Chapter 1
1. Always bring two wardrobes to work--one to wear while sitting at your computer terminal with an air conditioning vent blowing ice cold air on your back, and another to wear when inhabiting any kind of normal atmospheric environment. You could just carry a ski parka or down jacket with you always.
2. Be on time; nothing creates a worse working environment than starting what could actually be a good day with an unnecessary mistake which arouses in the boss at the outset a suspicion that you’re undisciplined, slovenly, lazy, disorganized, unmotivated, disinterested, and rude, even if it’s true.
3. Establish a positive mental attitude before arriving at the job. Make a conscious effort to visualize good things while driving to work, since that is dead time anyway and it won’t be a big loss to waste those hours on unrealistic fantasies. Picture yourself smiling and laughing while talking on the telephone, or dancing down the hallway to deliver a fax. See yourself answering an insult gently with a smile and a kind reply.
4. Plan ahead to do something fun every two hours, because office work often includes routine tasks which hold little value or meaning to the worker. It is essential that a person does something seemingly “important” every two hours, such as to write a letter to a friend, or make a personal phone call while pretending that it’s business. You might want to purchase a candy bar regularly from a nearby vending machine, which will thereby provide valuable motivation for evening and weekend programs of exercise and diet.
5. Avoid speculating on the activities of fellow employees. Don’t be bothered by the fact that some colleagues appear to arrive later and to leave earlier daily than you do, yet they receive more money and more respect. However accurate your thoughts might be, they are destructive both to motivation and to career climbing.
6. Don’t become obsessed with banalities. Don’t allow stupid jokes and arrogant boasting by a few fellow workers to get you down. Visualize yourself in the distant future doing something you really love, or see yourself sunbathing in Hawaii after a huge weight loss.
7. Don’t be bummed-out by the fact that there’s no window in your office. Despite staring at a boring brown wall all day with cold air blowing at you and telephones ringing endlessly while you try to complete a “rush job” created by the delinquent habits of others, carry on gracefully and cheerfully with your tasks without getting snippy, snappy, irritable, angry, hostile, hateful, bitter, suicidal, or homicidal.
Simply find a friend who does have a window, and visit them often, glancing out at the real world as often as possible to see trees and grass growing, leaves blowing gracefully in the wind, dogs running free, and clouds drifting at ease on a soft breeze. Imbibe deeply this healthy view like a starved dog wandering in the Sahara Desert.
8. Keep smiling; it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown, and you need to preserve your strength to make it through eight hours of meaningless labor while you’re still seeking to find the kind of work that you love and a way to obtain it.
9. Plan to help your boss become a success. You can actually enjoy accomplishing this generous gesture if you consider that it’s possible that you will someday be rewarded for your loyalty, climbing the career ladder as a faithful and supportive employee whose devotion is unassailable.
Don’t allow your mind to dwell upon the fate of Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Goring and other faithful followers of Adolf Hitler who contributed to his enormous success, but later shared in his demise. Rather you might recall the fellow who picked up Howard Hughes when he was hitch-hiking in the desert. In his will Hughes left the man several million bucks. Who would have known that it was Howard Hughes hitching a ride in the desert? Imagine how easily Hughes could have lost the piece of paper upon which the fellow wrote his name and address. Life is amazing!
10. Don’t succumb to jealousy and petty office rivalry; don’t let it spoil your day when you’re asked to watch the front desk all afternoon during the office party. Don’t be disappointed if they cancel your vacation because of heavy workloads. Cheerfully accept your fate. Life is unpredictable.
11. Don’t resent seeing your subordinates promoted ahead of you. Even if the person most recently hired is granted the position you’ve been seeking for years, don’t be discouraged. Michael Jordan twisted his ankle and missed his entire second year of professional basketball while Larry Bird prospered. Stuff happens. Have faith that things will work out well for you eventually. Have a little faith in the future.
