A Kick in the Career by Tom Stern

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Bailout, Bailout, Who Gets the Bailout?

If you have wandered into any of the nation’s leading retail establishments lately, you have experienced first hand the lackluster, even fearful approach to consumer spending that has left your neighborhood Target or Circuit City resembling the decimated wasteland that is left after the demons in the Ark kill everyone but Indy and Marion in the first Raiders. Living in California, I am used to making the drive to Joshua Tree when I need to take in a vast expanse of desert nothingness. Now, I can get the same perspective by standing in a Home Depot. I haven’t seen a long-standing American activity looking so moribund since the last season of According to Jim.

It is sobering, to say the least. Which is why it might be time for the government to stop gnashing their teeth about which multinational bank should get the bailout package, and simply throw the cash at the retail sector. With a little capital, our nation’s stores could finance new and exciting ways to get people back in the holiday shopping groove. Incentives so big, a consumer cannot help but come through the doors ready to buy and get our economy going again. How about a promotion whereby everyone who spends 250 dollars on merchandise gets a job in the store itself? Why, at today’s competitive minimum wage, you can make that 250 dollars back in eight or nine months! And, if they are going to survive, America’s chain stores cannot be afraid to court controversy as long as it gets the bodies through the doors. To that end, why not a free gay marriage voucher to the first five hundred same-sex couples who purchase a plasma screen TV? (Offer not valid in all states.) Or, since every toy store knows how crazy and even violent things can get when parents storm in to vie for the last remaining X-Boxes or Tickle-Me Elmo’s, there is every case to be made for an organized, mixed martial arts event right in the store—let moms and dads throw down with whoever is claiming that they saw the toy first, and charge the rest of the bloodthirsty shopping crowd a fee to watch the carnage ringside. With a little backing and a lot of ingenuity, retailers can make their customers only too happy to part with their cash. But they need a government bailout to finance these perks, and they aren’t going to get it as long as the emphasis keeps getting put on sniveling, whiny little wimps like CitiCorp.

Admittedly, this thinking is counter-intuitive, but when you are in a crisis, it is usually because the old ways are no longer working. In fact, there is something to be said for selecting a traditionally under-represented demographic of society, and giving them the $700 billion bailout. Why not musicians? Easily some of the most deadbeat and irresponsible members of society, given a sudden influx of several hundred thousand dollars apiece, these layabouts would pump untold profits into many of the most crucial elements of our economic system: the pizza industry, the beer industry, the used VW bus industry, the finally chipping in for their portion of the girlfriend’s rent industry and the not-to-be minimized big hair industry.

In fact, while we’re being glib and hypothetical, let’s take it even further. It’s clear that something in the way we operate is broken, and possibly now beyond repair. So, let us all, we the citizens of earth, have the bailout. A fifty trillion dollar fail-out, if you will, that dissolves all the banks and corporations, leaving each of us, the day laborer to the CEO, just enough per person to have a room at the YMCA and enough Top Ramen to last a year or so. Forced to live a more bare bones lifestyle, we will eventually expand outward from the cities in search of more effective subsistence living. In order to adapt, we will have to work together to create community-based collectives, which will prove increasingly easy to do since, owing to the lack of multinationals, global expansion has decreased to the point of not only preserving the last of the cultivatable land but creating more of it—after all, global warming is no longer an issue and the environment is thriving. (Oh, this is because we no longer have nuclear power plants or cars or computers or automation since we can no longer afford them. In fact, we can’t afford to do anything beyond our immediate needs, except this time we finally admitted it!) Essentially, we will have gone backwards, and our new pared-down lifestyles will make a whole new economy emerge, one based on trading goods and services, the return of small family-owned concerns and a self-supporting, village-centered social interaction that places maximum value on education and nurturing. Okay, so I haven’t worked out how we deal with indoor plumbing, electricity or trying not to have to hunt wild Bison every night for dinner, but when you’re planning a Utopian society, you tend to accentuate the positive.

In the end, it’s probably just that every one of us can’t help but think about being bailed out ourselves these days, and it’s hard not to speculate about what we might do if the megabucks ended up in our coffers instead of in those of the people who have already been so irresponsible with their own. In that light, the concept of starting from scratch and seeing if we can get back to something better has a certain ring to it. But, knowing us, we’d screw it up somehow. Maybe the best idea of all is to give the bailout money to the Amish. Largely off the grid already, they are perhaps the most talented and resourceful people living in the United States today. And with the proper funding, they could start teaching the rest of us how to kick it old school.

