Human Intercourse

You realise that when you're told that CEOs read sixty books a year there's an implicit statement there that those are worthwhile books, for some value of worthwhile?  Ah, I wish you weren't looking so puzzled.  Yes, yes, you're reading books, but they're books aimed at children.  Rather young children, in fact.  No, I think you'll find that the expected age for someone reading Mr. Bump is three.  I'm sure it is very educational, but reading sixty Mr. Men books in a year is not something to shout about unless you're still of an age when you haven't learned not to shout.  Hmm.  Well, it's odd you should ask that actually, since I do know someone perhaps a little older than you who would have genuinely benefitted from reading the Mr. Men books.  Well, perhaps having them read to him.  No, he's a Director of Technology... ah, I see that pride and hubris are the ways to your heart.  Yes, you're quite right, someone who wants to be CEO shouldn't be picking their books from a mere Director's reading list.
I'm Buddy.  No, I don't work for you. And no, security won't come up and throw me out, they let me in.  Yes, I'm expected, although perhaps not by you, and that's usually the case.  I'm a life-coach, a guru of sorts, a transcendental meditationalist... no, not a transformational medalist, though I was one of those briefly as well.  One of the Olympic Games.  No, I'm not telling you which country I represented, but I am mildly flattered by the asking.  Put your phone away – photographing me was uncalled for.  Well I'm glad it's not come out clearly.  Don't try again or I'll break your wrist.  What?  Some secret guru trick, obviously.  It took me sixteen years in the wilderness to learn it, seeking out an ancient and wise teacher and submitting to humiliation, punishment and heartache.
Well if you must know the Wilderness is a club in LA, but all the rest is right.  Well ok, years might be hours, and wise might be drug-addled and heartache might be heartburn.  It's the thought that counted in this case and I can still break your wrist.
So I'm here to talk to about human intercourse.  Yes, yes, I was expecting you to say that.  And that.  No, I wasn't expecting you to show me that, please put your phone away now.  I believe you.  Of course I believe you, you've just shown me the picture.  Thank-you.  Human intercourse, or the ability to hold a conversation with someone.
Yes, and that's the problem; you can't manage people if you can't relate to them, and you can't relate to people if you can't talk to them, and you seem pathologically incapable of saying the right thing.  I've seen the list of complaints made about you and frankly, if I were your HR team, I'd be sending you in for biological salvage and reprocessing.  What?  What year is this?  Damn, I could have sworn it was... never mind.  I'd have had you sacked and evicted from your home, then hunted from city to city by killer-clown and murder-hobos.  Yes.  Yes they're a thing.  They're going to be very big in a couple of months.  Anyway, your HR team have asked me to intervene a little.
Thoreau said something useful here, but I don't like quoting people other than myself as it dilutes my brand, so I'm going to tell you a little parable instead.  This is the parable of the parrot and the dermatologist.
Once upon a time there was a parrot that lived in a cage that was located on the 26th floor of a very expensive building somewhere not too far from Manhattan.  The parrot had an owner who was blind, both physically and mentally.  Every day the owner would clumsily fill the parrot's feed dish, and add water to the cage, and then, in the silence of the parrot's feeding, would call her son and believe the lies he told her for anywhere up to an hour on the phone.  After the phonecall was over the parrot was always quiet while it digested its food and considered the side of the conversation that had been audible to it, and so it would listen contently while its owner talked some more and debated with herself if she was good enough mother and what she could do to be more loving.  On one occasion she sent a large basket of sweaters, gloves and legwarmers to her son to surprise him, and on another she ordered a hundred bouquets of flowers to be sent to all the staff in his office with a small card attached containing a random quotation from Dorothy Parker.  The parrot would silently approve, and the owner would feel validated.
One day the owner felt that while she was doing everything she could for her son she was perhaps neglecting the parrot a little, and so she called a dermatologist to come and exfoliate the parrot and perhaps provide it with a little massage.  She considered her finances, and decided that the parrot could even request a 'happy ending' if it was so inclined.  The dermatologist arrived at the appointed time and was led, stumblingly, to the parrot's cage.
"Oh dear," said the dermatologist.
It transpired that the owner had weighed the parrot down under the load of birdseed and then waterboarded it repeatedly until it drowned, all unaware that her attempts to care were mere murder.
What?
The moral of the tale is that lying to your mother will cause your staff to stop working and ponder why eternity should be a man, a woman, and a ham locked in a room.
Ok, how about, the moral of the tale is that tragedy happens when silence is misunderstood? Or possibly that you shouldn't sell parrots to blind people?
Your takeaway from this?  If you have to ask, you didn't listen hard enough, did you?  Well... no, I don't think I want to tell that tale again.  OK, so your takeaway should probably be that staff like gift baskets, but that legwarmers won't be back in fashion again for another twenty years. Go with that, I'm sure it'll help sort the complaints out.

Acting on impulse

They say that a man is happy if his business is his pleasure.  I'm actually here today to tell you that although you may have achieved this, your business is a cruel and disturbing one, and you should probably stop doing it.
Well yes, and stop doing that actually.  It'll send you blind.
No, seriously, stop doing that please, or I'll get the scissors out and cut them off.
There, that wasn't so hard was it?  Well yes, I suppose arguably it was, but.... Yes, I am allowed to sigh at you like that.  I need ways to convey these things, and you don't seem to pay any attention to normal cues.  No, I don't know why you don't pay attention.  No, nor do I care.  Well go and see a psychiatrist then.  They're paid to listen to you neurot at them.  Actually it is a word, because I'm allowed to neologise.  I've done my time in the word-mines thank-you, and if I want to introduce neurot then I may.  And I think you'll find it's the answer to 17 across in this Saturday's Listener.
Well maybe you should.
No, I've been hired by your HR team.  Ok, your ex-HR team, and I'm sure they'll be delighted to discover that on Monday.  Ah, really?  That's probably one of the reasons that they've hired me then.  Because hiring sky-writers to let them know they're fired is expensive, unnecessary and humiliating.  No, hiring chuggers to go door-to-door in their neighbourhoods and spread the word of the sacking seems just as expensive and unnecessary.  No, I think posting it up in the local post-office, supermarket and restaurants is also unnecessary and humiliating.  Well I suppose there's an element of caring in that suggestion – I said an element, not to go ahead and do it!  Oh good grief, seriously?  You need to learn to control your impulses: people do not want their elderly mothers calling them and telling them that you've fired them and threatened to burn down their nursing homes.  Well I definitely didn't know you were joking.  No, I don't think she did either.  No.  No.  Oh good grief.  Why do even know the phone number of an arsonist?  Give me that.  Give. ME. THAT.  Damn it, you've got a grip like a sacculina barnacle.
Right, look.  The problem here is that you're impulse-driven and so much so that you can't even stop and recognise it.  Let me tell you a short parable, the tale of the ghost of my dead wife.
"Once upon a time there was a man who lived happily with his wife in a small house in a cul-de-sac not far from the magnificent Cathedral of the Derived Mind.  One day he was looking for the rat poison as there were rats seemingly getting into the cupboard where the rice sack was kept.  Looking at the bottle with its vivid green label and its little black skull and crossbones he was seized by an uncommon impulse and added a generous shot to the cup of tea he'd made for his wife.  Shortly thereafter, while he was poisoning the rice that the rats were eating, his wife drank her tea, and then retired to bed in pain.  That evening she died, and the man was moderately upset.
Three days later he brought home another woman he'd met while standing in line at the supermarket checkout.  She was tall and calm and wore fishnet stockings, a skirt that didn't quite cover her thighs and a bustier that was two sizes too small.  The man showed her into his bedroom and then hurried to the bathroom to brush his teeth and clean anything that was sweaty.  Such as his palms. When he turned the lightswitch on, the ghost of his dead wife was sat on the edge of the bath.
"Not now, woman," he said through clenched teeth, hoping that the woman in the bedroom wouldn't hear him.  "Come back tomorrow and moan at me then."
"You know she's a whore?" said his dead wife.  She opened her mouth in laughter and the man saw the flames of hell flickering at the back of her throat.
"She named her price in the supermarket," he said. "It was less than the groceries I was intending to buy."
"That does indeed sound like a bargain," said the woman.  "But when you buy the apples that are cheap, don't they often contain worms?"
"Well isn't that a lovely image?" said the man, brushing his teeth with vigour.  "I'm sure that will put me off if I let myself think about it.  Which I won't do, thank-you."
"Bury me properly and I'll let you get on sleeping with diseased, gold-digging bitches," said the ghost calmly. "Otherwise I'm going to keep kicking up a stink.  Literally, probably."
"I buried you!"
"You dragged me out to the back-garden and put the paddling pool on top of me," said the ghost of his dead wife.  "Foxes were chewing my skull last night, and I think one of my arms has been dragged off by a badger."
"Is that what that noise was?"
"You might have looked out of the window," said the ghost.  "But no, you and your hands were busy with each other.  You're pathetic, you know."
"And you're dead," said the man.  "Now let me get on with entertainment that doesn't require me to be solo."
"Bury me properly."
"Where?"
"In the grounds of the cathedral, of course."
And so it was some hours later the man prevailed on the prostitute to take two suitcases away from the house with her and deposit them in the gardens of the cathedral, where the custodians found them and their contents and promptly had the police arrest her and accuse her of murder.  She led them back to the small house, but the man in there was also dead, having eaten poisoned rice."
What?  Oh yes, there's a moral to this tale.  It's that prostitutes should be very careful to explain up-front what they're being paid for and not take on any additional tasks no matter how generous the offer may sound.
No, you don't look much like a prostitute, but I don't really know what a prostitute does look like.  Well there are other morals you could take away from the tale.  Like how sex is bad for you or how you should avoid having foxes chew your skull or something.
Yes, I imagine that your ex-HR team might let foxes loose in the office after they all get called by their elderly mothers.  Or at least after the nursing homes start burning down.
Yes, I do think calling the arsonist back might be a good idea.  No, I'm not telling you where I live.  No.  No.  Stop asking, or I'll tell you another parable.
Thank-you.

