Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To Work We Go

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SIGNS YOU WORK IN THE 2000s
STRESS MANAGEMENT
WORKPLACE PHRASEOLOGY
FITNESS PROGRAM
DEMANDS OF UPS WORKERS
ANS. MACHINE MESSAGES
PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS
RESUME QUOTES
HOW SHIT HAPPENS
REAL-LIFE DILBERTISMS
DILBERTISMS

SIGNS THAT YOU WORK IN THE 21st CENTURY

• Cleaning up the dining area means getting the fast food bags out of the back seat of your car.
• Your reason for not staying in touch with family is that they do not have e-mail addresses.
• Keeping up with sports entails adding ESPN's homepage to your bookmarks.
• You have actually e-mailed your Christmas list to your parents.
• Pick up lines now include a reference to liquid assets and capital gains.
• You consider 2nd day Air Delivery and Inter-office Mail painfully slow.
• You assume any question about whether to valet park or not is rhetorical.
• You refer to your dining room table as the flat filing cabinet.
• Your idea of being organized is multiple colored post-it notes.
• Your grocery list has been on your refrigerator so long some of the products don't even exist anymore
• You advise the neighborhood kids selling lemonade to opening a website.
• 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.
• You study "Dilbert" as a survival manual.
• You question the viability of the English language when you find out that Administrative Assistant" means everything from taking shorthand to making sure the deli cuts the fat off your boss's pastrami sandwich.
• You watch stupid idiotic sitcoms at night because you're too tired to do anything else.
• The only fun you have any more is composing your fantasy resignation speech.
• You sat at the same desk for 4 years and worked for three different companies.
• Your company welcome sign is attached with Velcro.
• Your resume is on a diskette in your pocket.
• Your company logo on your badge is applied with stick-um.
• You order business cards in "half orders" instead of whole boxes.
• When someone asks about what you do for a living, you lie.
• You get really excited about a 2% pay raise.
• You learn about your layoff on CNN.
• Your biggest loss from a system crash is your best jokes file.
• You sit in a cubicle smaller than your bedroom closet.
• Salaries of the members on the Executive Board are higher than all the Third World countries' annual budgets combined.
• You think lunch is just a meeting to which you drive.
• It's dark when you drive to and from work.
• Fun is when issues are assigned to someone else.
• Communication is something your group is having problems with.
• You see a good-looking person and know it is a visitor.
• Free food left over from meetings is your main staple.
• Weekends are those days your significant other makes you stay home.
• Being sick is defined as can't walk or you're in the hospital.
• Art involves a white board.
• You're already late on the assignment you just got.
• You work 200 hours for the $100 bonus check and jubilantly say, "Oh wow, thanks!"
• Dilbert cartoons hang outside every cube and are read by your co-workers only.
• Your boss' favorite lines are "when you get a free minute" or "when you're freed up"
• Your boss' second favorite lines are "this isn't exactly what we need. It may be what we asked for, but things have changed."
• Vacation is something you rollover to next year, or you try to use up three weeks between Christmas and New Years week.
• Your relatives and family describe your job as "works with computers".
• Change is the norm.
• Nepotism is encouraged.
• The only reason you recognize your kids and friends is because their pictures are hanging in your cube.
• You only have makeup for fluorescent lighting

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STRESS MANAGEMENT

Picture yourself near a stream.
Birds are singing in crisp, cool mountain air.
Nothing can bother you here.
No one knows this secret place.
Hear the sounds, and enjoy the peace.
Feel the sweet air on your face, your skin.
You are in total seclusion from that place called the world.
The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.
The water is clear.
You can easily make out the face of the person whose head you're holding under the water.

There now, ..................feeling better?

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WORKPLACE PHRASEOLOGY

Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Body Nazis: Hard-core exercise and weight-lifting fanatics who look down on anyone who does not work out obsessively.

Seagull Manager: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything and then leaves.

Chainsaw Consultant: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles.