12. Go often to the rest room. A casual but businesslike stroll down the hallway perusing the attractive pictures in the hall can be rejuvenating. Splash some water in your face, make funny faces in the mirror if nobody is in the area (better check for feet under all restroom stalls first), and then make your way out the front door to get some fresh air. Take a walk around the building. It’s wise to carry a large envelope of a small box to make it appear that you are making a delivery to another worker in another of the hundreds of offices. How can there possibly be a need for so very many offices?
13. Don’t be frustrated by power outages. The computer age creates joys and sorrows for everyone. Don’t be disconcerted if a power blip wipes out an important document you have spent hours, days, or weeks creating. Resist the temptation to erupt in an angry outburst which could lead to destructive and anti-social behavior.
For example, “destructive behavior” might take the form of kicking over a ten gallon water dispenser, then laughing hysterically when it bursts and sends rivers of water flooding down the hallway. “Anti-social behavior” might include responding to a superior’s gentle request with a cold stare, followed by “Yeah, who cares?” and an indifferent shrug of the shoulders.
Don’t allow your attitude to deteriorate so badly that you fall victim to these kinds of psychological pitfalls. Let off a little steam each day to help prevent an accumulation of frustration and anger which might erupt like a volcano at even the most insignificant event. Can you imagine for a moment the poor little donkey on whose back is piled an enormous stack of heavy straw? There is a point at which the donkey breaks, collapses, vomits, and dies. He has finally succumbed to what is commonly known as “the last straw.”
14. Enjoy your fellow employees. Don’t be angry when colleagues interrupt your train of thought repeatedly, complain constantly about things you cannot change, and argue over matters utterly irrelevant to your duties. Laugh at their jokes even if they are not remotely humorous. Be a buddy—go with the flow. Be part of the team, even if you don’t share their values, goals, or attitudes. Be a team player. Pretend if you must.
15. When bored, pump yourself up by writing down plans for the coming weekend. If you have no plans for the weekend, create some. If you can’t afford to do anything on the weekend because of insufficient pay at your boring office job, invent clever ways of earning additional income by taking a second office job during the evenings, or hold in reserve funds you normally spend on candy and coffee each day so you can purchase lottery tickets.
Dream that you will strike it rich. You might get lucky. Yes, of course it could also be nothing but another fantasy. Sometimes fantasy is the best thing we’ve got going. You might actually be the recipient of a winning ticket despite the discouraging odds of one-in-a-million chances that you will win. Although you must deny yourself the sole source of tiny pleasure you might eke out during the day by forgoing coffee and candy and other things that get you successfully through the day, it is remotely possible that you just might get lucky.
On the other hand, perhaps you prefer the practicality of a sure thing, in which you should just buy the things that help you survive each day. It comes down to the old debate about “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” You take your chances. That’s how life is. Someone buys a house and it goes up in value. A year later somebody else buys one just like it, and its value plummets. Stuff happens.
16. When fatigued to the point of ineffectiveness at even the simplest tasks, take a break. Walk away from the computer screen and talk to a bulletin board. Make a new friend by introducing yourself to a door jam or breaker box. I once held a lengthy conversation with a hinge on a large door. If you’re lonely, you might hold hands with a door knob. Visit the rest room and sing in the mirror while holding a roll of toilet paper as a microphone. Be creative. Don’t let stuff build up inside you. Moment by moment the pressure is building, the straw is stacking, the wall is cracking, until eventually the volcano blows and the lava flows. It’s hot, it’s molten, and it destroys everything in its path. Don’t think it can’t happen to you! You would be wrong. Just ask Bernard Madoff.
17. When feeling incapacitated for peculiar and indefinable reasons, go outside on your break. It is not uncommon for office workers to suffer from new and indiscernible ailments, such as headaches, migraines, red eyes, irritability, stiff necks, chronic fatigue, sore backs, sore wrists, nervous twitches, drowsiness, complacency, impotence, and sterility. Impotency takes many forms for office workers—physical, mental, social, and spiritual. Don’t underestimate the impact of working day after day and year after year at a job that you hate. Keep searching for that perfect job. Keep looking. Never give up. You surely will not enjoy being impotent. To some degree, you are a participant in your own demise. Be your own best friend. Believe in yourself. Do something about your situation. Don’t become cynical. Sarcasm is okay, but don’t succumb to utter hopelessness and bitterness. It’s bad for your health. Have a little faith!