Switching off

Hi, I’m Buddy!  I’m your corporate and spiritual guide, your way to making a better way in the business world, and on the company time and dime too!  I’m loveable, laughable, lickable and likeable.  Well actually I’d prefer it if you didn’t lick me, but if you must.  Uh-huh.  No, you can’t do that again.  No, I don’t believe I taste like bacon.  I said NO!

Ok, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you.  Well that’s a lie, I did mean to hit you, because I don’t want you licking me again, but I didn’t mean to hit you quite so hard, and I had definitely forgotten that I was holding that pencil.  Yes, it’s quite a clean wound so it must have been quite sharp.  Poor you.

Right, I’m here to talk to you about switching off.  HR tell me that you’ve got the hang of it but only in the wrong areas.  You switch off in important meetings and don’t switch computers, lights, or microwaves off.  I don’t know, it’s just on the list they gave me.  Well, I imagine people would get upset if you switched the microwave off while they were using it, but that’s not what you’re being asked to do.  Being awkward isn’t winning you any brownie points you know.  Yes, they know how to switch things off, they’re more advanced than you in that regard and they’re mostly little girls under the age of ten.

Right, let’s do switching on first.  There was a company meeting last Thursday – yes, yes, you were there.  Asleep, visibly, for two-thirds of it.  Well you’re on the video recording they made of the presentation, sat directly in the camera-line, behind the Deputy Managing Director.  No, I can’t show you how to hack the HR pages and remove the video, and I definitely can’t point you at a search engine and this website.  No, no, really, don’t look at that.  I’m not leaving it there.  Definitely not.

You need to stay awake in meetings better, and you can do that by switching off more.  You spend too long in front of the computer screen.  No, that’s not a tan, that’s actually radiation burns from the monitor emissions.  Yes, I was surprised too, it normally takes thirty years for that to show up.  Then I found you have three monitors arranged to surround you.  Then I found your browser history.  No, not that browser, though I found that too.  That was dull.  This browser.  Yes, that one.  You can see from the timestamps that you were in front of those screens for 132 hours last week.  That’s why you’re so tired all the time, and why you’re switching off inappropriately.  You need to switch off appropriately now.

Yes you can, just push the button.  We can do this now as an exercise.  I’ll stand behind you to catch you, and you push the button.  It’s a trust exercise.

Oh I am sorry, you’re supposed to wait for me to tell you to go, not just do it on your own accord.  HR don’t want you developing your independence, just your obedience.  Can you get back up by yourself?  Good, good.  Do you want to try that again?  Well I understand but… yes but… well ok, I see your point.  We’ll try it again next time I come by.

Your phone beeped.  Oh you can look at it.  In fact I insist.  Because I know that it’s receiving the messages that you’d be otherwise seeing on that screen there.  You’re always on, always connected, and you hate the thought that something in here might happen without you.  You don’t have to midwife every bit of data sent through the transmission lines you know.  When Joshi was asked how many bits are in a byte he struck the questioner with a CAT-5 cable and yelled “Moo!”

Actually he was promoted to Senior SysAdmin and given a longer, heavier cable.  Well, because he knew how to handle the user, that’s why.  No, I think unasking the question is something else.  And you’re not awake to hear the questions to be able to unask them, are you?  No, you may not have a CAT-5 cable.  Yes, you may say “Moo” if it makes you happy and keeps you awake.

Well, my fallback plan is to move you on to 18 cups of coffee a day.  Plus caffeine tablets.  Yes, here’s the first three cups, I’ve already dissolved caffeine tablets in each of them.  I bet it does tingle when it goes down!  No, I worry about my health, they’re all for you.

Tofectomy

Hi!  I’m Buddy, your corporate and spiritual guru.  I’ve been assigned to you by HR after last week’s little… incident?  Perhaps we could charitably call it an accident.

Of course you have a choice.  The email from HR is sat in your Inbox, where you’ve been ignoring it for the last three days.  Well, haven’t you heard of read-receipts?  Yes, well the system we use doesn’t require a mail to be sent back, it recognises that you’ve opened the mail in another way.  Then it uses the built-in camera to monitor your eye movements and work out how much of the email you read and how carefully you paid attention to it.  No, the laptop is company issue and you’re required to use it for all company activities.  It does say so in your contract.  HR are aware that you didn’t read that either.

Actually yes, the NSA has been reading all of your mail.  We were more intrigued by the people who’s mail it turned out they weren’t reading.  But you’ve not got security clearance to know any more than that.  And you’re not to talk to Jishra in Accounting any more either.

Ok, breathing is a good start.  You should work on unclenching your fists too, and grinding your teeth, while popular, will probably upset your dentist.  That’s right, breathe in.  More slowly.  More slowly.  Well most people can manage quite a lot more slowly than that, it sounds like you’re channelling a steam train on a steep incline.  I can provide a mantra for you to recite in your – well, generally if you’re going to speak them out loud they should be less offensive.

Actually that is exactly why HR felt that you could use a little guidance.

Well, my first task is to perform a tofectomy.  Um, could you put that down please?  It’s clearly not what you think it is.  A tofectomy is simply the removal of tofu from your food.  We’ve noticed that you eat it rather a lot, and it’s causing a number of problems.

Enumerating people’s faults rarel – ok.  OK.  Put that down please.  Yes, in the drawer is good.  Can you close the drawer now?  That’s even better.

Fine, the problems form a trinity: first your body does not react well to tofu.  The smells you create are unpleasant, persistent, and allegedly require dry-cleaning to eradicate.  Second, you’re making tofu in the kitchen, which shows a healthy independent streak, a concern for your health, and some admirable innovation, but it’s a fermented product and it stinks.  Worse than you.  And third, tofu is known to contain aromatising substances, and it’s reaching the point where customers don’t know how to address you.  Well, a hair-cut would possibly help, but cutting down on the tofu would help more.  And maybe a short course of steroids.

Illegal is a tricky word.  It’s only illegal if you get caught, after all.  Yes, that does look very much like a prescription pad, doesn’t it?  How coincidental!  In fact, the company has a small R&D arm in the chemicals division and they could use some volunteers.  That gets round the illegality issue, and makes you look like a team player in one fell swoop.

Well, last week’s little accident….  No, no you definitely don’t look like a team player at the moment.  No.  No.  Upper management currently think you’re like the guy who stabbed the tennis player who grunted a lot.  Well, maybe guy.  I think she grunted a lot before she was stabbed, now you ask, but I realise I might have to check that to be certain.

Wikipedia??  And you were wondering why the NSA was reading your mail….

