#management subversion

[5days2days-blog]

Management Subversion - Passing The Baton Of Responsibility

A number of things can ruin the rhythm of the working day but few interruptions are more unwelcome than that of being asked to do something. Five minutes ago you were gazing happily out the window contemplating an afternoon spent dreaming up an article for the satirical website you're frequently being asked to contribute to when suddenly you're required to do work. And worse than that, work that somebody else has deemed unworthy of them. Fortunately this problem was solved long ago with the invention of delegation. Or as it's known in less diplomatic circles, dumping. Productivity gurus will have you think that delegation is an important part of office life and a sound strategy for workflow management. That they're able to say such a thing with a straight face tells you all you need to know. In case it doesn't, though, we're here with a little extra:

How Low Can You Go?

Always, always, always delegate to somebody younger than you. It doesn't matter if they're smarter, more qualified or have been at the company twice as long they'll have been conditioned, as we all have, that if somebody older asks you to do something you quietly get on and do it. Who did you take more seriously at school? The decrepit mathematician in his 80s or the young guy in the leather jacket on teacher training?

Assume It's A Done Deal

If Derren Brown has taught the world anything it's that behaving like you've won the lottery is enough to convince the fraught lady behind the counter of the corner shop to empty the till into your cupped hands even if what you're touting as justification is a piece of used toilet paper. Behave confidently, approach your target with a smile and drop the paperwork on his desk announcing that it's what he agreed to earlier.

Hint At Greater Things To Come

Nothing gives hope to the dumpee more than the prospect of one day being the dumper. Indicate that upper management have their eye on a number of people in the department but Barry, Kelly (anyone) is currently out in front due to his / her incomparable work ethic. This is, incidentally, the same technique used by democratic nations to keep the proletariat from garotting the upper classes with their own Windsor knots.

[5days2days-blog]

Management Subversion - Pulling A Convincing Sicky, with Cuthbert Peterson (third Earl of Wickwater and former World Ludo Champion)

According to industry trade paper Lampston Monthly UK businesses lose close to £37 trillion each second of every working day due to employee illness. This figure is all the more astonishing when you consider that the majority of workers are unanimously incompetent when it comes to the delicate art of claiming free holiday. Luckily for you, viewers, it’s the Ludo off-season, leaving me adequate recreational time to transcribe the finer points of work evasion from the cargo hold of my decommissioned Chinook, circling my estate at precisely 200ft. Winch me up a plate of hot buttered scones, would you Jeffrey?

To Telegraph Is To Be Stupid

Did Hitler call Stalin before strolling into Russia intent on ousting the moustached dictator? 'Joseph, my old chap, I’m just about to roll into your playpen. If you could take time between executing your intelligence officers to order your armies to capitulate on sight, I’d appreciate it.' No, he didn’t. Did I make it obvious to Vladimir Pankatrov when I switched dice during a scheduled Rich Tea intermission at the halfway point of the 1989 Eastern European Ludo Grand Prix? No, I did not. Under no circumstances should you prance around the day before an intended sicky proclaiming to all and sundry that you’re 'feeling under the weather'. Instead, you should act as if being at work is the one component of life you can rely on to get your joy gland excreting at maximum output, and you can’t wait to return tomorrow. Once, whilst working as shift administrator during the April harvest in a camouflaged South American poppy field, I demonstrated my exultation by stripping from the waist down before running zig-zag through the crops whipping each 7 yr old labourer across the buttocks with a fine length of cane. I advise you all to do the same.

Do It Yourself

Come the morning, resist, at all costs, the urge to get a life-partner / lover / child / postman to phone in on your behalf. Do you seriously think anybody will believe you’re too ill to speak? No, no they won’t. Such a notion is ridiculous (unless you happen to have ingested the sputum from the West African Croak Toad, as I did whilst involved in a tribal love act on honeymoon with my seventh wife off the shores of Lake Abaya in the Autumn of 1972). The correct course of action is to call in at the earliest opportunity sounding a picture of health (no hacking, wheezing or coughing, such behaviour is to be expected and will only serve to lessen the credibility of your apparent condition). Speak clearly and slowly, describing 1 or 2 (no more) related symptoms (moon throat, tramp’s tongue and barley water knee have served me well in the past). Notification by textual message (via portable telephonic equipment or electronic mail) is to be avoided. The potential for time off is enough to warrant the hardship of a 5 minute telephone call. Keep the conversation to a minimum and remain self-assured throughout, there will be no reason for anyone to believe you’re lying your trousers off.