Photo by jenn jenn

08:49 am | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment

When It's Time to Adapt to a New Leader

Anyone who has ever had a job (which I assume includes most everybody reading this, unless my cousin Rudy—who has been spending the past eight years thinking that reciting his poetry in coffeehouses to an audience of nine people, six of whom still wear berets on a regular basis, is going to somehow manifest into a career—has taken to perusing business publications) knows this whole “brand new President of the United States” thing is no big deal.  The workforce is already well trained in making the necessary adjustments to having a new person at the top of the food chain.  We’ve all worked for organizations that distributed that memo.  You know, the one urging us to join them in welcoming the latest head honcho, around whom, it is none too subtly suggested, we would be advised to grit our teeth and hold our tongues.  An implied request made all the more galling by the fact that said memo usually includes an exhaustive and in-your-face list of the accomplishments the incoming big shot amassed prior to when he or she came to lord themselves over we the unwashed.  Or, maybe the old CEO was simply led away in handcuffs three days ago, and the replacement, any replacement, will have to do for now.

In any case, the White House isn’t the only place where a shift in power impacts our lives.  In fact, in the workplace, turnover usually comes a lot more fast and furious than once every four to eight years.  The difference being that while our elected officials are presumably hired to work for us (if by “us” you mean powerful lobbyists, anyway), it is us who have to work for the hired officials to whom we report.  Therefore, it is in our best interest to discover exactly who this person above us really is, and how best to deal with what they are going to mean to our job.  The sooner one develops strategies for testing the mettle of one’s new boss, the sooner one can hone one’s competitive edge.

Ideally, your informal compiling of assessments will be seamlessly integrated into the workweek, and your statistical findings known only to you.  For example, start by gauging your new CEO’s levels of tolerance and compassion by showing up late for work in tiny, negligible increments (two minutes late on Monday, six minutes late on Friday and so on) over the course of a couple of weeks, then sit back and wait for which degree of tardiness finally brings them to a tipping point.  Granted, this may upset a certain level of punctuality and professionalism on which you have always prided yourself, but these transgressions will be in aid of your discovering valuable information, and after the fact-finding subterfuge is over, you can easily return to your previous level of conscientious practice.   Of course, if after being a mere 30 seconds late on the first day you are immediately threatened with either a) dismissal, b) a new job in the company’s Malaysian hoodie-manufacturing sweatshop or c) serious bodily injury, discontinue this strategy.

Another tactic for feeling out how things are going to be under a new regime is to be the contrarian.  Let the others suck up, fawning over every suggestion and fresh perspective the so-called new blood wants to inject into the dynamic.  Your task is to object, in the strongest possible terms, to all the ideas that hit the table.  Just make sure your reasoning is sound.  After all, if the topic under consideration is whether or not to limit the number of inter-office e-mails, and you say it’s a bad idea because you’ll miss being able to forward those links to YouTube videos of skateboarding cockatiels, you might be looked at askance.  Better to take the positive, if utterly insincere, viewpoint that limiting office e-mails will only cut down on the possibility of some really great idea that could potentially skyrocket the company to heretofore unknown profit margins, thus securing the CEO’s name in history alongside Bill Gates, Oprah and Genghis Khan.  It’s simply a matter of how you make the case.  We’ve all seen those movies where the powerful, hard-nosed executive ends up taking a shine to the one person in their organization who refuses to be a yes man.  And if it works in the movies, it is bound to work in real life, right?

Now, this is not to say you shouldn’t strive to impress the person to whom you’ll be reporting for the foreseeable future.  I recommend picking some innocuous aspect of the workplace, building it up into something on which the fiscal health and smooth operations of the organization absolutely depends, and then organizing a task force to streamline and/or eliminate it.  (Regulating the use of office supplies, keeping a tight rein on copier usage and limiting the amount of Dilbert cartoons that can be push-pinned to a cubicle wall are all excellent non-issues.)  Play this one right, and the new person, too harried by trying to come up to speed on their myriad duties, will be so impressed with your initiative that you may well be in line for the corner office when they are led away in handcuffs a few months down the road.  

