asked nit-picky questions about several products. They continued to stand there and stare at the menu board.

Out of frustration, Squidward finally begged: "puh-leeeze -- can you go be stupid someplace else?" When I first saw that, I busted out laughing and couldn't stop.

Today I had to deal with a continual stream of stupid people. People who walked up to the counter, not knowing what they want, expecting me to read their minds, and who got annoyed when I tried politely to find out simple things like what kind of burger they want. The best way to look like a stupid idiot in front of your friends is to walk into a fast food place and say "gimme one of those burger things," and then clam up with nothing more to say.

Then, if you want to look more stupid, say "gimme a drink with that," and say no more. To top it off, you can pull out a big coin purse and count out change to the exact penny, VERY slowly, when there's a long line of hungry people behind you.

IT'S 4:20 P.M.

Monkey Business Management Secret #24

VOLUME gets things done

If there's one thing that annoys me to no end it's loud, abrasive people. Especially the type who get louder as their environment gets busier. Today I had to listen to one of those at work. I clocked in and jumped on the registers at the lunch rush. This other person was working the drive through, but she was so loud I couldn't hear my own customers up front. I had to keep asking my own customers to repeat themselves.

The loud person takes great pride in reminding me that she's a shift leader at another food establishment, while she works at ours part time. She barks out orders at our place as if she had a title there as well. She's one of those people that thrive on feeling important, and so make every effort they can to show they are.

All afternoon I just wanted to turn around and shout "will you just shut the %$#@ up!"

Of course, if there's one thing that being fired more than once in my life has taught me, it's that to survive at work I just have to keep my OWN mouth shut, because for some reason people in power can't handle hearing the truth. I also learned that promotion rarely comes to those who are best qualified, but more often those who are the most pushy, abrasive, loud, and brassy. Those types of people cannot handle hearing from others who actually use their minds and think. As long as you can bark out orders like a Marine, management loves you, and it doesn't matter if you've got cotton between the ears.

OH, DEER.

Watch this video of an 8 point buck running around the aisles in TARGET.
(video loads slow, be patient. Best with broadband.)

Knock On Wood.

Waste Not, Want Not.

Because I have heavy allergies that bother me often, I frequently have to blow my nose. Tissue just does not work for me, because I can go through so much, so I have a large supply of cloths that I have cut up out of old shirts, to use as hankies. When I've gone through them all, I launder them in hot water and heavy bleach, and re-use them.

I mention this sordid little detail for a reason.

Earlier this evening, my wife came across a work shirt with the logo of a former employer on it. It's from a certain dollar-store chain that is headquartered in one of the Mid Atlantic states. She asked me what I wanted to do with the shirt.

"What do you THINK I want to do with it?" I chided her.

"Snot rags?" she asked.

"HELL YEAH, snot rags. What other good use is there for that piece of trash?"

So, I took a pair of old scissors and cut up the shirt with reckless abandon. I made especially sure to drop the company logo into the trash with a wide flourish. Now I have several new hankies to add to my collection. I shall thoroughly relish blowing my nose into them.