DUBIOUS ADVICE FROM Robin Humphreys MFS Partnership Limited
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Process and Procedure are the last hiding place of people without the wit and wisdom to do their job properly. Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability. Never do today that which will become someone else's responsibility tomorrow. Put the key of despair into the lock of apathy. Turn the knob of mediocrity slowly and open the gates of despondency - welcome to a day in the average office. What does a squirrel do in the autumn? It buries nuts. Why? Cos then in winter time he's got something to eat and he won't die. So, collecting nuts in the summer is worthwhile work. Every task you do at work, think: would a squirrel do that? Think squirrels. Think nuts.	LibraryImages/Humour/schoolwriting1.jpg	When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, How would the Lone Ranger handle this? If you treat the people around you with love and respect, they will never guess that you're trying to get them sacked. If your boss is getting you down, look at him through the prongs of a fork and imagine him in jail. If you're gonna be late, then be late and not just 2 minutes - make it an hour and enjoy your breakfast. Remember the 3 golden rules: 1. It was like that when I got here. 2. I didn't do it. 3. (To your Boss) I like your style.

 

MERGER MANIA - ONE WAY ORGANISATIONS ARE TRYING TO COPE WITH THE NEW WORLD IS NOT TO GET MORE AGILE BUT TO GET BIGGER BELOW ARE SOME MERGERS WHICH COULD HAPPEN . .
Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W.R. Grace Company merge to become                                                                                                     Hale Mary Fuller Grace.	Polygram Records, Warner Brothers, and Keebler Crackers merge to become                                                                                                                                             Polly- Warner-Cracker.	Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining merge to become                                                                                                                                                                                Zip Audi Do Da.

 

 

TIPS FOR THE CAREER MINDED
1. Never take a beer to a job interview. 2. Always identify people in your office before barging in front of them at the coffee machine. 3. If you have to vacuum your desk it is time to put your CV out.		"So I was in my car, and I was driving along, and my boss rang up, and he said 'You've been promoted.' And I swerved. And then he rang up a second time and said 'You've been promoted again.' And I swerved again. He rang up a third time and said 'You're managing director.' And I went into a tree. A policeman came up and said 'What happened to you?' And I said 'I careered off the road.'"

 

 

LIFE _WORK BALANCE
A  lawyer opened the door of his BMW, when suddenly a car came along and hit the door, ripping it off completely. When the police arrived at the scene, the lawyer was hopping up and down with rage, complaining bitterly about the damage to his precious BMW. "Officer, look what they've done to my Beeeemer!!!" he shrieked. "You lawyers are so materialistic, you make me sick!!!" retorted the officer, "You're so worried about your stupid BMW, that you didn't even notice that your left arm was ripped off!!!" "Oh no...." replied the lawyer, looking down and noticing for the first time the bloody stump where his left arm had once been. "Where's my Rolex???"

 

Staying healthy: -How to Lose Weight at Work Without Doing Much
Here's the 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 To which you may want to add your own favourite activities, including: 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

Staying healthy: -How to Lose Weight at Work Without Doing Much

 

 

SKILLS COMPARATORS AND COMPETENCES

A doctor is talking to his car mechanic, "Do you realise that your hourly rate is over twice what we get paid for medical care?"

"Yeah, but think of it this way, Doc. You only have two models that haven't changed since Adam and Eve. But every month we need to learn the latest systems! Come to think of it Doc you and me we are alike you operate on people I operate on machines. You get some one with a heart problem you can operate and take out his heart and fix him up. I get a machine that will not run and I can take out the distributor and fix him up. Very much the same you and me."

The Doc looked at the mechanic and replied, "Try it with the motor running."

 

 

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

Primate Committee Thinking Experiment

Start with a cage containing five apes. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the Banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water.

After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result-all the apes are sprayed with cold water. Turn off the cold water. If, later, another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes will try to prevent it even though no water sprays them.

Now, remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? "Because that's the way it's always been around here."

 

CONSULTANT FOCUS

Three people escape from prison. In their previous lives one had been an engineer, the other a marketeer and the third a consultant . They run for miles until they came upon an old barn where they decide to hide in the hayloft and rest. When they climb up, they find three large gunny sacks and decided to climb into them for camouflage.

About an hour later the sheriff and his deputy come into the barn. The sheriff tells his deputy to go up and check out the hayloft. When he gets up there the sheriff asks him what he sees and the deputy yells back, "Just three gunny sacks."

The sheriff tells him to find out what is in them, so the deputy kicks the first sack, which had the engineer in. He goes, "Bow-wow", so the deputy tells the sheriff there is a dog in it.

Then he kicks the sack with the marketeer in it. She goes, "Meow", so the deputy tells the sheriff there is a cat in it.

Then he kicks the one with the consultant in it, and there is no sound at all. So he kicks it again, harder and again. Finally the consultant says, "Potatoes."

NEW WORLD THINKING

This seems elementary to me:

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip.  As they lay down for the night, Holmes said: "Watson, look up into the sky and tell me what you see".

Watson:  "I see millions and millions of stars".

Holmes: "And what does that tell you?"

Watson: "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets."

Holmes:  "No that’s not right."

Watson: "Theologically, it tells me that God is great and that we are small and insignificant."

