This page is dedicated to the lighter side of IO Psychology. Please forward any contributions for the stress relief of all!
Here are my tips to making it big in the corporate world.
1. Never walk down the hall without a document in your hands. People with
documents in their hands look like hardworking employees heading for important
meetings. People with nothing in their hands look like they're heading
for the cafeteria. People with the newspaper in their hands look like
they're heading for the bathroom. Above all, make sure you carry loads
of stuff home with you at night, thus generating the false impression
that you work longer hours than you do.
2. Use computers to look busy. Any time you use a computer, it looks like
work to the casual observer. You can send and receive personal e-mail,
calculate your finances and generally have a blast without doing anything
remotely related to work. These aren't exactly the societal benefits that
everybody from the computer revolution expected but they're not bad either.
When you get caught by your boss - and you will get caught - your best
defence is to claim you're teaching yourself to use the new software,
thus saving valuable training dollars. You're not a loafer, you're a self-starter.
Offer to show your boss what you learned. That will make your boss scurry
away like a frightened salamander.
3. Messy desk. Top management can get away with a clean desk. For the
rest of us, it looks like you're not working hard enough. Build huge piles
of documents around your workspace. To the observer, last year's work
looks the same as today's work; it's volume that counts. Pile them high
and wide. If you know somebody is coming to your cubicle, bury the document
you'll need halfway down in an existing stack and rummage for it when
he/she arrives.
4. Voice mail. Never answer your phone if you have voice mail. People
don't call you just because they want to give you something for nothing-they
call because they want YOU to do work for THEM. That's no way to live.
Screen all your calls through voice mail. If somebody leaves a voice mail
message for you and it sounds like impending work, respond during lunch
hour. That way, you're hardworking and conscientious even though you're
being a devious weasel. If you diligently employ the method of screening
incoming calls and then returning calls when nobody is there, this will
greatly increase the odds that they will give up or look for a solution
that doesn't involve you.
The sweetest voice mail message you can ever hear is "Ignore my last
message. I took care of it." If your voice mailbox has a limit on
the number of messages it can hold, make sure you reach that limit frequently.
One way to do that is to never erase any incoming messages. If that takes
too long, send yourself a few messages. Your callers will hear a recorded
message that says, Sorry, this mailbox is full"-a sure sign that
you are a hardworking employee in high demand.