a return to the Desk

Greetings, fellow minions.

It's been a shameful length of time since this blog was updated, but we won't apologize - after all, it's our blog and we'll update it whenever we damned well want to. However, we're sorry for the lack of interesting and fun updates. As the interwebs are a large place, we're sure you've found other things to occupy your time. *cough* *p0rn*

Since last we spoke, we've changed our Desk again. It's another desk in another building, but we're not working for The Man any longer - it's back to the private sector for us. Go team!

A desk by any other name remains the same, if it's not really your desk - the one owned by you, dusted (or not) by you, crowded (or not) by your bills. As long as it's a desk in someone else's space, it will truly never be our desk.

Without going into gory detail (unless you'd like us to), we'll succinctly recap the last several months:

• slaved away for The Man
• got caught in the quagmire of a regular paycheck with good benefits and decent retirement plan
• had a life-flashing-before-our-eyes type of encounter (long story, and we signed a non-disclosure agreement so we won't be discussing that any further)
• found alternate employment
• didn't let the door hit us on the way out

We're still not doing what we'd like, but at least it's less dungeon-y and slightly more civilized. Our colleagues are interesting (not in a make-a-giant-rubber-band-ball kind of way, either). The environment has a certain je ne sais quoi, less institution and more place of business feel to it. 

We make less money, but we really don't give a shit.

Still, the capacity for stupid in an educated and intelligent human being continues to amaze and astound us. Regularly. Daily. Like the printer running out of ink in our 4 day absence and not one person checking the drawers of the shelf under the printer. Without hanging replacement cartridges from the ceiling, we thought the drawer right below the printer would be obvious enough. Apparently not.

It still comes down to a lack of leadership and personal awareness - which money, sad to say, just can't buy. So, despite our move into the slightly less mind-numbing private sector, we remain overeduated and underemployed. Shocking.

Sometimes we think we're just rats in a large, earth-shaped cage, providing entertainment for whatever is beyond the cosmos; because if we're the most intelligent life in the universe, we're so fucked.

~ Paige

5 pits of doom to avoid in getting sh*t done

It doesn’t take snooping around in a large organization to find inefficiencies, poor practice and policies that are just plain stupid. We’ve worked in lots of businesses; we get around. Big or small, private or public – it doesn’t really matter. There’s one common denominator we found while working our ass off in the trenches: dumb doesn’t discriminate.

From under-estimating to over-compensating, people seem to have a hard time hitting the nail anywhere near the head. No amount of fudging the numbers will help you get sh*t done when you’ve started out of the wrong gate, in the wrong shoes or with the wrong team.

You might be thinking “oh, but my organization knows what it’s doing”. Sorry, big gal/guy – chances are you’re way off base and your staff are either too a) afraid b) useless or c) busy with their own plans to overthrow your inefficient ass to tell you what’s wrong.

We care. We always have. We're here to help, believe it or not. It’s why you hired us, remember? We’re more than just a pretty face that can tie a tie (actually, we can’t tie a tie – we just keep the same one looped in a loose knot, hanging behind your closet and you’ve never noticed).

Don’t panic. Now that you know your project/assignment/whatever isn’t going to finish ahead of schedule, in the black or ever really be finished, we won’t leave you hanging. It's going to take some gonads to get the sh*t done, so if you’re not ready for that then please proceed along as ineffectually as usual – just don’t come crying to us when you’re the last one on the sinking ship. It’s likely we’ll have high-tailed it out of there before that anyway.

For those ready to take the plunge, roll up your sleeves. This could get messy.

Management malfunction

Someone, somewhere in a position of authority and decision-making is asleep at the wheel, not what they appear to be or cowering in the corner. If it’s not you, then it’s someone on your management team – or the team itself. It’s happened before: groupthink gone freakishly wrong.

One of the best ways to ferret out the f*ck up is to let people know you’re open to bribery or ass-kissing. For your efforts, by the end of the first week you should see an increase in expensive booze on your desk or a series of just-thought-you-should-know-what-a-terrific-job-you’re-doing emails. Now you fire the slug, bask in the glow of the hollow praise via email and drink that 12+ year old Scotch.


