Because I don't work in an office, or within a bureaucracy, I don't have a lot in common with a number of you. I did once work for two behemoth national corporations (three if you count the warehouse gig one Christmas at Montgomery-Ward... Do they still exist?); the first experience was bad, because of mediocre managers, but the other was very positive, because my manager was an exceptional human being. But it's not really the same, because I knew I was just passing through...
Anyway, I was trying to memorize the internet again, and came across a bon mot of wisdom for office workers, or cubical monkeys, if you want the truth. And while I recognize the advice is potentially very useful, I can only say this as a hopeful generalization; I will never need to practice this.
The tidbits of information implied that to enjoy being a cubical employee, you need to keep abreast of the latest gossip, and you have to be considered, to at least a slight extent, useful for something other than your job description. (I think this also works for being a kid living at home...)
So now here's the advice:
1. keep a supply of some kind of chocolate candy on your desk. It can be cheap as cheap can be, as long as it's real chocolate. But no nuts! People who don't feel threatened by you will stop by to visit and eat chocolate. In exchange for the chocolate, they will gossip. You will be the winner in this exchange of cheap chocolate for gossip. Knowledge is King.
2. find the owner's manual for the copy machine(s) near your office or on your floor. Get the model number and research it online, find a users forum. Learn that machine! Soon every time the something goes wrong, you'll be the first person called. Your reputation will grow, and soon coworkers and your bosses will assume you're just as good at your job as you are at getting that copier to work.
So there you go, practical advice from the Right Reverend Bertram Bananas, Lz.D. Now go out there and beat up the world and make it cry.
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15 comments:
Yes, that sounds like good advice except for the following:
1. Fat, pimply people with pink-eye are getting the candy at your desk. You know the ones you avoid eye contact with at all cost on the elevator. Well, there they are eating your M&M's while gossiping about the other weird people you don't want to know about.
2. You never get a moment's peace because some one always pretends they don't know how to load the paper tray and you have to stop surfing the net/working and help these yahoos.
Sign me - Lessons Learned the Hard Way. Heavy Sigh.
Jeez-Louise! That's sounds totally like what would happen in this situation!! I should have been more cynical... It seemed so innocent as I was reading it. You know, I bet it's advice that's only useful for pimply weird people. Thank you. I shan't believe everything I read on the internet now.
Yes, Bert. Sorry to burst your bubble. I learned right away to be the person who brings the chocolate to the proper gossiper's desk. And for the copier, NO no no no, it has to be a secret on who fixes it. If someone comes upon you fixing it, promptly STOP unjamming the sucker, even if it is an easy fix. If someone does find out you can tame that beast, it will leak out, sure as shit. And they will hunt you down and drag you back to fix it. Trust me on this.
Even if you are on lunch.
If I worked in a cubicle they'd find me stapled to death by my own hand.
Knowing how to fix the copier doesn't earn you anything but third degree burns.
Yes you do NOT want to be the person who fixes the copier. They are the enemy and anyone who decides you are to do the fixing therefore, is the enemy also. Unless THEY bring chocolate or cake in which case a negotiation is possible, but only if I don't have to touch the hot, volcanic bits in the copier's innards because those HURT.
i'd rather work with my criminal kids without back up than go bck to an office.
jilly
I am living proof that the Chocolate Method actually works - for a little while. The President used to seek me out during her sugar cravings, and in that moment of weakness, she would spew all sorts of useful information that helped me climb the company ladder. But it all fell apart one day. She went on a diet and laid me off permanently.
What's an office?
I'd go nuts.
I hate my job. I want to be a forest ranger. Or maybe a curb painter. Or something.
Are you lost in a cubicle somewhere?
Aren't we all lost in our own little cubicles, in a way? Mine is beige.
wheres our banana??????
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