Perhaps the most crucial touchstone is being able to pinpoint whether or not your new boss has a highly developed sense of integrity combined with an all-important sense of humor.  I have devised a fun little test to determine the level of both these traits at once.
Find a reason to drop into your superior’s office (I recommend the urge to express a contrary opinion about something that come up in the Monday meeting), and gradually steer the conversation to your personal life.  Take out your wallet (ladies, this may necessitate going into the office with your purse or handbag, which could be clunky—I cannot help you there) and show off a photo of something (your dog, your child, your spouse, or all three if you got the deal I did at the Sears portrait studio).   Surreptitiously leave the wallet on the person’s desk and depart a few beats later on an urgent matter, closing the door as you leave, seemingly too busy to have noticed you left the wallet behind. If, in a moment or two, the new hire emerges from behind the closed door to return your wallet, then you know they have integrity.  If, however, they cannot resist the urge to go through your personal items, the first thing they will find is a note you have left on the inside to greet them as soon as they flip it open.  A note reading: “You’re the CEO.  What the hell are you doing going through my wallet?”  This, then, will be a highly effective test of both their sense of humor and, it should be added, of your longevity with the company.  But, as they say, great rewards only come with great risks.  

Lastly, remember that whoever it is that gets the upper management position will, much like our new president, be responsible, one way or another, for your financial and emotional stability over the course of their term.  And, much like our new president, they will likely find their own ways to test your support of them and gauge your level of involvement in the give-and-take of the system.  In this regard, I like to cite Frank Yablans, the former head of Paramount Studios, who, upon his promotion to top of the heap, reportedly called each of his now-new employees into his office and asked them, “so, why shouldn’t I fire you?”  We might all do well to start compiling a list of answers to that question as a workplace survival strategy.  As to the new head honcho in the political arena, after the next four years we are all welcome to ask the same question of
him, too.

07:03 pm | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment

Three Ways to Turn Negative Campaigning Into a Work/Life-Win Strategy

Ah, the pre-election, winding-down death throes of a long political campaign and the guaranteed finger-pointing nastiness that ensues as each candidate tries to smear the other in a thick coating of “unsuitable for office.” It’s a delightful tradition, and one to which the general public has become inured, even as we rail against the adolescent viciousness of the strategy. Well, rail all you want, gang: the strategy works. According to the Website CompleteCampaigns.com, hitting below the belt energizes one’s core supporters and renews their commitment, at the same time as turning off those less likely to vote and potentially alienating people who are for the other candidate to the point where they might even choose not to vote themselves. So, it’s get the base out while making sure nobody else but the base punches a Diebold touch screen. Talk about a win-win.

It’s no secret that work, and even life, is becoming increasingly political. As the troubled economy keeps us all scrambling, we, as “candidates” for our own “office” will not be faulted now if we pull out all the stops and get the important people behind us while driving the ineffectual cogs away. And, fear not, this technique has an illustrious history. William Safire, in his New Political Dictionary, points out the following phrase, which appeared in The Barber of Seville in 1775: “Calumniate! Calumniate!' Some of it will always stick!” This was extrapolated from the even more ancient Latin motto, 'Fortiter calumniari, aliquia adhaerebit,' which means “throw plenty of dirt and some of it will be sure to stick.' By around the time of the Civil War, “dirt” evolved into “mud,” and it is from this that we get the term “mudslinging” today. See? Simply by knuckling under and lowering your moral standards, you are part of something venerable and long-standing.

Here, then, are my suggestions for increasing your leverage in the world of work (and beyond) with the help of this heinous, but time-honored tradition.

#1 – GETTING THAT PROMOTION

Perhaps you cannot afford the team of spin-doctors that remain at the disposal of Messrs. McCain and Obama. No matter. The Internet is a valuable tool with which to seek out information on those competing with you for a coveted position, and it is very likely that a simple Google will provide you with a treasure trove of unsavory information. Not to mention; the industrious smearer can use the office gossip network as an invaluable source of potentially libelous material. So what if it’s unsubstantiated! The point is to get your butt into that higher-paying chair, isn’t it? The next step is to create an attack ad that guarantees you success. A suggested template follows.

“My opponent (insert name of employee competing with you here) claims that they are the only clear choice when it comes to getting the (insert job title here) position in our firm. But, what if I told you that their record on taking personal phone calls at work is embarrassingly high? That they consistently voted against our proven effective Monday morning brainstorming meetings? That they got so drunk at the last teamwork retreat in Branson, Missouri that Kenny Rogers took out a restraining order on them? Whereas the only truly suitable candidate for (insert job title here) is (insert your name here), whose estimable track record of reliability, dedication and comparatively minor incidents involving taking home a few pads of Post-It Notes and some Hi-Liters, leaving the paper jam for somebody else to fix and the occasional embezzlement of hundreds of thousands of dollars through my own personal ingenuity and Internet hacking expertise, makes them the best choice to lead the (name of department) into the sun-drenched future.”