Pathetic planning

Too much can strangle, and too little can let the horses out of the barn before you want to set them free. So the horse and barn is a bad analogy – you don’t pay us enough to be that creative. Regardless of the barn, if you’ve not done your due diligence and accounted for the unexpected, you’re going to be up the creek without the proverbial canoe. Oh, you thought we were going to say paddle, right? Wrong. Without thinking about what you’re going to try to accomplish and who you’re going to accomplish it for and with, you’re not going to have a paddle or a canoe.

Preparation involves including all stakeholders in the process. All of them – even the ones you don’t think will count, the ones you don’t like and the ones you have never spoken to before (especially them). Want to streamline customer service? Try calling your own organization and see how easy it is to even get customer service, good or bad. Need to redesign a mail delivery system? Get on the cart and touch that mail, from the sorting to the delivering. Get involved, and get others involved – or get the hell out of the way of the people who can get sh*t done.


Dead weight

Just because someone was an excellent subject matter expert doesn’t mean that they’re a) still relevant b) cut out for management or c) someone that anyone gives a crap about outside of the throne they’ve constructed in their own mind. (oh come on – everyone’s done it)

There comes a time when something in the forest must die. This is how new plantings grow. We’re not telling you to arrive at the office with a machete and clean house – although it’s likely there’s at least one video game to help you with that fantasy if you’re so inclined. We suggest you take a good look at the forest and decide what, if anything, needs thinning. Then fire up that hypothetical chainsaw and make room for the people who really want to work.


Cover up

By this point in your career you’ve either covered your own ass or you’ve covered someone else’s ass. Not much happens by ass-covering, other than spreading sh*t around instead of getting it done and cleaning it up.

If someone is spending too much time covering their or someone else’s ass, chances are they’re not spending enough time doing the work they’re supposed to be doing. That includes you. If you’re an executive, you don’t have time for that crap – you probably don’t have time to chew your own food some days. And no, we’re not offering that so don’t get your hopes up. Lesson here is to make sure there aren’t any blankets around. It takes more effort to cover your ass and get your work done than it does to get your work done and deal with the sh*t if and when it hits the fan.


MacGyver syndrome

You’re not in a television show. Don’t expect someone to be able to design a ground-breaking widget with a pack of gum and a paperclip. If they say they can, shove them out the door because there’s only one Richard Dean Anderson and we’re pretty sure they aren't him.

We’re willing to bet (heavily) that you don’t have a scientist bomb-disposal technician on your team who is also a secret agent. If you do, kudos. Otherwise, don’t let anyone tell you they can do it all – unless they’ve proven they can. Remember that subject matter expert thing in the dead weight section? Well, this is why executives invented “contractors”. Hire the right person for the right job. Sounds easy, but you’d be amazed at how many people really f*ck this one up. Then you’ll never get your sh*t done.


We didn’t say we’d sugar coat it. And sometimes it takes strong language to get across a strong message – and sometimes we just don’t give a damn. But you’re used to that from us by now, right? Right.

Go pour yourself a drink. You’ll need it. We do, and it’s not our ass that’s on the line here.


~ Paige

leadership by iconic - or, at least, memorable - figures

Despite what the woman with the great legs said (the awesome Tina Turner), we do need antoher hero. We're just not sure the leadership hero can be succinctly packaged into one human body. It's too much good stuff crammed into one tiny space.

But we think you can learn from those who have walked before you. Consider this the Cole's Notes version of Leadership 101. And you know how effective those little books were, don't you.


One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected.
~George W. Bush
If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, by all means baffle them with bullshit. It seemed to work as a good strategy for a certain elected official, and for more than one term. The increased use of multi-syllabic words can confound, and can often instil that intrinsic sense of leadership your minions should come to expect of you.

Next time you go out for dinner, have a look around the table and if everyone is on your payroll, the chances are you have become a jerk.
~Bono
Sometimes we don't have the heart to tell you, and maybe you wouldn't listen if we tried. So take Bono's advice. Lots of people have. Besides, he makes zillions of dollars so he's gotta be sort of smart, right?

As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what it is exactly that the VP does every day?
~Sarah Palin
We'd like to think that if you're a) running for the job or b) applying for the job, that you either a) know what the hell you're doing or b) can snow us well enough that we can't see the difference when you don't. Maybe we should hire Oscar winning actors. We thought Morgan Freeman made a good elected official. And anything he says just sounds smart.

