As a sequel to yesterday’s post on looking busy at work, here’s a meme floating around the Web: what to say if you get caught sleeping in your cubicle:
“It’s okay: I’m still billing the client.”
“They told me at the blood bank this might happen.”
“This is just a 15-minute power nap like they raved about in that time-management course you sent me to.”
“I was working smarter, not harder.”
“Whew! I must a left the top off the Liquid Paper.”
“I wasn’t sleeping! I was meditating on the mission statement and envisioning a new paradigm!”
“This is one of the seven habits of highly effective people!”
“I was testing my keyboard for drool resistance.”
“I’m in the management training program.”
“I’m actually doing a “Stress Level Elimination Exercise Plan” (SLEEP) I learned at the last management seminar you made me attend.”
“This is in exchange for the six hours last night when I dreamed about work!”
“I was doing a highly specific Yoga exercise to relieve work-related stress. Do you discriminate against people who practice Yoga?”
“Darn! Why did you interrupt me? I had almost figured out a solution to our biggest problem.”
“The coffee machine is broken.”
“Boy, that cold medicine I took last night just won’t wear off!”
“It worked well for Reagan, didn’t it?”
“I was cross-training for telecommuting.”
“Ah, the unique and unpredictable circadian rhythms of the workaholic!”
“I wasn’t sleeping. Was trying to pick up a contact lens without hands.”
“The mailman flipped out and pulled a gun, so I was playing dead to avoid getting shot.”
And the best thing to say if your boss catches you asleep at your desk:
BWA HA HA just kidding. Apart from certain important personal matters that may have to be dealt with at work (making doctor’s appointment, dealing with your bank/cable company/phone provider), there are times you won’t be busy, if for no other reason that you need a mental health minute.
But some bosses don’t realize this, and expect you to be 100% productive, 100% of the time. So it’s important to know how to look busy without getting caught.
Fortunately for you, I’m an expert.
Position your monitor so no one can see it but you. If possible. When someone comes into your office or cubicle, you’ll have the opportunity to Alt-Tab your way from World of Warcraft to Excel.
Always keep important programs open on your screen. Or you can create a screen capture of your monitor when busy, and make this your wallpaper image.
Turn off your screensaver. If your boss sees your screensaver running, he or she will know you haven’t used your computer in the last 15 or so minutes. This is especially embarrassing if you’re sitting at your desk.
Keep lots of paperwork out on your desk. Tidy=slacking.
March around the office looking stressed. Let other workers see you walking quickly past, on your way to that very important… whatever.
Have a folder or binder with you at all times. If you have a binder, you must be busy, right? But make sure it’s something relevant, in case your boss asks you what you’re carrying.
If your job requires you to be on the phone, then pretend to be on the phone. If your job does not require the phone, then don’t try this — you’ll look like you’re slacking or making personal calls.
Talk to your co-workers about how busy you are. Get that rumor going that you’re the busiest one in the group. But be cautious – spend too much time talking up how slammed you are, and your coworkers will figure out what you’re doing.
FedEx packages to yourself. It’s expensive, but it really makes you seem important — like Steve Martin in Bowfinger.
Got any more advice for the successful slacker? Let us know in the comments!
Here’s another wonderful Internet meme: what all those cliched phrases in job ads really mean to say.