So, the tofectomy.  What?  No, I don’t believe that you’re allergic to everything else.  Considering what you put on the tofu to mask the lack of flavour in the first place, I don’t think there’s much you can be allergic to.  Possibly just tofu, in fact.

That hot sauce contains fifty different ingredients, three of which aren’t listed because you wouldn’t eat it if you knew about them.  And by the way, the permitted level of insect parts for that sauce definitely exceeds your RDA for spider legs and fly wings.  Well no, there’s no guarantee that they’re in there, but given how cheap they are, the manufacturer would be mad not to have them in the base already.

Why would I be vegan?  No, I’m Buddy.  I eat what I please, but I make sure I’m suitably sorry about it.  No, I don’t eat tofu, and I’m not sorry about that either.  Now hand over that tofacon sandwich and let’s get this intervention started!

Profiling

Hi, I’m Buddy, your corporate guru.  Well, actually, I’m your corporate-appointed guru, which is slightly different, but trust me, it makes you special.

Well, the first way it makes you special is that you’re the only person in your department to have a corporate-appointed guru, and the second way is that you and I are going to spending a lot of time together now, in order to get your karma valeted and your personality enhanced so that you’re ready to accept the promotion that is destined to be yours.  

No, I don’t do the valeting myself actually, that would be rather a waste of my talents.  I explain to you how you valet your own karma and you keep it maintained after that.  Or find someone to do it for you; Steve in Sales is always willing to lend a hand.  

I’d say sticky rather than clammy, but if you feel that way perhaps you’d be better looking for a valet of your own then.

Yes, I did mention a promotion, and I was hoping your might pick up on that.  Corporate only issue gurus when they feel that they need to promote someone to the management fast-tra– Oh, you’re already management?  That’s not down on your profile you know.

Oh really?  That’s a job title now?  Huh!  Well, you learn something new every day don’t you.  Oh don’t look at me like that, I bet that not’s what your business cards say… oh would you look at that!  You do have a card calling you that.  And you give them out….

Well, before we go any further then, I think we’d better profile you so that we’re both clear what we’re dealing with her.  No, not Myers-Briggs.  How nineties is that?  And who wants to be a collection of letters anyway?  Well, if you must know, I’ve collected about half the alphabet so far.  Yes, I know there’s only eight available in the standard version of the test.  And before you say it, yes, I know that the baby-version assigns you letters and doesn’t explain how you can go about collecting the missing ones.  I suppose that does sound a bit like Pokémon.  Yes, I’m writing that down.

So we’re doing a goodness-of-fit test to find out the kind of person you are, the kind of role you best fit in the company, and the best kind of company for you.  We’re looking for the obvious misfits first – librarian in a fire-station kind of thing – and then we’ll do a second pass looking for misfits that have arisen through natural career progression – expert stripper running the front desk and accounts for example. 

Yes, I have coached strippers.

No, I think you’re better suited to a less clothing-optional environment.  I mean that in a nice way, of course.

Look at these sixteen squares and pick the colour that you find most appealing.  Take your time, this matters.  No, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know the names of all these colours, not everyone could attend school every day, could they?  Well that’s clearly Nasturtium.  And that one’s burnt sienna.  Yes it is a colour, now just pick one!

Right good.  Now, I’m going to show you a list of names, pick out the ones you were called when you were at school.

OK, that many?  Well you’ve got quite a choice ahead of you then; pick out one that hurt most and you really hated, and one that didn’t bother you at all.  Or at least, the one that hurt less than all the others.  You can take your time so long as you’re not going to tell me you don’t know what all the names mean.

Well that one is a bit unusual, but you can find it in the Urban Dictionary.  No, don’t look it up at work.

OK, that’s good.  One more for now; which of these hair-styles have you never tried?

Right, that’s fantastic.  So, taking what you picked, your basic personality type is homicidal.  I get that a lot, I think I’m getting type-cast you know.  Not that this is about me at all.  And your preferred role in a company is… dreamer.  That’s a little unusual, but every company needs someone with a big picture and a vision of how to achieve it.  That’s very useful, this will be why you’ve been gurued.  And the kind of company you’d work best in is… mobile ice-cream sales.

Oh, I am sorry.

Well no, I have to report this back now.  And you might want to think about where you could buy an ice-cream van from.

To succeed in business...

Put the mouse down, and nobody gets hurt.  No, I’m actually not joking.  I was at a course on business-kendo a couple of weeks ago and one of the things we were taught is how anything on an office desk is a weapon if you look at it the right way.  No, your mousemat isn’t a shield, though you might roll it up and smack the nose of Nate in Accounts with it.  He could do with understanding that no means no.  Or, given that he’s an accountant, that no means not-tax-deductible.  Ah, I see from the look in your eyes that you’re starting to understand.  No, no, I’m just putting the stapler down.  You don’t need to flinch quite so much.  It’ll come out pretty much of its own acco– no, don’t play with it, it’ll bleed.

Business-kendo.  It’s a very good course and you should definitely arrange to go on it.  Well, what department ever has budget for training unless the trainee is particularly useless?  If you’re any good at your job then they can’t afford to lose you for the days you’d be off training.  What you need to do – you should be taking notes, by the way – is offer to take the training as part of your holiday allowance.  Make sure it’s booked, then cancel the holiday because your nephew has returned from Greece with some kind of rash and it appears to be contagious enough that his mother’s having trouble finding a doctor willing to treat it.  Take pictures – Instagram has the right kind of filters for adding that, though you’ll need the special package.  Yes, here’s a barcode you can scan that’ll give you access.  Don’t mention it.  Now, your holiday will be cancelled, but the cancellation fees for training courses can be ruinous, so they’ll send you anyway.  Ideal.  You can only really pull this stunt once a year though, so I’d pick your courses carefully.  No, keep the catalogue of courses hidden away, that’s what desk drawers are for.

Well, after business-kendo I’d recommend the How to introduce business-sepuku course, but I have to declare an interest.  Yes, I teach the course.  Yes, I am Buddy.  Yes, I am that Buddy.  My, don’t you look like Worried and Cheerful had a child and you’re it?

I knew a man once, who made a habit out of insisting that his staff brought labelled cheese sandwiches for lunch every day, and then during the office meeting in the morning he would sneak out and swap all the cheeses around in the sandwich.  They found him four weeks after it started, with all the pages from “Who moved my cheese” stapled individually to his face.

There is a meaning to that story, and it’s about moving cheese unnecessarily, but it’s not why I’m here today.  I’m here to provide a little free training, a little business guru-ing for you.  A little Buddy-zen, if you will.

Your aphorism for today is To succeed is business, it is necessary to make other people see things.  The point of this should be obvious to you: if people can’t see things, then they don’t understand the problems that you face, or how your proposals can solve them.  You don’t want to be known as Carol-who-thinks-we-always-need-more-toner any longer do you?  The problem you have is that you are the only one who checks the printer queue, so it’s always you who notices that one of them is out of toner.  If you didn’t do that – if you stuck to your own job instead – then other people would also complain about the toner.  But you’re more efficient than that, so you don’t, and you end up always complaining about the toner.  So, how do you get other people to see things?

Putting acid in the water supply would certainly work, but that’s not the right answer.  If you reduce the  number of printers in the office then people will start to see the benefits of the greater number, and understand the need to look after the– what is that?

What are you doing with that in the office?  I’m not sure it is a permitted additiv– what?  No, you really can’t – no, you shouldn’t– no, wait!

I see.  Well, clearly you’re beyond the kind of advice and help I can offer you, and you’re going places all by yourself.  No, no I don’t think I will explain what I mean actually.  I’ll just go as well, and leave you to this.  No, I still wouldn’t play with the staple if I were you, it’ll bleed.  Yes.  Exactly like that in fact.

Forcing

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.  No, seriously, that’s just going to –.  Well.  Ouch.  That’s quite a lot of blood you’re losing there, don’t you think?

You don’t need to shout.  In fact, I have my doubts that you’ll be able to shout much longer if you don’t do something about that blood loss, and quickly.  You’re staining the carpet as well, you know?  Oh, you hadn’t noticed?  Well you are, and I believe that Facilities are very big on charging these kinds of things back to you if you can’t demonstrate that it was genuinely an injury occurred during your working day.

Well, you’re in the office, even if it Saturday.  Facilities aren’t going to just roll over and play dead because it’s overtime you know.