#2 – KEEPING YOUR COMPANY ON TOP

Once they promote you to Executive Vice President based on your underhanded but perfectly acceptable tactics (see above), it is now your responsibility to make sure those who compete with your organization for consumer dollars are kept as far away from market dominance as can be.

“(Insert name of competitor here) will tell you that they are the superior provider of (insert your field or product here) in the United States. But did you know?

A. (Name of competitor) is known for physically beating anyone who dares to file a complaint about their business?

B. (Name of competitor) routinely hosts orgies at the stockholders’ expense?

C. (Name of competitor) is internationally known for taking food out of the mouths of innocent, starving children?

D. And, perhaps worst of all, (name of competitor) charges a lot more for shipping than it actually costs them.

[NOTE TO SMEARER: It is very important not to go into great detail about any of the above; remember, the point is to energize your base.]

We hope you will take these very important factors into consideration as you choose (your company name here) for all of your (insert your field or product here) needs.”

#3 – NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING IN THE HOME

Sometimes, the fight for dominance in the home can get as petty and unsavory as anything the world of business has to offer. There are many situations that may require a deft way with words, but here is just one example of how to use the tools available to McCain and Obama to your advantage not just in the boardroom, but in the living room, too.

“People say (insert your name here) is an annoying spouse. That they will always prioritize work over quality time with family. That they would surgically graft a Bluetooth to their ear if they could. That they consider falling asleep in front of the television foreplay. To those people we say: maybe these very things are the values that made this country great. Maybe someone has to work their butt off so all of you can eat well and shop at the Gap. Maybe creating a sizable nest egg in this scary economy is worth more than a little roll in the hay.”

And then, you tag it all with a campaign slogan. Maybe something like: “(Insert Your Name Here). Stop Complaining and Let Me Work My Butt Off.”

So, you can see how one can turn something on its ear and, no matter how responsible you are for the problem, make people think they had the wrong idea all along. Which, no matter who gets in, is probably what we’re all going to be thinking a few months after November 4.

10:17 am | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment

Becoming a Doctor? That's So Dial-Up!

This month, U.S. News and World Report weighed in with some sobering news (as opposed to the side-splitting, laugh riot pieces they normally run): that only two percent of almost 1,200 surveyed graduating medical students said they want to work in primary care or internal medicine. Why? Because they did not relish the paperwork, having to tend to the needs of the chronically ill, or the quantity of work they would have to bring home. Not to mention the thirty-five times a week some hypochondriac at a cocktail party with a drink in each hand and the flaky remnants of a cheese puff dangling from his upper lip recounts his entire medical history while pointing to the Tic-Tac sized bump on his neck and asking whether it is simply a cyst or the incipient emergence of a second head.

Like many of us, I was raised with the image of the gentle family doctor whose passion allowed their professions to choose them, sometimes from a very early age. As opposed to someone like me, who played doctor from the age of five, but could never get an insurance company to endorse my unique health plan: a pee-pee O. Nonetheless, in those days, the homespun dedication of TV physicians like Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey and Marcus Welby set the tone. Now, we have the self-involved Vicodin addict on House. But even in his case, it seems that being a doctor is the life he was meant to lead. Just like my own great uncle Irving Sobol. Here was a pediatrician who showed up at people’s homes with his little black bag. He listened to even the smallest family concern. He cared. He had a calling. And callings can seem tough to come by in an increasingly market driven society. Why do I feel like if “miracle worker” Anne Sullivan were alive today, healing Helen Keller would not be enough? She would also demand a large retainer and a percentage of her client’s lucrative public speaking tour. Interestingly, another main reason the above-mentioned graduates said they did not want to pursue primary care was that it has the lowest average salary, of only $186,000 per year. (Orthopedic surgeons, apparently, make three times that, and all without having to take a urine sample from anyone.)

I’m not saying internal medicine or family practice is not without its challenges, and I am definitely not saying I haven’t been on the receiving end of the lack of bedside manner that can result from such a demanding job. Once, when diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, my GP’s recommendation was that I try pretending, to the best of my ability, that I didn’t have the condition. I told him that would be fine, as long as he didn’t mind if I pretended to pay him. At the risk of giving you more personal detail than you may want or require, I can tell you that the paperwork involved in my colonoscopy last year was almost as brutal as the procedure. When I was done with all the forms I asked to have them back so I could check ‘yes’ for carpal tunnel syndrome. The doctor very bluntly told me that having a colonoscopy would mean that I would soon have a camera inside me. I said that would be fine, as long as I could direct. But he drew the line at my demanding final cut, and told me I wasn’t even entitled to a small percentage of the back end.