Ability To Handle A Heavy Workload: You whine, you’re fired. Apply In Person: If you’re old, fat or ugly you’ll be told the position has been filled. Career-Minded: Female applicants must be childless (and remain that way). Casual Work Atmosphere: We don’t pay enough to expect that you’ll dress up. College Degree Preferred: Unless you wasted those four years studying something useless like Philosophy, English or Theology. (Or, like me, Medieval Iceland. Seriously.) Competitive Environment: We have a lot of turnover. Competitive Salary: We remain competitive by paying less than our competitors. Duties Will Vary: Anyone in the office can boss you around. Entry-Level Position In An Up-And-Coming Company: You’ll be making under $7 an hour; we’ll be bankrupt in a year. Flexible Hours: Work 40 hours; get paid for 25. Good Communication Skills: Management communicates, you listen, figure out what they really mean, and do it. Immediate Opening: The person who used to have this job gave notice a month ago. We’re just now running the ad. Join Our Fast-Paced Company: We have no time to train you; you’ll have to introduce yourself to your coworkers. Must Be Deadline Oriented: You’ll be six months behind schedule on your first day. Must Have An Eye For Detail: We have no quality control. Nationally Recognized Leader: Inc. Magazine wrote us up a few years ago, but we haven’t done anything innovative since. No Phone Calls Please: We’ve filled the job; our call for resumes is just a legal formality. Problem-Solving Skills A Must: You’re walking into a company in perpetual chaos. Profit-Sharing Plan: Once it’s shared between the higher-ups, there won’t be a profit. Requires Team Leadership Skills: You’ll have the responsibilities of a manager, without the pay or respect. Seeking Candidates With A Wide Variety Of Experience: You’ll need it to replace three people who just left. Some Overtime Required: Some time each night and some time each weekend.
Got any definitions of your own? Let us know in the comments!
Computers are now a vital component of almost every job out there. It doesn’t matter how good you are at sales, or medicine, or the law, or accounting, or administrating — if you can’t navigate an operating system or use email, you are not qualified to be a salesperson, doctor, lawyer, accountant or administrator.
But using a computer at work means that at some point, you will need help from the IT Department. Many workers dread dealing with IT for a number of reasons. Computer experts tend to have their own language and their own strict views about how computers should be used. They sometimes look down upon people who are not as tech savvy. And IT as a career tends to attract a small but troublesome group of hostile men with a spectrum disorder, who take joy in abusing computer users.
Fortunately, the stereotypical computer geek is rare, and most IT professionals are normal people like you and me who happen to know C++ and can tell you how to tweak your Blood Elf Warlock’s talent tree for maximum efficiency.
I used to work in IT support, despite being almost entirely unqualified to do so. During that time, I saw things from both sides, user and IT pro. Here’s some advice for dealing with IT — but first, a video look at life from an IT person’s point of view.
Before you call IT, check for wetware errors. Most of the time, your computer issues will stem from some small mistake you made, and can easily fix yourself. Your computer is the hardware, its programs are the software, and your brain is the wetware. Is the computer plugged in? (Users hate this question, because it seems to insult their intelligence. Yet I assure you from personal experience, people forget to turn on their machine, or accidentally yank the plug out of the wall, all the time.) Did you try turning it off and on again? This solves many issues, especially memory problems. If your program “disappeared,” did you simply minimize the window? These are the questions any IT person will start by asking.
This leads directly into:
Don’t be afraid to try to diagnose the problem yourself. People who are afraid of computers will call IT the second anything they don’t understand happens. They think that if they tinker with the machine, they’ll somehow destroy it. But long gone are the days when one might enter “C:/ del” and accidentally erase their entire hard drive.
It’s very hard for you to do anything that will genuinely screw up your system. Try to figure out the problem on your own. Then, if you’re still stumped after 5 or ten minutes, call IT.
Don’t take out your anger on the computer tech. Yes, it can be frustrating to have computer issues. And on a few occasions, the problem may actually be the IT department’s fault. But most of the time, users freak out because (a) they don’t understand what went wrong, (b) they’re very busy with work and need their computer, and (c) they feel stupid that they can’t solve the problem themselves.
Your IT tech is trying to help you. So don’t abuse him or her. The fastest way to get your computer back is to work with, and not against, IT.
Describe the problem precisely, in detail. Every IT support person on the planet has suffered through this conversation:
User: My computer is broken. IT Guy: Well, what seems to be wrong with it? User: I don’t know! It’s broken! It Guy: What is on the screen right now? User: Nothing! IT Guy: So the screen is blank? User: NO! There’s stuff but I don’t know what it is!
This is not only entirely unhelpful, it will antagonize the IT Guy, and all his friends in the IT Department. It is actually not the IT tech’s job to drop everything and come running the second you get frustrated with your computer. There are lots of other things an IT person does all day, and babysitting you may not be the best use of their time.
Tell the support person exactly what’s wrong. If you don’t know what something is called, carefully describe it. Do you want an IT person to actually come help you? Then sell your problem as a real problem.
