Tips for managers and bosses
Never give me work in the morning. Always wait until 4:00 and then bring it to me. The challenge of a deadline is refreshing.
If it’s really a “rush job,” run in and interrupt me every ten minutes to inquire how it’s going. That helps.
Always leave without telling anyone where you’re going. It gives me a chance to be creative when someone asks where you are.
If my arms are full of papers, boxes, books, or supplies, don’t open the door for me. I need to learn how to function as a paraplegic and opening doors is good training.
If you give me more than one job to do, don’t tell me which is the priority. Let me guess.
Do your best to keep me late. I like the office and really have nowhere to go or anything to do.
If a job I do pleases you, keep it a secret.
If you don’t like my work, tell everyone. I like my name to be popular in conversation.
If you have special instructions for a job, don’t write them down. In fact, save them until the job is almost done.
Be nice to me only when the job I’m doing for you could really change your life.
Ten Signs You Need a Really Long Vacation
You lecture the neighborhood kids selling lemonade on ways to improve their process.
You get all excited when it’s Saturday so you can wear sweats to work.
You refer to the tomatoes grown in your garden as deliverables.
You find you really need PowerPoint to explain what you do for a living.
You normally eat out of vending machines and at the most expensive restaurant in town within the same week.
You think that “progressing an action plan” and “calendarizing a project” are acceptable English phrases.
You know the people at the airport hotels better than your next door neighbors.
You ask your friends to “think out of the box” when making Friday night plans.
You think Einstein would have been more effective had he put his ideas into a matrix.
You think a “half-day” means leaving at 5 o’clock.
Ten Signs You Are “Burned Out” Because of Work
Your garbage can is your “in” box.
You sleep more at work than at home.
Your Day Timer exploded a week ago.
You’re so tired you now answer the phone, “Hell.”
You leave for a party and instinctively take your ID badge.
You have so much on your mind, you’ve forgotten how to pee.
Visions of the upcoming weekend help you make it through Monday.
You think about how relaxing it would be if you were in jail right now.
You wake up to discover your bed is on fire, but go back to sleep because you just don’t care.
Your friend calls to ask how you’ve been, and you immediately scream, “Get off my back, jerk!”
The Ten If’s You Need to Know to Get Along at Work
If it rings, put it on hold.
If it clunks, call the repairman.
If it whistles, ignore it.
If it’s a friend, stop work and chat.
If it’s the Boss, look busy.
If it talks, take notes.
If it’s handwritten, type it.
if it’s typed, copy it.
If it’s copied, file it.
If it’s Friday, FORGET IT!!!
Dictionary of Performance Evaluation Comments
Accepts new job assignments willingly: Never finishes a job.
Active socially: Drinks heavily.
Alert to company developments: An office gossip.
Approaches difficult problems with logic: Finds someone else to do the job.
Average: Not too bright.
Character above reproach: Still one step ahead of the law.
Charismatic: No interest in any opinion but his own.
Competent: Is still able to get work done if supervisor helps.
Consults with co-workers often: Indecisive, confused, and clueless.
Consults with supervisor often: Pain in the ass.
Delegates responsibility effectively: Passes the buck well.
Demonstrates qualities of leadership: Has a loud voice.
Deserves promotion: Create new title to make him feel appreciated.
Displays excellent intuitive judgement: Knows when to disappear.
Displays great dexterity and agility: Dodges and evades superiors well.
Enjoys job: Needs more to do.
Excels in sustaining concentration but avoids confrontations: Ignores everyone.
Excels in the effective application of skills: Makes a good cup of coffee.
Exceptionally well qualified: Has committed no major blunders to date.
Expresses self well: Can string two sentences together.
Gets along extremely well with superiors and subordinates alike: A coward.
Happy: Paid too much.
Hard worker: Usually does it the hard way.
Identifies major management problems: Complains a lot.
Indifferent to instruction: Knows more than superiors.
Internationally know: Likes to go to conferences and trade shows in Las Vegas.