Idea Hamsters: People who always seem to have their idea generators running.

Mouse Potato: The online, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

Prairie Dogging: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what is going on.

SITCOMS: What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.

Squirt the Bird: To transmit a signal to a satellite.

Starter Marriage: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

Stress Puppy: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

Swiped Out: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

Tourists: People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

Treeware: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

Xerox Subsidy: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

Going Postal: Euphemism for being totally stressed out, for losing it. Makes reference to the unfortunate crack record of postal employees who have snapped and gone on shooting rampages.

Alpha Geek: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. "Ask Larry, he's the alpha geek around here."

Assmosis: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

Chips and Salsa: Chips = hardware, salsa = software. "Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."

Flight Risk: Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.

GOOD Job: A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. Well-paying jobs people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

Irritainment: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime example.

Percussive Maintenance: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Uninstalled: Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voicemail of a vice president at a downsizing computer firm: "You have reached the number of an uninstalled vice president. Please dial our main number and ask the operator for assistance." See also Decruitment.

Vulcan Nerve Pinch: The taxing hand position required to reach all the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm reboot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control key, the Command key, the Return key and the Power On key.

Yuppie Food Stamps: The ubiquitous $20 bills spewed out of ATMs everywhere. Often used when trying to split the bill after a meal: "We owe $8 each, but all anybody's got is yuppie food stamps."

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WORKPLACE FITNESS PROGRAM
How to Loose Weight at Work Without Doing Much. Here's a guide to calorie-burning activities and the number of calories per hour they consume.

Beating around the bush . . . . . . .. .75
Jumping to conclusions . . . . . . .. 100
Climbing the walls . . . . . . . . . . 150
Swallowing your pride . . . . . . . . . .50
Passing the buck . . . . . . . . . . . .25
Throwing your weight around (depending on your weight). . . . . 50-300
Dragging your heels. . . . . . . . . . 100
Pushing your luck. . . . . . . . . . . 250
Making mountains out of molehills. . . 500
Hitting the nail on the head . . . . . .50
Wading through paperwork . . . . . . . 300
Bending over backwards . . . . . . . . 75
Jumping on the bandwagon . . . . . . . 200
Balancing the books. . . . . . . . . . .25
Running around in circles. . . . . . . 350
Eating crow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Tooting your own horn. . . . . . . . . .25
Climbing the ladder of success . . . . 750
Pulling out the stops. . . . . . . . . .75
Adding fuel to the fire. . . . . . . . 160
Wrapping it up at the day's end. . . . .12
Opening a can of worms . . . . . . . . .50
Putting your foot in your mouth. . . . 300
Starting the ball rolling. . . . . . . .90
Going over the edge. . . . . . . . . . .25
Picking up the pieces after. . . . . . 350
Counting eggs before they hatch. . . . . 6
Calling it quits . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

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TOP TEN DEMANDS OF STRIKING UPS WORKERS

10. Goodbye boring brown trucks, hello cool red Ferraris
9. Permission to smack anyone who calls it "ups"
8. Forget that "lift with your legs, not with your back" crap??we're lifting with our backs, damn it!
7. All the Styrofoam peanuts we can eat
6. Permission to tell Fed Ex guys they can absolutely positively go?*&!? themselves
5. $10 bonus for every hernia
4. Female drivers can refuse to deliver to White House when Hillary's away
3. One ten?minute break a day for love calls
2. New shorts that don't make a guy's butt look so huge
1. Put a damn door on the side of the truck

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ANSWERING MACHINE MESSAGES
Actual answering machine answers recorded and verified by the world-famous International Institute of Answering Machine Answers.

Hi. This is John. If you are the phone company, I already sent the money. If you are my parents, please send money. If you are my financial aid institution, you didn't lend me enough money. If you are my friends, you owe me money. If you are a female, don't worry, I have plenty of money.

Hi. Now you say something.

Hi, I'm not at my desk right now but my answering machine is, so you can talk to it instead. Wait for the beep.