Now we live in the world of the HMO. In fact, I’m a card-carrying member of the Society for Choosing an HMO. Which makes me a SCHMO). And, experts are predicting a shortage of general practitioners in the near future. And goodness knows these med school graduates who aren’t interested in being my personal Marcus Welby can easily justify it by pointing to all the money they dropped on medical school. And here again, the potential true calling is replaced by economic desire. Still, let’s take their objections one by one.

Having grown up with my uncle Irving, I was given a model for success and happiness that is rapidly declining in a bottom-line world. Here was a man who came through the depression and endured intense economic strain, yet somewhere along the line he answered his call and decided to make life a non-economically-driven thing. There are very few models for this kind of behavior left. If there were, the CEO of Lehman Brothers would trade his platinum parachute for an Orange Julius franchise in the slums of Calcutta so that the impoverished and indigent could not only get a full day’s supply of Vitamin C in a refreshing, frothy elixir, but also free advice on how to invest their life savings of eight cents in a highly leveraged derivatives package. Indeed, my uncle represents a bygone era.

First, the fear of too much paperwork. Come on, what profession doesn’t have too much paperwork? If you don’t want paperwork, join the Mafia. Because you’ll never hear a hit man say, “Listen, Don Vito, I don’t mind shooting and burying my own mother, but do I have to fill out all those forms?”

Second, the medical students expressed worry over having to deal with the constant needs of the chronically ill. (“So, I’m on the seventh hole at Pebble Beach and I get a phone call from the wife of one of my patients. Turns out the jerk had an aneurism! These people think they know pain? They should try practicing their swing six hours a day and still hitting a slice!”)

And finally, there was the concern of having to bring so much work home. These med school grads should count themselves lucky. In a few years, with more and more demand on the hospitals, they may well have to start taking their patients home. (“Honey, get dinner ready. And don’t forget we have to leave some room on top of the table for Steve. I think it’s his appendix.”)

I guess it’s just a case of what one is willing to put up with for the sake of the profession they have chosen. And, increasingly, the concept of a “calling” seems to only exist in sports or the arts. Nike says “just do it,” the implication being that you have to, you’re driven to. That’s why people in these fields follow their dreams. How else does a New York Shakespearean actor survive, knowing that the closest he will come to having an audience for a soliloquy is when he dramatically interprets the list of daily specials? (Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to choose the lo-fat Italian dressing, or order the chili fries and by consuming, belch them.”)

Money drives us, seemingly more than ever. Twenty-four hour financial channels on TV spit out the implied make-it-or-break-it message. Yet within the maelstrom, between Smart Money and The Bloomberg Channel, are a few encouraging signs. For example, it often happens that people who find a way to treat their job as an art end up happier, and some of them even rise to the top. Richard Branson, for example, is always smiling. But then again, wouldn’t you be if you were surrounded by a fleet of giant virgins, each with an airborne thrust of 7,500 pounds?

So maybe we all have the answer right in our own greedy little heads. If you cannot find a calling, make what you are doing your calling. When I began in the recruiting field, management consulting was exploding, and I pretty quickly succumbed to the allure of a well-paying profession. But it got old. And gradually, I began to see that what I loved about my job was the ability to get people to open up to me, tell me whom they really were. I share something vital with my clients, and it is rewarding and energizing. It’s like being a therapist for careers. So, in my own way, I have, on the rare occasions when I get it absolutely right, continued my uncle Irwin’s legacy, by becoming the caring country doctor who listens and is there for the needs of their community. Just don’t call me in the middle of the night with your worries. I’m not getting paid enough for that.

02:24 am | 3 recommendations | 4 comments

Work/Life: R.I.P. George Carlin

It has taken me all week to realize that George Carlin is dead. He was so cavalier about the subject (his final HBO special featured a long rant on his blithely crossing off the names of dead friends in his address book), that it’s hard to view the mere fact of his kicking the bucket as tragic; but the lack of his voice out there on the stage and in the world qualifies as a downer to say the least. I worked in comedy for many years, and though I never met George, he was the kind of guy you felt was speaking right to you anyway. And we live in a culture wherein a whole lot of people we never meet become part of who we are (for some, Martha Stewart, for others, George Carlin).