Is well informed: Knows all office gossip and where all the skeletons are kept.
Inspires the cooperation of others: Gets everyone else to do the work.
Is unusually loyal: Wanted by no-one else.
Keen sense of humor: Knows lots of dirty jokes.
Listens well: Has no ideas of his own.
Maintains a high degree of participation: Comes to work on time.
Meticulous in attention to detail: A nitpicker.
Not a desk person: Did not go to college.
Of great value to the organization: Turns in work on time.
Use all available resources: Takes office supplies home for personal use.
Quick thinking: Offers plausible excuses for errors.
Should go far: Please.
Slightly below average: Stupid.
Straightforward: Blunt and insensitive.
Strong adherence to principles: Stubborn.
Tactful in dealing with superiors: Knows when to keep mouth shut.
Takes advantage of every opportunity to progress: Buys drinks for superiors.
Unlimited potential: Will stick with us until retirement.
Uses resources well: Delegates everything.
Uses time effectively: Clock watcher.
Very creative: Finds 22 reasons to do anything except original work.
Visionary: Cannot handle paperwork or any project that lasts less than a week.
Well organized: Does too much busywork.
Will go far: Relative of management.
Willing to take calculated risks: Doesn’t mind spending someone else’s money.
The only person getting his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
14 Signs the Company You Work for Is Going Under
They start paying everyone in sea shells.
Company President now driving a Ford Escort.
Company Softball Team is converted to a Chess Club.
Conference room has been turned into chinchilla farm.
Dr. Kevorkian is hired as an “Outplacement Coordinator”.
The Dairy Queen on the corner is threatening a hostile takeover.
The beer supplied by the Company at picnics is in unlabeled cans.
Your boss casually asks you if you know anything about starting fires.
When you say, “See you tomorrow,” the watchman laughs uncontrollably.
People saying “Remember folks, we’re not Downsizing, we’re Rightsizing!”
The women are suddenly very friendly with the dorky Personnel Manager.
The chairman walks by your desk and says, “Hey, Hey! Easy on the staples!”
Annual Company Holiday Bash moved from the Sheraton to the local Taco Bell.
Your CEO has a dart board marked with all existing departments in the Company.
Things We’d Like To See On Company Motivational Posters
If you do a good job and work hard, you may get a job with a better company someday.
Doing a job RIGHT the first time gets the job done. Doing the job WRONG fourteen times gives you job security.
Sure, you may not like working here, but we pay your rent.
A person who smiles in the face of adversity … probably has a scapegoat.
If you can stay calm, while all around you is chaos…then you probably haven’t completely understood the situation.
Your job is still better than asking “You want fries with that?”
If at first you don’t succeed - try management.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid altogether.
Teamwork means never having to take all the blame yourself.
You Must be Working for a Hi-Tech Company If…
Your CV is on a diskette in your pocket.
Holiday is something you roll over to next year.
You’re already late on the assignment you just got.
Your supervisor doesn’t have the ability to do your job.
Your relatives describe your job as “works with computers”.
Being sick is defined as you can’t walk or you’re in hospital.
It’s dark when you drive to and from work, even in the summer.
You’ve sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
Contractors outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get long-service awards.
Board members salaries are higher than all the Third World countries annual budgets combined.
There’s no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your department is short of, but they can afford four full-time management consultants advising your boss’s boss on strategy.
I was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital after my wife had gone into labor and the nurse walked out and said to the man sitting next to me, “Congratulations sir, you’re the new father of twins!”
The man replied, “How about that, I work for the Doublemint Chewing Gum company.”
About an hour later, the same nurse entered the waiting room and announced that Mr. Smith’s wife has just had triplets. Mr. Smith stood up and said, “Well, how do you like that, I work for the 3M Company.”
The gentleman that was sitting next to me then got up and started to leave. When I asked him why he was leaving, he remarked, “I think I need a breath of fresh air, I work for 7-UP.”