Observe The Two Day Minimum

Never take one day off. Ever. Seriously, I mean it. On reflection, this is of such paramount importance it should probably have been point 1, written entirely in pt. 72 bold, red, uppercase. You may have heard a colleague returning to work boldly declaring themselves the victim of a 24hr bug. Such people are cretins, unlearned individuals sullying the reputation of proud skivers with a level of amateurism unseen since Swedish-born plumber Karl Winters’ assertion that his 1936 animated film Steven: Der Hundepilot was technologically superior to Disney’s breakthrough feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, despite being drawn entirely on baking paper with each scene constructed from the remnants of elk corpses supplied by a local road kill enthusiast. The 24hr bug joins Bigfoot, pain-free Dentistry and the breasts of flame-haired pneumatic Hollywood teen tramp Lindsay Lohan in the official list of Stuff That Isn’t Real. If you’ve followed points 1 and 2 only to waltz back into work the next day like you’ve just returned from one of Princess Anne’s naked evenings, you’re a moron, having laid solid foundations only to build the overlaying house out of marshmallow and peanut butter. One day, you’re a fraud. Two days, you’re ill. Three days plus, people begin to worry for your well being. Such worry is good and will result in an outpouring of sympathy on your return (which should help to alleviate the guilt accumulated for each day spent in the garden with a copy of Game Keeper Quarterly and a Bloody Mary when you should’ve been at work).

So, there you have it. With such a canny guide at your disposal you need never again feel aggrieved about the seemingly arbitrary amount of holiday granted to you by whichever capitalist entity you decide to make rich, at the cost of just about everything else that makes life enjoyable and worthwhile.

Now, hovering over the West-Umbershire straight, my flying transport dangerously low on fuel and down to the penultimate cap of Earl Grey from my Thermos, I bid you farewell.

Aim for the shallows Jeffrey, the shallows.

[5days2days-blog]

Management Subversion - A Feast For The Eyes

Being lumped with the job of writing a report can often feel like a thankless task. You know the score; you'll spend far more time than you should composing a thoroughly researched, well reasoned piece of writing but it's a long shot that those on the receiving end will open the email it's attached to let alone the document itself and you'll sit through subsequent meetings where questions answered on page two are trotted out for consideration and your sighs are drowned out by the air conditioner. But you're missing the point. With the task of writing a report comes an opportunity for creativity unmatched since your primary school teacher first let you loose with the poster paints. Like the food of Heston Blumenthal it's not so much about the end result but more what it looks like (and how many cockroaches you had to skin to make it). Team 5d2d offers the following tips for whipping up beautiful, praiseworthy (but ultimately soulless) workplace documents:

Include a terrifyingly comprehensive bibliography

If it's safe to assume nobody's ever going to read what you write (and it is) then they're sure as hell not going to check your references, so go wild. Websites, books, journals, newspapers and quotes from relatives / passengers met on the morning commute / your favourite episodes of Star Trek: Voyager are all fair game. Remember; the more you include, the more it looks like people agree with what you have to say.

Use plenty of charts

If it can be expressed in words you can take those words and make a chart out of them, even if that chart is only a graphical representation of the number of words per page of the document it appears in. If Gantt charts aren't popular in your office draw up several; they soon will be. You don't necessarily need to know what a Gantt chart is or what it's supposed to represent (hardly anybody does) but a handful in your next report will have colleagues and superiors alike cooing that you should be working at the Office for National Statistics. Never settle for a paragraph of text when you can use a mind map, and never settle for Times New Roman when there's WordArt.

Use exotic language liberally

No, no, no. We're not advocating writing in your usual style and then shift-F7'ing until you achieve RSI - that's what everybody does. Distance yourself from the gibbering amateurs by crafting simple, straightforward sentences and replacing common words with their higher alternatives. Instead of describing the problem, explain how it manifests. A concept isn't hard to define, it's intangible. Barry in Marketing isn't stupid, he's a cretin. Aim for just enough so the reader will be convinced you're smarter than him but not so many he'll think you vain.

Conclude by agreeing with the opinion of whoever asked you to write the report

If anyone's likely to read what you've written it'll be the person who asked you to write it, but even he will only have the strength of mind to skip straight to the conclusion so be sure to include one (clearly headed Conclusion) and explain how your document unequivocally, yet objectively, finds that everything he thinks is absolutely right.

Go on and on and on and on and on and on

Take in several reams of paper with your appendices alone. Nobody will dare suggest that your report is too long as the opportunity for toadying (by means of congratulations for such a splendid effort) will be too great. Better yet, to quote Winston Churchill, 'This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.' You can't lose.