No, I’m not in Facilities.  I find that quite complimentary actually, they work very hard at what they do, and if it all goes smoothly then no-one ever comes up and congratulates them on a job well done, do they?  What?  No, I’m not going to call an ambulance for you.  I’m Buddy, I’m here as a corporate guru, your helper through the minefield of office politics.  My job is to see that you’re fit for the chase, not to pick you up half-way through, kiss your boo-boos better and tell you ‘better luck next time, child’.  Call your own ambulance.

Well, pressure on the wound is definitely a good idea, though I’m not sure I’d use my belt as a tourniquet like that.  Because it’s going purple, that’s why.  Fine, if you’re comfortable like that, you do so.  You should still call an ambulance in my opinion.

Why am I here?  Ah, I’m glad you finally asked, I was starting to think I was just part of the furniture to you.  I’m here to talk to you about Forcing.  Oh don’t look so embarrassed, even HR knows about the magazines in the locked drawer of the bottom of your desk, but that’s not what I meant.  As a life-lesson though: don’t keep that kind of thing near people you don’t want seeing it. Keep it at home, or if that doesn’t work, put them in a heavy-duty plastic bag and find a field somewhere, with some concealing bushes, and bury it there.  After all, and this is, you understand, only peripheral, your drawers can be forced too, and locking them just makes that all the more appealing.

No, of course the drawers don’t look forced.  Facilities have all the master keys, for those days when you lock your laptop in there and accidentally swallow the key.

Forcing is about taking an idea whose time has clearly come and sanding it down a little, smoothing away the rough edges and trimming off the inconvenient corners until it will fit like a tight little peg in the hole you’ve picked out for it.  Like family-trees, only with fewer recriminations and withheld party invitations.  It’s big with the kind of people with corporate, non-food, uses for transglutaminase.  Actually I know you know what I mean, but you should be aware that you have a tell when you lie.  You breathe.

You’re at the point in your career now when you need to consider Forcing as an option.  The corporate ladder doesn’t just grow new rungs when you need them, nor do people climb down very often, or fall off without a little help.  You need to figure out how to use Forcing to shoulder your way up to the next rung and stay there, elbowing the people around you until you’ve cleared enough space for you to be confident of Forcing your way up to the next level.  No, it doesn’t have to be illegal.  Unless you feel there’s no other viable options I suppose, but I’m sure there will be.  I’ve never had a client yet who actually needed to do something illegal.

Well, we have some simple exercises for you to do – although I would recommend that you call that ambulance before you try any of these.  Yes, I’m aware how hard it is to use a touch-screen phone when your hands are all bloodied and weak, but you don’t need to know the details of that.  Just keep trying, you’ll get there eventually.  But back to the Forcing: do you remember your secretary telling you about the cruise she’s booked for her fifteenth wedding anniversary?  Your secretary.  Short woman, wears purple a lot, types at 150wpm and drinks camomile tea from a mug with a yellow daisy painted on it.  Your.  Secretary.  Yes, that one.  The ambulatory shrub, yes.  How much blood do you think you’ve lost now?  Well, her holiday will mean that she’s not around during the next corporate retreat, which you’re expecting to give three presentations at.  Ah, that look on your face means that you’ve seen the issue as we– oh, I see if meant you’d just lost control of your bladder.  Oh well.  Facilities will be charging you for that too, you know.

Back to your secretary: if she’s on holiday you won’t be organised enough to give all three of those presentations, but you need to in order to show everyone that you work much harder and are more committed.  So you need to find a way to get your secretary to be available, you need to Force her.  More than that though, you need to provide her with an outlet for her anger at your Forcing, and that outlet should be Scott’s PA.  That way Scott won’t be as-well-prepared as he should be, and you can leapfrog him.  Yes, quite possibly literally; I hear there’ll be team-building events on this retreat.  So you need to find a way to cancel her holiday and make it Scott’s PA’s fault.

Are you listening to me?  Hello?  Don’t make me hit you.

Huh.  I guess that ambulance is going to be a bit la–.  Ah, you never actually managed to hit the Call button.  No ambulance then.  

I wonder what Scott is doing today?

Buddy: My heart burns like fire

Hi!  You look… well-fed.  Perhaps a little too well-fed, really.  Overstuffed, like a couch.  And that colour you’re turning, well, you know that healthy people can’t manage that colour?  That’s congested blood, pooling in the tissues of your face because your blood-pressure’s up and your heart is struggling to maintain it, despite the fact that you’re neither fit for fight nor flight.  It’s – well, I suppose the closest thing I know is bruising.  Your face is bruising with the strength of my words.

I’m Buddy, I’ve been assigned to you.  What?  Yes, by “Corporate” if that means something to you.  What?  Well why should it mean anything to me?  I’ve just been assigned to you to help you through the troubles and tribulations of corporate life.  I’m like a life coach, only better.  No, I’m not going to shake your hand thank-you, I’ve no clue where it’s been.  Actually, from the look of your face, and the look on your face, I suspect it’s been in the chocolate box a little too often.  I worry that I might contract diabetes by touch.  I’m not interested in your opinion, thank-you very much, please keep it to yourself.  Unless you think you might eat it, in which case putting it in a safe place might be advisable.  How about – oh.

So, desk drawers are not really the right place to keep cream cakes.  You knew that, right?  Oh good.  Well, let’s get started then, since the reasons for me being here are now so apparent.  Let me tell you a little story about the non-dweller.

Once upon a time in a better place than this, where better people than us lived and were happy, was a man who was so close to enlightenment that he seemed almost transparent to everyone who saw him.  When he walked into shops, public baths and inspectorates people would often start, then stare as he walked past them, wondering if what they saw was a man or a ghost.

One day the man walked into a tiny bar where food was served, an izakaya known to everyone who lived in that place, and sat down at a small table where his friend already sat.  In front of his friend was a plate of baked mushrooms sizzling softly in a wide pool of soy sauce, some skewers of tiny whole fish that had been grilled and daubed in chili oil, a bowl of deep-fried shrimp tempura and a selection of spring vegetables heated just sufficiently to make them as vibrant and tasty as had they just been picked.  The non-dweller sat down, and the owner of the izakaya immediately approached him, bowing his head low and offering him the owner’s own sake cup to drink from.  A bottle of sake was placed on the table, and the non-dweller’s friend immediately moved it slightly to one side, away from his food.  The non-dweller looked at him and smiled.

“I believe that my friend is hungry,” he said to the owner of the izakaya.  “Please, bring him all the same dishes again so that he may sate his hunger.”  The owner did as he was bidden, and the non-dweller sipped the sake, drinking perhaps less than a quarter of the cup before the table was overflowing with dishes, and the smell of hot food rose tantalisingly all around them.  People at other tables discreetly leaned in to appreciate the exquisite cooking.

“Will you eat with me,” asked the friend at last, gesturing at the dishes that surrounded him with his chopsticks.  The non-dweller picked up a single skewer of fish and delicately ate a single fish from the tip, then placed the skewer back down.

“Is that it?” asked the friend, but his countenance betrayed his happiness that all the remaining food might be for him.

“One should eat to moderation, and never to the point of satisfaction,” said the non-dweller, and stood up and left the izakaya.

Yes, there is a reason why he’s called the non-dweller, but I don’t think it’s anything you should worry about for now.  The message of the story is not that the protagonist had a name that you find strange.  Perhaps you could think about the story as a whole, instead?

No, it’s not a message that you should start a diet, though if you were to ask me that question I suspect that I would say you should.  Or rather, you should change your current diet, as it is causing you to put cakes in your drawers instead of papers.  Keeping the papers on your desk where you must constantly look at them and remember that you’ve not done anything with them will stress you, and when you are stressed you will crave food like the cake in your drawers.  You are forcing yourself to eat by your actions.

No.  I don’t believe that putting fish in your drawers will solve the problem.  I’ve seen this tried before, all that happens is that you replace your glue-stick with a whipped cream dispenser and start eating creamed fish.  It’s a change to your diet, definitely, but not for the better.  Although no-one will want to sit next to you on the tube, which can be quite useful.

I suppose we could go and talk about the story over lunch.  Where were you thinking of eating?

Oh.  No, I can’t eat there.  My heartburn’s like fire and that would only stoke the flames.  How about… what?  No, none of the restaurants on this list are good for me.  They’re all the ones you have an expense account with?  Really?  McDonalds and an expense account?  That many cheeseburgers?  That would explain a lot.