And George Carlin, perhaps more than anyone, was truly a work/life balance comedian. No matter what he screamed about, it was always in aid of cutting through the b.s. and getting us to see that we were mired in our own ridiculous picture of how things are supposed to go. And he skewered everything, including what we all do for a living. (“If crime fighters fight crime and firefighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight?”) The fact that he went from buttoned-down observational jokes to society-skewering diatribes is only fitting. In his comedy, he started out merely working, and by the end he was diving fully into life and all its contradictions. He also suffered from some addictions, and managed to stay married for over thirty years, so on that score he must have known something about how to keep things in perspective.

Carlin loved to say that he enjoyed watching the human race slowly circling the drain of their own extinction, but anyone who kept on getting out there and commenting on our foibles must have felt some glimmers of hope for his species, too. By way of a woefully inadequate tribute to the now late legend, I hereby borrow from the Carlin lexicon and send out a cautionary screed of my own concerning the subject of this very blog. In fact, some of the hindrances to getting work and life on the same track may very well be in the words we use to keep them separate. With that in mind, may I present:

THE SEVEN WORDS YOU CANNOT SAY IN THE WORKPLACE

• Tenderness
• Fear
• Joy
• Play
• Childish
• Non-competitive
• Carefree

Not exactly a laugh riot, but I like to think these words could prove just as shocking to the establishment as that famous and more cathartic list of so-called obscenities. Sure, ultimately my attempt at immortality is not as funny as George Carlin. But then again, few things were.

01:41 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Work/Life: Teen Pregnancy Pact in Gloucester, Mass...It's The Thought That Counts

• It’s all well and good to put family first, but a teen pregnancy pact puts work/life balance out of whack before you even start working. By now, we have all formed our own theories on what could possibly have caused seventeen high school girls to want to get pregnant at the same time, besides the fact that non-starter Jamie-Lynn Spears grabbed nine months worth of headlines by doing the same thing.

• Well, as usual, it turns out that, like it or not, the bizarre things our kids do have something to teach us. Once we get past the wanting-to-send-them-to-a-tough-love-camp stage, anyway. An ABC News report on the story trotted out a psychiatrist, who pointed out that people who form pacts “develop trust, camaraderie and rebelliousness by sharing this secret, [and] these bonds then impel them to commit the forbidden act that they wouldn't have the courage to do on their own."



• I’m not suggesting that we adults start deciding to get pregnant en masse (wouldn’t work for the guys, anyway…at least not yet), but let’s look at the key elements of the above analysis: the trust formed in a pact allows the group to commit a taboo act they wouldn’t normally do individually. And what are some of the unspoken taboos of the overworked overachiever? Down time, open communication and vulnerability to name a few. Of course, each of us craves these things but is too caught up in a system that does not reward them. Now, if we could get together with a dozen or so like-minded workaholics and agree on a subversive act that would really knock our loved ones for a loop….



• “Hello, Fred? So, it’s settled, then. Bob and Kevin and Ryan and Bill and Frank and Al and Mark and Peter and Steve and John and Paul and me are all going to leave work early on Thursday and take the family out to dinner and a movie. Now, don’t forget to call all of us at exactly 3:30 so we can synchronize the turning off of all cell phones and Blackberries. Except at 6:00 pm when we turn them all back on to text message each other and make sure we’re going through with the plan. Anyone who doesn’t text at six will be banned from all future pacts. And trust me, you don’t want that to happen. We’ve got one coming up where we’re going to call in sick and spend a lazy day with our spouses and girlfriends! Isn’t that awesome? No, I wouldn’t want to miss it, either. Anyway, at 11:00 pm we all call each other to see how everything went, and how we’re dealing with not thinking about work for a full eight hours. Yes, it is exciting, Fred, isn’t it? And forbidden, you bet! The boss would kill us if he knew! Tee-hee. Tee-hee-hee. Tee-hee-hee-hee.”

• Of course, as with all pacts, often the participants do not consider the consequences of taking things too far. And the danger here is that we will get so used to enjoying life that we may never want to work again. And before you know it, America will have fallen behind in the global economy. Nah, that’ll never happen.