What are you?

(From a Japanese man in Toronto:) He-ro! This is Sato. If you leave message, I call you soon. If you leave sexy message, I call sooner!

Hi! John's answering machine is broken. This is his refrigerator. Please speak very slowly, and I'll stick your message to myself with these magnets.

Hello, this is Sally's microwave. Her answering machine just eloped with her tape deck, so I'm stuck with taking her calls. Say, if you want anything cooked while you leave your message, just hold it up to the phone.

Hello, you are talking to a machine. I am capable of receiving messages. My owners do not need siding, windows, or a hot tub, and their carpets are clean. They give to charity through their office and do not need their picture taken. If you're still with me, leave your name and number and they will get back to you.

This is not an answering machine-this is a telepathic thought-recording device. After the tone, think about your name, your reason for calling and a number where I can reach you, and I'll think about returning your call.

Hi. I am probably in. I'm just avoiding someone I don't like.

Leave me a message, and if I don't call back, it's you.

Hi, this is George. I'm sorry I can't answer the phone right now. Leave a message, and then wait by your phone until I call you back.

If you are a burglar, then we're probably at home cleaning our weapons right now and can't come to the phone. Otherwise, we probably aren't home and it's safe to leave us a message.

You're growing tired. Your eyelids are getting heavy. You feel very sleepy now. You are gradually losing your willpower and your ability to resist suggestions. When you hear the tone you will feel helplessly compelled to leave your name, number, and a message. However, you have the right to remain silent. Everything you say will be recorded and will be used by us.

Hello, you've reached Jim and Sonya. We can't pick up the phone right now, because we're doing something we really enjoy. Sonya likes doing it up and down, and I like doing it left to right ... real slowly. So leave a message, and when we're done brushing our teeth, we'll get back to you.

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PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS
Actual lines from military performance appraisals.

1. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
2. Got into the gene pool while the lifeguard wasn't watching.
3. A room temperature IQ.
4. Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thingy to hold it all together.
5. A gross ignoramus -- 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus.
6. A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on.
7. A prime candidate for natural deselection.
8. Bright as Alaska in December.
9. One-celled organisms out score him in IQ tests.
10. Donated his body to science before he was done using it.
11. Fell out of the family tree.
12. Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming.
13. Has two brains; one is lost and the other is out looking for it.
14. He's so dense, light bends around him.
15. If brains were taxed, he'd get a rebate.
16. If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.
17. If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you'd get change.
18. 1If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean.
19. It's hard to believe that he beat out 100,000,000 other sperm.
20. One neuron short of a synapse.
21. Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; he only gargled.
22. Takes him 1-½ hours to watch 60 minutes.
23. 2Wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.

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RESUME QUOTES
Taken from real resumes and cover letters

1. "I demand a salary commiserate with my extensive experience."
2. "I have lurnt Word Perfect 6.0 computor and spreasheet progroms."
3. "Received a plague for Salesperson of the Year."
4. "Wholly responsible for two (2) failed financial institutions."
5. "Reason for leaving last job: maturity leave."
6. "Failed bar exam with relatively high grades."
7. 7"It's best for employers that I not work with people."
8. "Let's meet, so you can 'ooh' and 'aah' over my experience."
9. "You will want me to be Head Honcho in no time."
10. 1"Am a perfectionist and rarely if ever forget details."
11. "I was working for my mom until she decided to move."
12. "Marital status: single. Unmarried. Unengaged. Uninvolved. No commitments."
13. "I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse."
14. "I am loyal to my employer at all costs.... Please feel free to respond to my resume on my office voice mail."
15. "I have become completely paranoid, trusting completely no one and absolutely nothing."
16. "My goal is to be a meterologist. But since I possess no training in meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage."
17. "I procrastinate, especially when the task is unpleasant."
18. "Personal interests: donating blood. Fourteen gallons so far."
19. "As indicted, I have over five years of analyzing investments."
20. "Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain store."
21. "Note: Please don't misconstrue my 14 jobs as 'job-hopping'. I have never quit a job."
22. "Marital status: often. Children: various."
23. "Reason for leaving last job: They insisted that all employees get to work by 8:45 am every morning. I couldn't work under those conditions."
24. "The company made me a scapegoat, just like my three previous employers."
25. "Finished eighth in my class of ten."
26. "References: none. I've left a path of destruction behind me."