OK, I’ll be back after you’ve eaten then.  You might want to think about the story of the non-dweller while you’re eating though, as I’ll be asking questions again later.  There are several morals to the tale actually, and I’ll give you one for free: Thin men fit through doorways more easily.  Yes, after you.

Oh.  You actually get stuck in the doorway.  I wasn’t expecting that.

Buddy: Inbox Zero

Wow, it’s cold in here isn’t it?  Have you considered getting your assistant to turn the air-conditioning down a bit?  Well, maybe just to the point that I can’t see icicles on the edge of your desk.  You know, icicles on the edge of the desk suggests that you might have a leak up in the ceiling… oh, spilled coffee, eh?  That would explain their odd colour.  What did I think they were?  Rust, probably, from old air-conditioning pipes.  This isn’t exactly the plushest office I’ve ever been in.

Who am I?  I’m Buddy, I’m your guardian angel, at least for a little while.  I’m here to help you find direction in your life, and leverage that into your business activities.  Think of me as a kind of guru for work, a way to make sure you get things done.

Oh, you’ve read that, have you?  You’ve not paid much attention to it though, I see.  Where’s your tickler file?

That’s… not what I meant by a tickler file.  Yes, yes, completely.  They’re definitely ticklers.  Some are even french, no you don’t need to show me… well thank-you anyway.  No, I’m not going to try it out.  Put it away please.

A tickler file, a file that contains items that you intend to do someday.  Something you can pick up and open up when you’ve a spare moment and see what else you could be using to regiment your life.  Something that contains all those things you know you want to do but never seem to have the time for, or that need more planning that you can afford to start at the moment.  You know, back when I was at work I had two tickler files because one wasn’t enough to contain everything I wanted to do.  It reached the point where I wasn’t looking at them anymore because I didn’t know where to start.  That’s when I realised that I was so busy getting things done that I wasn’t getting anything done that I wanted to do.  I wasn’t doing what was important to me.  I needed to change that, and I put a note about it in my tickler file.

Three months later I woke out of a dream where I was organising cabbages in the walk-in fridge in the corporate canteen and realised that I’d forgotten about that note, and I was now doing so much around the office that they’d made three-quarters of the staff redundant.  They’d turned me into a single-point of failure.  I knew that I needed to do something about it, so I moved my computer into the walk-in fridge and dressed only in summer clothing.

What?  Well, bermuda shorts mostly.  I’m not ashamed of my body, I don’t mind being topless.  No, please put your shirt back on.  Well, you’re fatter than me, for a start.  Look, the point was that I couldn’t spend too much time at my computer any more, so I could reduce my work-load by focusing on tasks that took longer and used my actual skills to better advantage.  I stopped organising every cupboard, closet and fridge in the office and let other people struggle with their faulty filing systems.  I stopped shadowing the maintenance guy and fixing all his botches and let Facilities have never-ending arguments with him and his bosses about his short-comings.  I stopped reading my secretary’s mail and beating her to the punch and started reading my boss’s mail and short-circuiting his plans for advancement.  I started getting things done, my way.  And I suddenly had time in the day for other things, so I opened my tickler file and started doing things from there.  I went sky-diving.  I bungee-jumped.  I volunteered for a week in a sleep-study clinic; it was the most peaceful week of my life. I loved it all.

Well yes, I think it is a motivational story, thank-you.  But I can see that you’re wondering what this has to do with you.  You need help, and you need a boost.  Possibly you need a kick up the backside as well, but that comes later.  First of all, you need to implement Inbox Zero, and then we’ll see about getting you back on the corporate ladder, getting ready to climb and achieve everything that you know, in your heart, you deserve.

Put. The. Ticklers. Away.

Inbox Zero.  We need to put your PC somewhere too cold to hold, so that all your email becomes too hot to handle.  We need to keep you focused on only the most essential and urgent tasks.  It’ll rapidly become apparent that other people can do the other tasks when they stop depending on you to do things.

That’s a good point, let’s turn the air-con up instead of down.  The chill in this office is almost enough to stop a normal man from working anyway… well, given you’re the size of a walrus, and smell unpleasantly like one too, I imagine that your blubber is insulating you better than a normal man.  Don’t look at me like that, you asked.  I tell the truth, dude.

Right, the air-con’s up.  I wonder why the switch was padlocked though?  You don’t know?  Are you sure you don’t know?  Oh well, one of those little corporate mysteries I suppose.  You should move that plant outside.  Well, because it’s going to freeze solid in the sub-zero temperatures you’re going to get in here from now on… what?  Yes, wear thermals.  No, I don’t want to see the catalogue, thank-you.  Put it away.

Right, you’re looking a little bluer now.  Are you feeling the chill?  Excellent, now you can look at your email.  How many messages are there in your Inbox?  Eighty?  That’s a lot for someone who’s getting things done… these are… these are mostly spam.  Well, they’re flagged as junk here, see the little icon?  Just click this.  Yes, see, you’re down to eight already.  Let’s read the first one and then act on it.

Right, so that needs you to speak to the CEO’s PA.  No, don’t phone her, it’s too cold in here for that.  You need to walk – waddle – over to her and speak to her in person.  Yes, people will see you’re out of office and know that you’re not available.  Trust me, I’m Buddy.  It’ll work.

Damn but it’s cold in here.  Still, Inbox Zero.  It’s a winner, trust me!

The Hawthorne Effect

Hi, it's me again!  Buddy, your friendly guide to conquering your fear of the corporate, to understanding the myriad ways of business, and the only guy willing to help you unwrap yourself after that Zen Yoga class where you actually managed to get your foot in your mouth.  Yes, yes, I remember, you don't want to talk about where you managed to get your other foot.  Did everything... un-stretch, I suppose... afterwards?
I see that you're sitting there composing a memo.  And you're using that unholy office-software program again.  I've told you, it'll give you warts.  Well, look, there may be no scientific studies proving that it does, but there's equally no scientific studies proving that it doesn't.  And does anyone ever come up to you and tell you that it's safe to use and doesn't give you warts?  I think you see my point.
Your memo looks quite interesting, I'm surprised that Clippy hasn't popped up to ask you if you'd like it euthanised yet.  I can see that you're simply trying to instate a sensible health-and-safety policy, but have you considered that the best policy might be no policy at all?  No?  Let me tell you a little fable.
Once upon a time in a busy metropolis, there was a shiny new office building in a Ballardian office park.  The park had a water feature, which was a lake that contained fish, birds of varying sizes, and the occasional drunken, naked employee of the surrounding office buildings, who was invariably quickly fished out by security patrols and first dressed up and then dressed down.  In one of the many buildings, where the view looked out to the centre of the Metropolis and the landscape was dominated by increasing numbers of tall buildings, there was a Human Resources manager who cringed at the idea of Managing Resources when he should be relating to people and who spent much of his day attempting to undo the damage that senior management felt could be inflicted on the people who worked there.  For senior management, people were not resources of course, they were nothing more than the transitionary stage between headcount and bodycount.
One day, while the Human Resources manager was attempting to implement a policy against Bribery and Corruption that didn't explicitly state how the loopholes could be lined up to drive a very large, solid gold truck full of hospitality gifts, house-warming presents and illegal immigrants through, he received an email from the Evil Queen, who preferred to be referred to as the Company Secretary.  The email declared that in the interests of cost-cutting in departments that were unrelated to the Company Secretary's aims there would be a mandatory blood donation scheme set up, and the proceeds (i.e. bags of blood) would be sold at an amusing profit on the black market.  Employees were to be told that they were making a valuable contribution to society, and posters of starving children working in Chinese-looking fish-canning factories were to be put up in all public areas to encourage employees to feel guilty if they didn't give blood.  Employees with rare blood diseases, sexually active lifestyles, or conscientous grounds for not giving blood were to be sacked as quickly as possible and anyone who protested this treatment was to have their name left discretely in a "suggestion" box in the canteen and absolutely nothing would be done with that name.  Honest.
The Human Resources Manager sighed heavily, reading the email over and over again, then checking the date to see if it was April Fool's Day.  Sadly it was the middle of Autumn, and the email appeared to be entirely serious.
The HRM did not in fact, do any of these things, because he was a good manager who understood the importance of relating to people.  Instead, he sent round an email telling all employees that there would be a preventative blood test done that required their attendance because of a recent outbreak of water-borne disease that might have a home in the lake in the Ballardian office park.  These tests would repeated on a regular basis until such time as the company was sure that the risk was gone, and would be carried out entirely at the company's expense.  He made no effort to sack anybody, reasoning that people buying black market blood were already taking a risk, and there was no good reason for him to mitigate that risk.  He put up no guilt-inducing posters at all, but instead spoke casually to many, many people around the office asking after symptoms and generally showing a caring and considerate attitude.
This had the effect of getting a 99% take-up rate for the blood-drive, with the 1% of abstainers being primary Senior Management, and the Employees looked entirely happy about it all, little knowing that their pints of blood were selling for a little over fifty pounds sterling each on the black market.  This effect, that of doing nothing other that telling people that you care about them and still getting results, was named after that HRM and is therefore known as the Hawthorne effect.
What?
Oh, the HRM ousted the Company Secretary in an internal coup based primarily on the success he'd had getting the employees to give blood, and when he went through her email he discovered that there were another forty-five ways to monetise the employee base without reducing their health below what was required to attend work four days out of five and he set about finding ways to get the employees to actually volunteer for these services.  I think he's retired somewhere now.
The moral of this story, as you can no doubt tell, is that you should never assume that something is biowaste when it can be handed out to the gullible and rich on the black market.