Practice infinite patience. Some IT people will be hostile jerks. By being aggressively and consistently nice, you may win some of these people to your side. Others will never stop hating you, because they hate all human beings and they hate life — that’s why they went into IT. But you need these people, and being calm, patient and polite is the best way to deal with any difficult person, not just IT people.
Team-building exercises are never fun — unless it’s the kind where they fly everyone to Jamaica. But if you’re forced to sit through something like this, pound a nail into your head. It’s less painful, and you can get worker’s comp.
It appears that 40 years ago, the British comedy troupe Monty Python predicted the current global economic meltdown — and how those who still had jobs would react.
Know any other great job/career related-sketches? Let us know in the comments!
It’s time to go back to the well, and complain about business jargon.
There is nothing wrong with cliches or overused phrases– unless you are trying to be interesting, or engage your listener/reader, or appear intelligent.
Here are words and phrases that should hit the road, especially in your writing:
Basically…. Basically, when you say basically, you’re basically saying nothing. It’s exactly equivalent to saying “um….” If you are about to take a complex topic and distill it to its basic points, then you have my permission to start your sentence with basically. Otherwise, I basically wish you would basically not use it, basically. It’s, like, not good and stuff. Basically.
Think outside the box. Once upon the time, everyone lived in a rigid little world of Mao suits and Little Red Books, and no one had a thought that defied the established orthodoxy. Then, some brilliant motivational speaker said, think outside the box! No one knew what the box was, or what was in it, but when they started thinking outside the box, it gave us New Coke, Bratz dolls and predatory mortgages! Maybe we need more in-the-box thinking. Or a new way to say “please come up with an original idea.”
The bottom line and at the end of the day… The bottom line is, there’s nothing wrong with the phrase the bottom line is…, except that on January 12th, 2008 at 4:37 PM EST, it was spoken for the one billionth time, by an executive product manager for a septic tank manufacturer in Cleveland, Ohio. It is now officially overused, and has been banned by the International Commission on Not Sounding Trite in Helsinki, Finland.
At the end of the day, we can agree that at the end of the day is not as heinously overused — avoid it anyway.
To tell you the truth…. To tell you the truth, I don’t understand this phrase at all. Were you lying before? When did this life of duplicity begin? Does your spouse know? Let me tell you the actual truth — this phrase means nothing. It’s another way of saying um…, of wasting time while your brain composes a sentence.
Going forward…. Going forward, let’s say from now on instead, from now on. Also, in the future…, from this point…, and as a result of the excellent progress we have made today…. But not going forward — it’s been interdicted by the International Commission on Not Sounding Like a Douche in Tel Aviv, Israel.
You Found Employment Crossroads — Now do something with it.
In the miracle that is cyberspace, you've no doubt read a zillion blogs and websites about how to improve your employment picture. It's kind of sick and ironic that employment among employment "experts" seems to be doing just fine. Dubious at best.
Well, we do things a little differently here, and it boils down to basically two options:
A) Keep going to employment sites that only feature ads paid for by employers; or
B) Try something that works.
This blog is published by EmploymentCrossing.com. We feature the most comprehensive websites on the PLANET that don't charge employers to post their jobs with us. Think about that...And as we say during our elevator pitches to people who don't quite get why that's important:
“It’s okay: I’m still billing the client.”
BWA HA HA just kidding. Apart from certain important personal matters that may have to be dealt with at work (making doctor’s appointment, dealing with your bank/cable company/phone provider), there are times you won’t be busy, if for no other reason that you need a mental health minute.
These are (supposedly) real comments and notes culled from resumes and cover letters. All misspellings and typos are original.
But using a computer at work means that at some point, you will need help from the IT Department. Many workers dread dealing with IT for a number of reasons. Computer experts tend to have their own language and their own strict views about how computers should be used. They sometimes look down upon people who are not as tech savvy. And IT as a career tends to attract a small but troublesome group of hostile men with a spectrum disorder, who take joy in abusing computer users.
There is nothing wrong with cliches or overused phrases– unless you are trying to be interesting, or engage your listener/reader, or appear intelligent.
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