Fluorescent lights and contaminated ventilation systems are often thought to be root causes of ailments associated with office workers. You would be wise to take yourself out-of-doors to breathe a bit of real air and to see some real light now and then. They say fluorescent lights “vibrate” and wiggle and emit “madness rays” that over time can drive you utterly insane. It’s true.
Notice too when you’re outside that you cannot hear the endless hum of computers, copy machines, ventilation systems, and furnaces. Rather, you can enjoy the delightful singing of birds, if they are not yet extinct in your area. You might see beautiful cloud formations against a clear blue sky if the air is not yet filled with filthy pollution. It’s always worth a try to just take a hopeful step outside to see what’s happening in the real world.
18. Dream about a Caribbean cruise, complete with music, dancing, swimming, exotic ports, intriguing new friends, and luscious food and drink served at all hours of day and night. Such thoughts can pick up one’s spirits unless negative ideas creep in, or seep in, or rush like a mighty flood upon your soul.
It’s probable that exotic trips and vacations that other people experience might actually never occur for you in the real world, in which case it’s possible that such dreams can lead to severe resentment, hostility, and suicidal thoughts. It doesn’t hurt to try fantasizing about something good happening to you—just don’t depend upon it.
A person never knows what will happen next, but one thing is for certain—if you don’t try, you won’t succeed. If you don’t go to bat, you won’t get on base. You might get a hit, or you might strike out. Don’t live by the depressing philosophy, “If you don’t buy a dog, it won’t get run over.” It’s cynical to believe, “If you don’t fall in love, nobody will break your heart.” Have a little faith!
19. Don’t give in to depression. If on a given day you find yourself particularly struck with the emptiness of your life and the hopelessness of your financial condition, take command of your thoughts and become creative! Yes, start down a new road rather than allowing your mind to be obsessed with failure and frustration. Poverty, you might consider, is not the worst problem in the world.
So set some goals. Devise a plan to overcome poverty. Determine how you can start your own business while exclusively using other people’s money, since you have none of your own. It’s true, of course, that many people aren’t cut out for running their own business. It’s demanding. It requires determination and responsibility. Ninety percent of new businesses fail in the first five years. So, perhaps starting your own business is an idea that just won’t fly. After all, who wants to put their heart and soul into creating a new business, along with their life savings, only to see everything lost within five years? Now that is a recipe for suicide! It might be better to be a temporary employee for a lifetime rather than to put everything important and risk, only to fail and to end up with nothing.
Therefore, you might prefer instead to imagine how to find a spouse, if you are single, even if you’ve failed repeatedly in obtaining one previously.
Or you might try writing a psychological self-analysis, or a book of jokes, or your biography, unless you fear that focusing too much on your past would lead to severe depression.
Go fishing if you must. You know, here today, gone to Maui; whatever. But never give up. Life is not hopeless. It’s just elusive. I mean, success is elusive. You try and try. Don’t quit. Thomas Edison failed hundreds of times at his experiments before he succeeded. All the while he was working day and night, trying and failing, inventing and experimenting, people were laughing at him, making fun of him, and mocking him with glee. In the end, of course, he is the only one “standing in the light.” He did not listen to the nay-sayers.
20. If you’re utterly bored, count the drawers in the metal filing cabinets. If you have different colored cabinets throughout the building, then some morning before other employees arrive, exchange the drawers in creative ways to vary the color scheme as well as to introduce fellow workers to the challenge of locating whatever they might be seeking in the drawer that formerly occupied the place where they are searching. This is fun!
This also can provide opportunity for meeting new people and making new friends. Of course, cranky people might respond unfavorably. To add to the fun, never disclose who created this delightful office game. Keep a secret if you can. However, it’s true what Ben Franklin wrote so many years ago—“Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