I don't remember anybody's name. How do you think the 'dahling' thing got started?
~Zsa Zsa Gabor
So maybe Zsa Zsa came about before the whole equitable workplace thing and the anti-sexual harassment training. But she's awesome and has a cute accent. If you can get away with viewing your employees as monochromatic fodder - but make it sound adorable - we say go ahead and try.

I mean, there's no arguing. There is no anything. There is no beating around the bush. 'Your're fired' is a very strong term.
~Donald Trump
We're not sure what things transpired, but it seemed to work for the Donald. And in front of millins of witnesses, too.

Having hit a wall, the next logical step is to not bang our heads against it.
~Stephen Harper
Pointing out the obvious is always an indicator of strong leadership. We might suggest you reference the first example and add a few bigger words to give yourself some big word cred.

This doesn't happen when they use guns.
~Charlton Heston
We couldn't say it any better than the NRA lovin' dude himself.


~ Paige

putting the ship in leadership

We know you've waited for this for a long, long time. Well, at least since September 2009 when we started this blog. Then we hit a hiccup and didn't blog for a while (check the archives). Finally we were ticked off enough to start blogging again. So here we are. What the hell were we saying? Right. The thing you waited for.

It's what you were waiting for before you even knew you were waiting for it. Another blog on leadership. But this isn't just any leadership, see. It's leadership in a language you can understand.

You have a hard time with big words sometimes. We understand. Un-der-stand. So we took a long, hard look at what some of our common denominators were to better communicate with you. The list was short. It was either blockbuster movies of the 90's (because who could avoid them - then, or now on repeat over public broadcasting stations) or Twinkies.

We're sure there's a deep Twinkie philosophy buried in there somewhere, but we thought it might be a bit elevated for your vocabulary. Vo-cab-u-lary. The words you know. Yeah, that's it. Good for you!

That left us with movies from the 90's. There were a number of movies that could fit the bill, but only one stood out. It had everything: guns, tough guys, gals in tight black pleather and awesome visual effects (pretty pictures). And a hero that said "woah".

Welcome to Leadership: Matrix Style.

We took some of the more memorable one-liners and broke them down for the leadership gems that we know they are - in some cases, we made them a bit more leadership adaptable. A-dapt-able. And of course you already know all of these things - you're very smart. Just consider this a bit of a refresher course. Re-fre...oh, nevermind. Just read.


What happened, happened, and it couldn't have happened any other way.
Some may call this circular reasoning, but we call it making the ends justify the means. It's how you explain things not going according to the five year plan. You did a five year plan, right?

How do I know? I know because I'm supposed to know. It's my purpose.
This is a little like those pesky mathematicians when they're asked to define something really, really hard. Their answer: by definition. Since that was taken, we decided this line would be an acceptable substitute.

Not everyone believes what I believe. My beliefs don't require them to.
There's something in here about making the rules of the game fit your style of play, we're sure of it. But we're not sports-game people so we can't write a good sports metaphor for it. Met-a-phor. Go local sporting team.

Why am I here? Same reason as you. I love candy.
When in need of a solid deflection, this one's a good one. It asks the questioner to think about their own reason for being where they are. But not too closely, or they might find a level of discontent. Candy is the well-placed distraction. Have a bowl handy, just in case.

We're only what we're meant to do.
This is one of our favourites. Initially, it could be taken as an uplifting message for someone who might be a bit down on not getting a task completed, or not making it off off Broadway. However, if you look closely, you'll find that it's a nice little limiting phrase. They'll walk away scratching their noodle, for sure. Cookie?

There are only two possible explanations: either no one told me, or no one knows.
If there was ever take-charge kind of statement, this is it. Obviously, you know everything that goes on in your organization. Of course. If not, well, see the explanation above. Circular reasoning, welcome back.

There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept.
Think you know your bottom line? Truly? How low is your bottom line? Oh, come on - you can go lower than that. We know you can. We saw you do that trick at the retreat. You know, the one with the pool cue, toilet seat cover and the dixie cups? Lester had the incident with the hairball after that...

Choice; the problem is choice.
Indecision is a kill joy. Nothing interrupts a good strategic plan like choice. Then you have to consult, and talk to people - maybe even do some revising. Who has time for that? You have a company to run. We recognize that. And so, when all else fails, blame choice. What is choice, anyway? It's neither one or the other. Can't even make up its mind. Huh. Don't you hate that?

Time is always against us. Please, take a seat there.
Enough said.


~ Paige