Buddy service

Hi, welcome.  Wipe your feet, sit down.  That's your chair over there, the one with your name on it.  Yes, we know your name.  We've known your name for a long time, we've been expecting you too.  Me?  Oh, you can call me Buddy.  I'm your spiritual advisor in this corporate climate, your life-coach for the long-run, your buddy for the time you spend holding your breath underwater... that might be taking the metaphor a little too far.  Maybe.
Today I want you to think about the people around you.  Can you do that?  Can you picture them in your mind's eye?  Think about the office you work in, think about the people closest to you.  Think of the woman who's a little too old for the clothes she wears, who catches your eye and titillates you with a mixture and of desire and disgust.  Think about the guy two desks over with the sinus problem that means he's always sniffing.  And I mean always.  Think about the receptionist who's clearly only been hired because of how she looks.  The other one, the guy?  Yeah, he was hired for how he looks too.  You can see that now you think about it, can't you?  Think about them all.
Scream if you like.  Let it out.
They're filler.  They're life's extras, they're the walk-on players and the bit parts.  They've never had coaching, they've never been given any lines to learn, or any time in the limelight.  When the spotlight transfixes them, they freeze.  They don't know that the only reason the audience is watching them is because it's time to leave.  Messily, usually.  Remember the guy from accounts who drank so much whiskey his liver burst in the toilets on a Thursday afternoon?
Bit player.
Hack.
Not like you.  You're here to hear what the director has to say, you have a role to play in this life, you're getting your name in the credits.  You're already a success, you just don't know it yet.  And the first piece of advice from the director?  Stop picking your nose when you're on the toilet at work.  It's not a good use of your time and it makes your hands dirty.  Did you notice that I didn't shake hands with you when you came in?  Now you know why.
There are hundred and thousands of people who are just filler, who don't realise that their mundane lives are dull and boring because they're not part of the plot.  When you overhear them on the bus and their conversations are so proletarian and dull, that's because you're listening too hard to them saying "Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb," over and over again and you're mistaking it for thought.  There's no thought, their mouths are just running away, turned on but without the engine turning over.
But they're still waiting and watching, some of them intend to steal your part if you're not looking after it properly.  You can tell; the moment they become interesting they become a threat.  Act decisively and fast whenever you spot someone becoming interesting.  Cut them down, cut them out, cut them up.  Figuratively, not literally.  We know about the knives, ok?  Put them back in their place.  They're filler, it's only what they deserve.
Who?  Well, you know that guy on reception?  Yeah, the good-looking one I was talking about earlier.  Well, he's just started sleeping with the woman who dresses ten years younger than she is.  That's already interesting, isn't it?  And you know what?  If you asked him, he'd do you too.  He's on his way up, he's becoming noticeable.  He's becoming a player.
What should you do?  Sleep with him, of course.  You need to become more interesting to compete and to be blunt, nuns have a better time of it than you do.  So sleep with him, find out something better about yourself.  And read the script; someone's got to die in six pages time.

Elephant tusks

There is a saying: are there any elephant tusks in a rat's mouth?
The keeper of antiquities in Li-Dong National Museum knows that there are, because the rats in Li-Dong are of an abnormally large size, and there is a great collection of elephant tusks held in the basement of the National Museum.  The rats are often seen to scamper through, their tails coiling behind them like pink whips, carrying elephant tusks in their mouths, though no-one will offer an explanation or venture a guess as to why.  The keeper of antiquities often looks quite cheerful when he says that there are indeed elephant tusks in a rat's mouth.
However, two weeks ago on an inauspicious Monday – he knew it was inauspicious by the way the leaves fell from the beech tree in the garden despite it not being autumn, and because the milk curdled when he poured into his bowl of über-bran cereal – he made this reply to a couple of visitors to the museum, and was surprised that they listened to him.
"You see!" said the younger man of the pair.  "You see, I have said many times that to create a parable out of nonsense only infuriates the universe and causes it to give meaning to the nonsense you speak.  It is dangerous, oh gangrenous master!"
"Fool student," said the older of the men, shaking his head slowly from side and side and causing a slow but steady fall of white hairs from his scraggly beard.  "The universe is unconcerned by the infestations that dwell within it, just as you are unconcerned by the symbiotic bacteria that live in your gut.  Yet if the infestation should fail then the larger organism will be taken down by its very absence, so it behooves the larger to consider the smaller in all things.  This means, to my unending sorrow, that I must heed your words, though they speak only the mind of an idiot, and that I must take the time and trouble to correct you."
"Any time you're ready, oh unhealthy one," replied the student.  "I am still waiting on your wisdom from the wedding of the Jojobans, so I trust you will understand that I am not holding my breath that I might hear you more clearly, at least not until you start speaking."
"Child," said the master not unkindly, "you have the wisdom of a monkey who grabs at the reflection of the moon in a woodland pond, not realising that by attempting to seize only the image he declares his fascination with the material above the spiritual.  The wedding of the Jojobans is desirous of a proverb, and such a distillate of wisdom is not something that dribbles daily from the tap–"
"Do your own laundry then," whispered the student, and the master appeared not to hear.
"– and it will necessarily take as long as is necessary.  However, the correction you need is that the universe has no functioning anthropic principle, strong or weak.  It was not put here for you, but it will attempt to accommodate you so long as you do not bend it out of shape too much.
"Is there not a proverb that asks for what the universe was created if not the entertainment of man?"
"There is, but again, you overlook a key point."
"What's that?"
"You assume that you are sufficiently sane to understand the universe."

