King of the Cubicle

Pipe Down, Volume Guy

I work with one of the loudest human beings to have walked this planet since Richard Simmons got his first perm. He has no internal volume control and apparently no idea that his speech can make ears bleed for miles around.

This morning we were on a conference call with one of our big clients, and this loud person had a point he wanted to make. But instead of leaning in a bit like the rest of mankind, he felt the need to actually stand and hover over the phone, putting his big mouth a mere six inches above the speaker.

There was a brief silence on the phone.

He saw his opportunity.

He pounced.

"I JUST WANTED TO ---"

KA-BLAM! The telephone exploded, wires and diodes flying everywhere. An errant hold button hit me in the forehead.

Now the company is in the market for a volume-proof speakerphone.

Clueless, But Well-Paid

One of our clients is a big company. A BIG company. You've heard of it. It's publicly traded and it's international and all of its employees have those cool little rectangular security badges with their mugshots on the front.

Maybe I'm naive, but I suppose I thought such a big, important monolith in the business world would kind of have its shit together.

Turns out that's utter bullshit.

Our key contact at the big, important monolith is the same brand of scatterbrained, lost-in-space goober one might expect to encounter at Arby's or the car wash or the varmint control aisle of the hardware store. She is the go-between that bridges a gap from her boss to us, and you must believe me when I say she's as dumb as an empty toilet paper roll.

We have a project. We've been working on it for three months. We were challenged to "really push the envelope this time." We did. But the big, important monolith balked. Too risky. So we came up with something else. Nah. Too "out there". And so on. When a large enterprise says it wants to "push the envelope", you should know that it's code for "I want you to chase your tail around your ass for a few weeks, until such time as I tell you that we should have pursued the safe, boring, uninspired route we always take so please start over and have it on my desk before you leave tonight."

We acquiesced, because we're whores, and gave them a big scoop of vanilla. They liked the vanilla. It was comfortable to them. They signed off on it and everything.

Today, the flunky middle woman from the big, important (SPINELESS!) business monolith called to say "Oops. I never showed this to my boss but she just saw it and she says it needs to be changed significantly. But we can't move our deadline and we can't give you any more money and you should probably just get on your knees and lick my boots for even getting you in with a company of our stature. Thanks. Bye."

I wonder if it's natural to want to take a dump on someone else's car. Because that's really what I want to do right now.

This Sucks

One of my clients is an organization whose name is also a common slang term for "penis".

Let's pretend it's Schlong.

As you know, I have a dirty mind and an even dirtier mouth. It is therefore virtually impossible for me to have a professional, dignified conversation about this client without injecting some sort of innuendo or inappropriate reference to the body part.

"We have to look out for Schlong's best interest."

"We don't simply want customers to see Schlong. We want them to feel it."

"Man, this is a tight deadline. Can you get in touch with Schlong today and see if we can squeeze an extra day out of them?"

If I were a betting man, I'd bet the house on me getting fired over this client.

The Big Time

I have a client whose telephone voice is sexy as hell. I’d never met her, but I looked forward to our conference calls and whatnot because I knew – I just KNEW – she was gorgeous.

I had a face-to-face meeting with her yesterday.

She weighs 300 pounds.

Swearing at Work Kicks Ass

Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers.

Yehuda Baruch, a professor of management at the University of East Anglia, and graduate Stuart Jenkins studied the use of profanity in the workplace and assessed its implications for managers.

They assessed that swearing would become more common as traditional taboos are broken down, but the key appeared to be knowing when such language was appropriate and when to turn to blind eye.

The pair said swearing in front of senior staff or customers should be seriously discouraged or banned, but in other circumstances it helped foster solidarity among employees and express frustration, stress or other feelings.

"Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner," said Baruch, who works in the university's business school in Norwich.

Banning swear words and reprimanding staff might represent strong leadership, but could remove key links between staff and impact on morale and motivation, he said.

"We hope that this study will serve not only to acknowledge the part that swearing plays in our work and our lives, but also to indicate that leaders sometimes need to 'think differently' and be open to intriguing ideas.

"Managers need to understand how their staff feel about swearing. The challenge is to master the 'art' of knowing when to turn a blind eye to communication that does not meet their own standards."

The study, "Swearing at work and permissive leadership culture: when anti-social becomes social and incivility is acceptable", is published in the latest issue of the Leadership and Organisational Development Journal.

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