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HOW SHIT HAPPENS

In the beginning there was a Plan.

And then came the Assumptions.

And the Assumptions were without form, but a cause of consultants.

And the plan was without substance.

And darkness was on the face of the Workers.

And they spoke among themselves, saying, "It is a crock of shit, and it stinks."

And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said, "It is a pile of dung, and none may abide the odor thereof."

And the Supervisors went unto their Managers, saying, "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none can abide by it."

And the Managers went unto their Directors (A totally useless form of office clutter, paid more than the Manager's) saying, "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength."

And the Directors spoke among themselves, saying one to another, "It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."

And the Directors went unto the Vice Presidents, saying unto them, "It promotes growth, and it is very powerful."

And the Vice Presidents went unto President saying unto him, "This new Plan will actively promote growth and Vigor of this company, with powerful effects." (They were all wearing hip high boots)

And the President looked upon the Plan and saw it was good.

And the Plan became Policy.

And this is how shit happens.

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REAL-LIFE DILBERTISMS
Anyone who works for or has worked for a large company (or gov't agency) knows how true this stuff is.

1. As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks. (Fred Dales at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA)
2. What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter. (Lykes Lines Shipping)
3. How long is this Beta guy going to keep testing our stuff? (Programming intern, Microsoft IIS Development team)
4. E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business. (Accounting Mgr., Electric Boat Company)
5. This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it. (Advertising/Mktg. Mgr., UPS)
6. Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule. (R&D Supervisor, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing /3M Corp.)
7. My boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected. (CIO of Dell Computers)
8. Quote from the boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say." (Mktg. executive, Citrix Corporation)
9. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my boss, he said she died so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me." (Shipping Executive, FTD Florists)
10. We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees. (AT&T Long Lines Division)
11. We recently received a memo from senior management saying, "This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the subject mentioned above." (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)
12. One day my boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!" (New Business Mgr., Hallmark Cards)
13. This gem is the closing paragraph of a nationally-circulated memo from a large communications company: "Lucent Technologies is determined to promote constant attention on current procedures of transacting business focusing emphasis on innovative ways to better, if not supercede, the expectations of quality!"
14. No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them. (R&D Supervisor, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing /3M Corp.)
15. As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company's training programs and materials. In the body of the memo, one of the sentences mentioned the "pedagogical approach" used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR Director's office, and was told that the executive VP wanted me out of the building by lunch.

    When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn't stand for perverts" (pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired, with the word "pedagogical" circled in red.
    The HR Manager, fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send to my boss, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it.

    Two days later a memo to the entire staff came out, directing us that no words which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation letter by pasting words together from the Sunday paper. (Taco Bell Corporation)

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DILBERTISMS

1. I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day and tomorrow isn't looking good either.
2. I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.
3. Am I getting smart with you? How would you know?
4. I'd explain it to you, but your brain would explode.
5. Someday we'll look back on all this and plow into a parked car.
6. There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives.
7. Tell me what you need and I'll tell you how to get along without it.
8. Accept that some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.
9. Needing someone is like needing a parachute. If he isn't there the first time you need him, chances are you won't be needing him again.
10. I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.
11. Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, "Where the heck is the ceiling?!"
12. My Reality Check bounced.
13. On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.
14. I don't suffer from stress. I'm a carrier.
15. You're slower than a herd of turtles stampeding thru peanut butter.
16. Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, 'cuz you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
17. Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
18. If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

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