Holmes:  "Wrong again!"

Watson  "Meteorologically, it tells me that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?"

Holmes: "It tells me that somebody has stolen our tent."

 

Before going to Europe on business, a man drove his Rolls-Royce to a downtown New York City bank and went in to ask for an immediate loan of $5,000.

The loan officer, taken aback, requested collateral and so the man said, "Well then, here are the keys to my Rolls-Royce."

The loan officer promptly had the car driven into the bank's underground parking for safe keeping, and gave him $5,000.

Two weeks later, the man walked through the bank's doors, and asked to settle up his loan and get his car back. "That will be $5,000 in principal, and $15.40 in interest", the loan officer said. The man wrote out a check and started to walk away.

"Wait sir", the loan officer said, "while you were gone, I found out you are a millionaire. Why in the world would you need to borrow $5,000?"

The man smiled. "Where else could I park my Rolls-Royce in Manhattan for two weeks and pay only $15.40?

"Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. And there are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them. It's either my mum or my dad. Or my older brother Colin. Or my younger brother Ho-Cha-Chu. But I think it's Colin."

 

NEW WORLD SOUNDBYTES

"No sense being pessimistic. It wouldn't work anyway."

 

 

PRIMER IN SOCIAL ECONOMICS

 

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as the regulations say you should need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbours help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

SINGAPOREAN DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed farm animals in an apartment.

MILITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbours pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "Cowgate".

BRITISH DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You feed them sheep's' brains and they go mad. The government doesn't do anything.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbours try to kill you and take the cows.

CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

HONG KONG CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your public-listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt / equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the feng shui is bad.

ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

TOTALITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: You are associated with (the concept of "ownership" is a symbol of the phallo - centric, war - mongering, intolerant past) two differently - aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non - specified gender.

COUNTER CULTURE: Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

 

CYBERSPACE DISADVANTAGES

 

Link Rot   The process by which links on a web page became as obsolete as the sites they're connected to change location or die.

Chip Jewellery    A euphemism for old computers destined to be scrapped or turned into decorative ornaments. "I paid three grand for that Mac SE, and now it's nothing but chip jewellery."

Crapplet    A badly written or profoundly useless Java applet. "I just wasted 30 minutes downloading this stinkin' crapplet!"

Plug-and-Play    A new hire who doesn't need any training. "The new guy, John, is great. He's totally plug-and-play."

World Wide Wait    The real meaning of WWW.

CGI Joe    A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure.

Dorito Syndrome    Feelings of emptiness and dissatisfaction triggered by addictive substances that lack nutritional content. "I just spent six hours surfing the Web, and now I've got a bad case of Dorito Syndrome."

Under Mouse Arrest    Getting busted for violating an online service's rule of conduct. "Sorry I couldn't get back to you. AOL put me under mouse arrest."

Glazing    Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open. A popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. "Didn't he notice that half the room was glazing by the second session?"

404    Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web message "404, URL Not Found," meaning that the document you've tried to access can't be located. "Don't bother asking him...he's 404, man."

Dead Tree Edition    The paper version of a publication available in both paper and electronic forms, as in: "The dead tree edition of the San Francisco Chronicle..."   

Egosurfing    Scanning the net, databases, print media, or research papers looking for the mention of your name.

Graybar Land    The place you go while you're staring at a computer that's processing something very slowly (while you watch the gray bar creep across the screen). "I was in graybar land for what seemed like hours, thanks to that CAD rendering."

Open-Collar Workers    People who work at home or telecommute.

Squirt The Bird    To transmit a signal up to a satellite. "Crew and talent are ready...what time do we squirt the bird?"

Brain Burp    A bi-product of a bloated mind producing information effortlessly. A burst of useful information. "I know you're busy on the Microsoft story, but can you give us a brain burp on the Mitnik bust?" Variation of old hacker slang that had more negative connotations.

Cobweb Site    A World Wide Web Site that hasn't been updated for a long time. A dead web page.

It's a Feature    >From the adage "It's not a bug, it's a feature." Used sarcastically to describe an unpleasant experience that you wish to gloss over.

Keyboard Plaque    The disgusting build-up of dirt and crud found on computer keyboards. "Are there any other terminals I can use? This one has a bad case of keyboard plaque."

Career-Limiting Move (CLM)    Used among microserfs to describe an ill-advised activity. - Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.

Elvis Year    The peak year of something's popularity. "Barney the dinosaur's Elvis year was 1993."

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

Adminisphere    The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

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

Blowing Your Buffer    Losing one's train of thought. Occurs when the person you are speaking with won't let you get a word in edgewise or has just said something so astonishing that your train gets derailed. "Damn, I just blew my buffer!"

(Also used as "Head Crash")

Gray Matter    Older, experienced business people hired by young entrepreneurial firms looking to appear more reputable and established.

Bookmark    To take note of a person for future reference (a metaphor borrowed from web browsers). "I bookmarked him after seeing his cool demo at Siggraph."

Nyetscape    Nickname for a less-than-full-featured Web browser.

Beepilepsy    The brief seizure people sometimes suffer when their beepers go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid-sentence.

Salmon Day    The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get nowhere in the end.

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Copyright Pentacle 2003 Eddie Obeng 1994 All rights reserved