Buddy jobs

Ah, there you are.  You ought to check your watch when I say that, you know.  Otherwise you don't look quite – ah, let's say dedicated – enough.  And you're late.
Well, you might feel that ten to nine is good enough, but it's not really, not at this level.  You need to be seen being here before everyone else, and be seen leaving after everybody else.  You have your own office, it's not as though you can't spend three or four hours a day doing your own thing.  Except not that thing with your hands and the magazine in the locked drawer of your desk.  That's starting to upset the cleaners.  We know because of the hidden camera in the ceiling tiles.  Well, you'll only be able to prove that it's an intrusion into your privacy if you can find the camera, won't you?
Well, thank-you for asking at last!  I'm Buddy, your guide to corporate culture and the fast track up the greasy pole to the top.  What?  Well yes, most people do find greasy poles rather hard to climb, that's why you need a guide.  And why getting to the top is so worthwhile, and yet so hard.
Your problem, you see, is that you don't work enough.  At this stage of your career you should be empire building, creating a foundation for later on when you'll be able to spend your days drinking coffee, doing the crossword, and occasionally getting some exercise on the golf-course.  What?  Wives are expendable, and, if she's the woman in the picture on your desk then you're going to want to trade her in in the next year or two anyway.  Start simple, get a trophy wife; go for someone with an attractive but fatal wasting disease.  There are some excellent ones available from the right kind of package holiday tour to Africa or South America these days, and you get the benefit of having someone on your arm who makes Victoria Beckham look like a fat heifer and knowing that in two or three years time you'll be able to upgrade again, guilt free.  In fact, make mutual life-insurance policies part of the pre-nup, and you'll even get paid for the upgrade.
Love is a many splendoured thing, to be sure, but it has no place in business.  I can recommend an excellent divorce lawyer for you.  Don't worry, he can find a reason for you to get a divorce.  Actually, if you've got any kind of impotence, that would help a lot.  You haven't?  Well, there's no need to take that tone, I was only asking.  Well, yes, you do look a bit impotent, now you ask.  No, I'm not leaving, not until we've finished talking.
About your working; there's a job you were informed about yesterday in your department.  No, I'm not suggesting you change jobs, I'm suggesting you do two at once.  No, really.
Well yes, it is more work, but you seem happy to turn up at ten to nine, so there's at least two hours of the day you're missing out on.  Come in at seven, go home at seven, skip lunch and you've got nearly a full working day there.  The job's in the same department, so we can acheive synergies and economies from overlaps, and you can easily do both jobs as once.  And, – and this is the key point here! – you deprive someone else from that job.
To successfully build an empire you need to have control.  If you manage multiple jobs, then you can appoint your own people to take out parts of your work, which means that you can end-run the whole recruitment process and steadily fill the department with people who owe their jobs to you.  And when the department is full, you know that it is loyal to you, and if you do it right (I suggest weekly indoctrination meetings) they are loyal only to you.  And then you have people to stand on to help you ascend the greasy pole.
There's another advantage: those people you deprive of jobs while you're doing two or more once: they can then be hired by you privately for a pittance, essentially as slave labour.  They can walk dogs for you, babysit for you, cuckold you to help you get that divorce, and sleep with the stick-insect trophy wife for you since people who are all bones are rarely fun in bed.  You can gradually erode their pay, partly as a function of inflation, and partly because as you tread them down they become more passive and accepting, until you have slaves in a very real sense of the word.  And slave labour can be trained as a private militia.
Ah, I see you're interested now.  Shall we start then by filling out this job application form, and discussing how you're going to convince your boss that you should do both jobs?  Excellent....

Why are you here?

Ah!  You!  I wasn't… I mean, you're early.  I think.  Actually, no, I don't have any names down here on the allocations register… why are you here?
Well yes, I suppose it is your office, and if you want to take that tone with me, then yes I suppose you do have every right to be here.  I wasn't aware that they'd reallocated it though, they usually leave it a little longer after a death.
You didn't know about that?  Jonathon, I think, or was it William?  A boring name, and a boring little man.  He was still in here when they started fumigating the office and apparently chose not to leave.  Not a great loss, by any means, and I'm sure that if he tries haunting you it'll be more tedious than spooky, but there you go.
Why am I here?  Well, I'm Buddy, your emotional comfort in hard times, your unconscious ego, your spiritual guide to a well-lived corporate life.  I'm here to help you resolve what needs resolution and to show you the way forward when the only way up is down.
Are you ok?  You just repeated the same question again.  I've already told you why I'm here.  Oh?  Seriously, you're asking it a third time?
Fine, well then, why am I here?  As far as I can tell, this is karma, this is the universe's way of telling me off for things I've done in a previous life.  Lives.  What's the mass count noun for multitudes of lives?  Oh never mind, lots of previous lives, anyway.  My task now is simply to help other people see the choices ahead of them.  Much as I'd like to give you the order to fire… I mean, much as I'd like to ensure that you make the right choices, that's out of my hands.  All I can do is make sure that you're aware that you have a choice, and that sometimes, some choices are better than others.  Not that chair, it squeaks.
Why are you here?  Well, that's a harder question, and I'm assuming that you won't just be satisfied with the glib "It's your office, and Williathon or whatever his name was needs someone to haunt"?  I didn't think so.  Well, it's a cruel and uncaring universe out there, and there are various spirits that amuse themselves by shepherding people in certain ways.  So there are spirits that have classically been called angels who try to guide people towards opportunities in life, to push them to make choices that allow them to achieve things, either for themselves or for humanity as a whole, that improve the lot of the human race.  Bear in mind that these angels don't care about the people they choose; if they see that your death will result in an improvement of quality-of-life for millions of others, you'll be hounded to jump off a bridge, insult a mob-boss on his birthday, or develop an insatiable hunger for electricity.
Similarly there are spirits that have classically been called demons who simply desire to amuse themselves at humanity's expense, and they can have some very… sophisticated… tastes.  Fall foul of one of them and you might find yourself practising surgery in dark alleys with a rusty can opener.  Possibly on someone else.
Which am I?  I'm neither, I'm a spiritual guide and confidante, I'm someone who's used by other spirits, the neutral, overlooked spirits, to give people options.  Not that tie, you look like you're going to the opera.
Why am I here?  Again?  Today, mostly, I'm here because my last job, though successful, hasn't produced the right kind of ghost for the haunting we'll need here in a couple of weeks time.  Ah, you look worried now; how right you are at last….

Life is worth exploring

No don't get up.  Stay seated.  This is your office after all, and may I say what an interesting office it is?  I may?  Oh thank-you.  I particularly like the claw marks on the legs of your desk, do you perhaps have an ill-trained cat?  An ill-trained secretary?  I see.  I see.
Who am I?  I'm Buddy, of course, your existentialist guide to the solipsism of inner-things.  I'm completely qualia-qualified and I know things about your id that would make your super-ego blush.  I'm also being paid for by your Company, who feel that you could use a life-coach.  At least in part because, it says here, that you leave the office so infrequently that there are suspicions that you're living here.
What?  I believe that your company policy is to fumigate the building if that's found to be true.  No, it probably wouldn't be very good to be caught in here while that was happening.  No, I'm pretty certain all the windows are sealed, in order to protect the air-conditioning.  Well yes, it is a good job you don't live here then, isn't it?
But still, your swipe card record says you came in two weeks ago at 11am and haven't left since.  Are you not aware that life is worth exploring?
Life is very much like an African safari.  It seems initially that a good one is something that only happens to other people, generally people rich enough to be able to go to Africa and take such a safari, while you are left with the urban version where you see a fox, two badgers and a squirrel while being mugged by a thirteen year old who's trying to get more credit for their stolen pay-as-you-go mobile phone to call phone-sex numbers while their mother is getting blind-drunk in the living room and their father is screaming imprecations at the greyhounds down at the track.  But it's simply not true, everyone is on an African safari if only they'd explore life a little further.  The Big Five are out there, waiting to meet you, if only you turn the right corner at the right time.
Who?  No, the Big Five are the five large game that they have in Africa: Elephants, Rhinos, etc.  No, not ostriches, who told you that?  Well I wouldn't trust National Geographic if you got to it via Wikipedia.
Consider this: just three days ago I was on the high street out there and I decided that I could take the back roads rather than the main road.  There was no real reason to do this, it would almost certainly take longer, and the shop I intended to get to was actually located on the high road, but I wanted to take the opportunity to explore life a little, so I turned right at the roadworks instead of walking round, and took a road I'd looked at in passing many times, but had never actually ventured down.
The road went round a corner, and then round another.  It was residential, and the houses hid themselves behind privet hedges and creosoted wooden fences.  Bedroom windows curtained with nets peered cyclopeanically at me – yes, it's a word thank-you – and somewhere in the distance I heard a roar.  No, it was a motorbike starting up, there are no lions roaming the streets here.  Which is a pity, it would certainly help keep crime down in the inner cities.
The road turned again, and I saw an old Ford Cortina rusting at the kerbside like a dead hippo slowly rotting in the shallows of a river.  A little further on the road branched and again I took the side road, hoping to find somewhere else I'd not seen before.  I took a chance that it might be a dead-end, one of life's little cul-de-sacs where you can pause for a moment, breathe deep, then turn around and carry on your way.
What are you doing?  No, breathe deep was a metaphor.  I don't think the air tastes funny.  Now, where was I?
Oh yes, I took the side road, and after a short distance it was partially blocked by those little metal limbo gates they put everywhere to try and kill unsuspecting cyclists.  I jinked left and right, sashaying my hips in a way that would make a salsa dancer weep, and came back out onto the high road, just above the shop I wanted to visit.
I was delighted that I'd explored life and seen the hippo... I mean, car.  I was pleased to see that people lived beyond the high road, that there was a life out there that, with a balaclava, a knife and something to break windows, I could be part of.  As could you.
You've gone a very funny colour you know.  Hello?  Hello?
Huh.  I think they've started fumigating the office already, I was sure that wasn't due until seven.  Oh drat, I'd better leave then.  Are you coming?  No?  Oh well, suit yourself.