02:22 am | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment

Work/Life: Bear Stearns Indictments...(Almost) Enough To Make A Grown Man Cry

• It is only natural for the human mind to connect seemingly disparate events and try to assign them a collective meaning. So it was as I prepared to write a little something about the recent indictments of two former hedge fund managers at Bear-Stearns who allegedly engaged in conspiracy and fraud by misleading their investors about the declining value of their product. (Although, let’s face it, anybody in this economy who believes anything is actually gaining in value may very well deserve what they get.) Wire service photos depict the tight-lipped men being led away by the authorities and I suppose it is only right that they should be tight-lipped; after all, stoicism is the only socially acceptable way men can cope with bad news—aside from when they are watching the Lakers lose an NBA title, in which case throwing an ashtray also works. So, is it a coincidence, then, that another story hitting the Internet at the same time is about a new photographic exhibit featuring portraits of famous men doing the unthinkable: crying?



• Yes, it’s true. The photographer Sam Taylor-Wood has been showing a series of photographs depicting screen stars in various stages of weepy-time. Forrest Whitaker is seen pretty much bawling, while Daniel Craig looks like he just spent an evening remembering the pet canary he had to bury when he was six. Robin Williams seems like he’s trying not to cry (perhaps he momentarily forgot what subject to riff endlessly on and had a panic attack), and Paul Newman doesn’t look like he’s crying at all, although one hand obscures his probably tearful eye.



• I suppose it’s courageous of these men to have their sobbing images frozen for eternity on a gallery wall, but let’s face it, they are ACTORS, and probably get off on the voyeuristic tone, anyway. Or, they could very well be ACTING in these shots, another possibility. The point, though, is that a group of men actually consented to be shown weeping, and this could bode well both for the cause of work/life balance and the continuing success of Oprah. So, then, it might be time for those in the corporate sector who are led away in handcuffs to start realizing that it’s okay to break down. Now, it doesn’t have to be on the Jimmy Swaggart level or anything, but how about letting those tight lips sag a bit, maybe letting the mist of regret cloud your eyes?



• Your bravery, corporate criminals, in blazing a trail for all men everywhere to get in touch with their feelings, could lead us to a new period of enlightenment not seen since that weird period in the 80’s when guys were getting naked in the woods and beating drums and all that. Maybe if the next dude convicted of corporate malfeasance would just blubber a little, it would give us all permission to sob about how our busy lives are preventing us from getting to what really matters. Well, I better go. I’m getting all verklempt.

12:51 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Work/Life: Death Benefits...You've Passed Away, Now Get Back to Work!

• Okay, so you’re dead.  No big deal.  Here’s a few million to tide you over.  New federal rulings require companies to be more upfront about the “golden coffins” they are providing to their already-wealthy CEO’s, so some of the figures that hit the news this week include one oil industry magnate whose death severance will be more than the first quarter earnings of his firm; a media company set aside two million a year for five years for its executive committee chairman upon his demise; and in the ultimate surreal decision, one engineering company is paying its CEO a $17 million non-compete benefit after he croaks!  “Ashes to ashes…dust to dust…and if you even think about going elsewhere, you’re DEAD, do you hear me?”    
• We live in a system whereby the richer you get, the more things you get for free.  From company cars and boats to football tickets or front row seats at the Stones, things get handed to those who need it the least.  In keeping with this line of thinking, life insurance is now an investment for which some of the richest people in the world also do not need to shell out.  Death benefits have their proponents, and they stress the altruism of making sure the heirs of their valued employees are taken care of.  This is all well and good, but no matter what side of the argument you come down on, the fact is that even the well-meaning aspects of insurance and death benefits come up against a disturbing philosophical work/life issue at the heart of our programming as a society.  Man, I love it when I’m deep.  
• See, every day, the overworked and stressed out corporate climber rationalizes his or her work addiction by believing that he or she is killing their quality of life on behalf of their family.  (“I’m doing this for them.”)  How is anyone expected to grow out of that thinking if, embedded in our very expectations as a society, we are told going in that we not only have to make sure all the bills are paid now, but after we’re gone, too?  I’m not saying we don’t want to leave this vale of tears knowing our family will be okay, but it’s not an easy burden to be imprinted with, that one’s responsibility goes on and on and on even after we are worm food.  That’s an enormous amount of pressure to carry around subconsciously our entire lives: to feel that one has to keep bringing home the bacon even after one is dead meat.   
• Like everything else, the key lies in knowing you can only do so much, and can only do your best.  But when fat cats are making sure their families are well off to the tune of many millions, it only creates a further drive to succeed in order to get to that one higher rung on the ladder.  Not to mention the allure of free Stones tickets.  Before they die, anyway.

09:19 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Work/Life: The Top Ten Things That Could Turn Each of Us Into The Hulk

• It’s not surprising that The Incredible Hulk, who represents unchecked anger, should have such a grip on the collective unconscious.  He is, literally, a monster from the Id.  And the fact that there is now a second film about him already this decade shows that we may all secretly wish we could explode in rage the way he does.  It would certainly give us the edge in a traffic jam.  I found it interesting that the Wikipedia entry on the Hulk includes a quote from Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who once said "the geopolitics of the world will be like the Incredible Hulk comics, where he tenses himself before the transformation." 
• Ah, yes, tensing ourselves before the transformation.  How many times have we been there?  Well, here’s a short list of examples when each of us may, at any moment, turn into the Hulk: 

1. Automated Telephone Receptionists – First of all, stop saying things like “okay, I’ll check that for you.”  You are not an “I.”  You are a recording.  And if I have to hit pound to return to the main menu one more time…urrggghhh! 
2. Self-Evaluations – What, I’m going to tell you I suck?  Arrrgghhh! 
3. Talking in the Movie Theater – Not that I can hear you anymore over the blasting pyrotechnics that seem to be in every stinking, unoriginal special-effects-laden crappy movie now!  Bmmmphhhht! 
4. People Who Start Driving Faster Once You Pass Them  -  Rrrrwwrrrrrahhh! 
5. Someone in the Next Cubicle Who Insists on E-Mailing You – Hey, pal, I’m right next to you!  Speak to me!  Arrghhhh!
6. Co-Workers Who Still Use the Term “Team Player”  -  Right.  I’ll bet you “think outside the box” too!   Urrrmppphhh! 
7. Ads on the Internet Featuring Dancing Space Aliens – Somebody put an end to these herky-jerky abominations!   Frrrgghhhhh! 
8. “The Secret” – Okay, it’s old news, but I’ve tried manifesting a million dollars with the power of my intention alone and it hasn’t been working!   Of course Oprah can do it!  She has the capital!  Grrrrrrrrr! 
9. Typing “Your” When You Mean “You’re”  -  Stop it, just stop it!   Mmmmmphhhrrghh! 
10. Top Ten Lists – Urrrrgghhhh! 

• Feel free to submit your own Hulk-inducing peeves.  And don’t worry; if things get out of hand and you actually change into the Hulk, somehow, miraculously, you will still be wearing pants.  

07:44 pm | 2 recommendations | 2 comments

Work/Life: The Pitfalls of Naming Your Baby After A Consumer Product

• A couple in Sweden just won the right to name their new baby "Lego" after a long intellectual property dispute. This is bizarre on several levels. Firstly, these people were obsessed enough that they actually put time and effort into fighting city hall for this: they fought to secure a name for their child that evokes interlocking plastic bricks. Secondly, it’s hard enough on kids with strange names to avoid getting picked on in school, but with a name like “Lego” you are virtually requesting that piles of young bullies attempt to stack themselves onto your offspring in order to visually duplicate the intended purpose of the toy itself. This child will be crushed both mentally and physically. Thirdly, naming your child after a product is a slippery slope indeed.
• We are already immersed in a culture in which everything is a commodity, and by choosing a consumer item as a name for your child, you are putting that kid in the same category as a Cuisinart. (Now, don’t all jump on “Cuisinart” as the name for your new baby at once.) In so doing, you are preparing this child to then think of him or her self as a commodity, setting the stage for a lifelong work/life balance struggle that could have disastrous consequences. After all, if you’re named “Lego,” it can only be a matter of time before you start to subconsciously take on the expectations of your name. You feel obligated to live up to its legendary toy status. You find yourself wanting to “fit in” to an inordinate degree. And you realize that with a little effort and body positioning, you can look like an airplane or an apartment building.
• But, if you absolutely must name your child after a treasured product, why not at least choose ones that will give that young ‘un a positive self-image, and not unreasonable expectations of success? For example, why not name your baby:

1. DEPENDS – Connotes reliability, to both work and family.
2. KFC – This is one child who will not have any use for trans fat.
3. GOODYEAR – An empowering name which reminds the child that the year he came along was, indeed, a good year. Mind you, one must remember to keep the blimp references to a minimum.
4. INTEL – A name that tells the world your little one is smart. Of course, this could also get him beat up at school, although maybe, if Obama gets in, not so much.
5. HOME DEPOT – No question this one grows up to be responsible to the family, as well as being handy with caulk.

• So, if you’re planning on branding your little one with an unconventional name torn from the world of retail, think long and hard, my friends. And for poor little “Lego,” be afraid. Be very afraid.