Right or happy?

Well hello there once again! I heard that you've been missing me when I'm not here; I have to tell you to stop that. Stop it at once. Naughty boy! Bad!
It's like this, you see, I'm not your own personal Buddy. This isn't a Depeche Mode song, you can't put my picture in the little pocket in the sun-visor on the passenger side of your car... well, I'm afraid you'll have to take it out and give it back to me. How did you get hold of it anyway? Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way, but either way I get my picture back and you get something broken.
But like I said, this isn't a Depeche Mode song, and you should probably do something about your hair. That much grease can't be good for it, even if it is Premium Lard. Actually, no, I don't think Asda do Premium Lard. Well, at that price, it has to be their Economy lard. You have to scrape it out of the hole yourself? Then I think it's just fat from the sewers and it's probably hazardous to your health even to collect. I certainly wouldn't put it in my hair. Definitely not my chest hair. Nor even – actually, I think you should stop talking now. And sit further away from me.
I'm Buddy, I'm your guardian angel, at least as far as corporate culture goes, and I have wisdom to impart.
Would you rather be right or happy? Obviously we'd all like to be both, all of the time, but that isn't always possible. Being right can make us very unhappy, and being happy is often a consequence of being oblivious to what's right. Let me explain with a simple parable. Ok, koan then. I didn't know you even knew that word.
Once upon a time there were two worker bees who were tasked with taking the toxic waste from the hive and disposing of it. The first worker bee was cheerful and always looked on the bright side of life; for him the glass was always half-full and the clouds had solid silver linings that could be sold for drug-money. He picked up the first of the barrels of toxic waste and flew happily away, pleased to be helping to clean the hive and make it a better environment for everybody to live in. But when he arrived at the designated dumping site he realised that it was a children's playground, and when he saw that his instructions were to put the old, leaky barrels into the paddling pool where the water could cool them he saw that the barrels wouldn't stay cool enough, and that the children would be poisoned by the gradual seepage.
And so he flew away and took the barrels home with him, hoping to find somewhere else to dump them, or to change his boss's mind about the dumping ground. But because he needed to fill his quota to get paid, he had to keep more and more barrels at his home, and eventually he got sick and his wings fell off, at which point he also lost his job. And so he ceased being happy, and the knowledge that he had done the right thing was no comfort to him at all.
The second worker bee was morose and grumpy; for him the glass was always someone else's and they were demanding to know why he'd been drinking from it and wanting him to compensate them for their loss. He also picked up a barrel of toxic waste and flew with it to the children's playground, and there he was cheered up by the realisation that children would sicken and die and there would be other people in the world as miserable as he was. And so he flew back and forth with alacrity, the smile on his face getting wider and wider until he'd met his quota and exceeded it and was, for possibly the first time ever, ecstatic with joy. So he was happy, but only because he knew he wasn't in the right.
The moral of this tale, is, of course, that when you buy a house you should always make sure it has a deep enough cellar to store barrels of toxic waste safely.
Now, which of those worker bees would you rather be?
Really? Well, that is interesting. I have to go now, and if you should happen to see me talking to a policeman, well that'd be about a completely unrelated matter. You can trust me. Really.

More wisdom from Buddy

Well hello and welcome once again! Yes, it is I, Buddy, your corporate guide to spiritual enlightenment... wait, is that right? Or is it "your spiritual guide to corporate enlightenment?" Well, I'm sure you'll choose whichever is right for you!
I see that you're struggling to cope with your email as you sit there in your leather-upholstered executive power-seat, and the way that vein throbs in your forehead when I mention it -- I can see that this is a sore point for you. A stress-point, somewhere that your underlings and headcount can apply pressure and take revenge on you for the petty immoralities you commit daily against them. Ah, you look even less happy now.
What you need, my student, is a system to handle all of this for you, in an easy, intuitive way. You need a GUIDE: a Good Understanding of Inbox-Driven Email.
Your Inbox is the source of all your stress. When you look at, it looks back at you, and sees deep into your soul in a Nietzschean feedback loop that slowly saps your sanity. Look at your Inbox -- you have over 4,000 messages in there, of which you've read perhaps ten percent. All those other emails haunt your dreams, invite themselves to your corporate luncheons, and taunt you in meetings, whispering in your ears that you've missed the email that would make the meeting make sense.
Oh, Sandy from Accounting wants you to know that your expenses won't be approved until you can demonstrate that 'Ginger' is actually a client.
For Inbox-Driven Email we work solely with the Inbox and ignore anything that's not in there. So we need first of all to clear out all the email in your Inbox and start you from a clean system. Like a reboot.
Consider, if you will, the tale of the lonely mouse. The lonely mouse lived in a corporate office, sneaking out after everyone else had left for the day and enjoying the silence and the space to get his work done. The lonely mouse would relax at last, certain that no-one would disturb his focus, break his concentration, or catch him picking his nose (on those very rare occasions when it itched uncontrollably). And he would work very, very hard, putting together spreadsheets, documents and agenda on topics of deep and abiding interest to him: the lack of cheese in the fridge ("Who moved my cheese?" was his first classic email), the benefits of vi over emacs, and staunchly defending the office's anti-cat policy. But the mouse was lonely, never hearing the interactions of his co-workers and never invited to meetings to discuss office policy, or to taste the cheese that had been found in the fridge with no name attached. He suffered from a lack of connection with his co-workers, and he felt listless and fidgety by turns.
Then, while fidgeting near his desk, he spotted a tasty-looking cable and decided to chew on it. This was very satisfying for a couple of minutes, and then he chewed through the insulation to the conducting core and was electrocuted almost instantly. This caused some system-wide anomalies, and the entire content of his Inbox was deleted at the same time as he died.
None of his colleagues noticed, and the office bought a cat just two days later.
The moral of this tale is, of course, that the quickest way to empty your Inbox is to chew through the power cable for your computer. Go ahead now, try it. Just try i--.

The wisdom of Buddy

Hi, my name's Buddy. I'll be your spiritual guide for a while. There's a lot I have to teach you before you'll become enlightened, but the journey's part of the learning process and trust me, it's going to be fun. But before we start, I want to tell you a parable.

Years ago, when I worked in an office for a while, I was stood outside a meeting room telling a group of colleagues how I'd managed to clinch a business deal the day before with an inspired use of judo when one of my colleagues, a tall man with a saturnine aspect, said distinctly, "I hate you, Buddy."

"Do you?" I replied. "Do you really hate me? Do you wake in the morning fresh from dreams of burying me alive in an unmarked grave in Epping Forest? Does your breakfast have an iron tang to it, because you know in your heart of hearts that it should be seasoned with my freshly spilled blood? Do you drive to work focused intently on the road ahead, hoping that I'll appear at the roadside so that you can veer to the left and run me down? Is your day spent planning in meticulous detail how to get me to electrocute myself in the washroom?"

"Or is your hatred of me the weak, insipid kind that etiolates your spirit, drags your mood down with your low-level revulsion, not only of me, but also of yourself for your inability to do anything about it? Do you earn yourself an ulcer for never releasing your rage? Do you deprive yourself of happiness, hoping that some spiritual voodoo will transfer it over to me, and that karma will kill me for you?"

"Where is your passion in your hatred? When I hate, I hate intensely, like the bright light of a supernova, and just like the supernova, my hatred explodes outwards in wonderful, fantastic luminence, slaughtering everything in its path."

"I don't hate you that much," said the tall man looking sulky and disappointed. He shuffled his feet and frowned.

"Do you hate like that all the time?" asked another colleague.

"Of course not," I responded. "But I carry my passion throughout everything I do. In the absence of hatred, other emotions may take the stage. When I love, I love so thoroughly that everything else ceases to matter. I never have to ask if the earth moved because if you'd even noticed the earth, then it wasn't me loving you. And when I set out to make a deal, I make my deal and the handshake that seals it is like the sonorous ringing of the judgement bell for all concerned."

We dispersed at that point and went back to our desks. The tall man continued to hate me in his small, mean way for another two days, after which time he unaccountably opened a window and stuck his head out while the trees outside were being pollarded. The chainsaw sliced messily through his neck, and I looked up just as his head fell past the window, and I know I saw recognition in his eyes.

The moral of this parable is, of course, that tall men can always be cut down to size.