Monday, June 05, 2006

Quotes from the Corporate Anarchist

I had started a daily email service to my colleagues wherin I would come up with a humorous quote everyday based on the nonsensical happenings of office life. I will now share these with you. Bear in mind that any plagerism will not be well received.

All the progress, process integration and conceptual advancements made by companies over the past 3 decades can be negated in two activities;
Waiting for Management Approvals and Business Lunches.

Today's word is "Service"
The process of delivering the lowest quality, most exorbitantly priced, highest maintenance products you can get away with, and doing it with a smile.

Today's word is "hemorrhage"
An undesirable physical ailment caused by the insistence of certain individuals to constantly quote professional motivational speakers over and over and over and over.... ad nauseum.

Today's corporate equation is;
1 inferiority complex + 2 project management courses x level of authority = Failed project costing between a big loss and a declaration of bankruptcy

The four stages of corporate loss (with apologies to Freud)
1. Disbelief
2. Recalculation of loss
3. Acceptance
4. Scapegoat identification


HR must actively discourage the recruitment of single people;
More time is spent per capita in speculating about their personal life than in any other activity.

Today's corporate IT ratio;
For every qualified system administrator, there are 18.6 idiots who think an A drive is a luxury car.

Management Protocol # 14564
Once in a corporate while you will come across a staff member who is smart, professional, courteous and genuinely helpful.
FIRE HIM!


Dealing with Network Administrators is much like urinating,
It feels good when you are done, but later there is always that last annoying drop that irritates you

Management Protocol # 45239
The usage of $ymbol$, A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.S & abbs, wl hlp u prve that u hv an I.Q. > yr subs.

Management Protocol # 22276
Never underestimate the power of a well placed, totally vague email, it may just make the conceptual difference between failure and R&D


Warped management theory of the day;
Fact 1 : A large proportion of all customers are employees
Fact 2 : Employees are never right
Conclusion: The customer is WRONG!

Confucius say;
Life like bowl of cereal, good five minutes then soggy forever.


Life is like a faxed document;
Bland, unclear and you have to wait forever for something which is probably inconsequential

Today's word is "Vision";
A corporate synonym that must legally be used instead of "insanity"


If Einstein was an employee:
" The speed and quality level at which a matter is executed is inversely proportional to the number of managers involved "

Question: What has no windows, a depressing, isolated atmosphere and no hope of escape until you have served your time?

Answer: A cubicle


With the increased number of project management junkies being created and the stagnant rate of per capita productivity, it won't be long before we hear this phrase in companies around the world, "I want it done last year!"

Corporatising Age Old Proverbs;

"Every cloud has a silver scapegoat"
"Birds of a feather stab each other in the back"
"Where there's a whim, there's a way"
"Too many cooks? Perform a SWOT analysis"
"Look before you leeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaapp!!!"
"The meek shall inherit the cubicle"
"A fool and his money are both customers of ours"

Secret Management Protocol # 1845
When faced with two candidates with nearly equal credentials, merits and experience, bear in mind;
eenie, meenie, minee, mo.

The real reasons Managers favor technology over people;
It is easier to blame something that can't defend itself
Systems cannot show you up
You can be forgiven for beating a PC to death
Ambiguity can be incorporated into any process as part of a CYA protocol
Computers are much better looking and more sympathetic than subordinates.

The Managerial Utopia Project, Article 1.64;
All employees are required to take vows of silence as part of their employment contracts, the only things they are permitted to say are 'Yes", "It's done" and "Can I get you anything else?"

Secret Management Protocol #7682;
In the field of failure avoidance, it is entirely possible to claim a lack of departmental focus as the culprit for a given shortcoming, change the name of the department, do nothing about improving processes and claim the whole thing a "successful operational streamlining"


Aren't we technologically blessed?
The miracles of the information age have made it so that you can surf the net and unearth 1,445,689 sites that contain the keyword "compuutter"

The true test of ability when it comes to surviving in today's corporate clime is neither longevity nor positions achieved, those who have succeeded are those who have liberated the largest amount of office stationary.

Corporate (deluded) Optimism:
Don't think of your job as an oppressive regime imposed upon you by a sadistic society that takes the individual silk and processes it into practical and mindless potato sacks, think of it as an exercise that puts you in touch with your inner apathetic sloth!

Confucius Say;
Being moral is similar to running on hamster wheel, give you good feeling but get you nowhere. Ah so!

Esoteric Man

Today I will be utilising this forum to express a few of the more suppressed thoughts, this will be an unusual entry, so I would recommend that you put on some socks, pop some corn and make yourselves cozy.

5’ 8”, 76 kg, 164 IQ and an infinite disposition toward sarcasm noire. Vital statistics of a geographically unstable Egyptian. A string of failed relationships, the longest of which may have lasted 17 weeks. Issues, I should bloody well think so.

My demeanour is calm, collected, which I believe is a skill that I have mastered well. You will not be able to ascertain what I am thinking unless I explicitly permit you to. On the inside, however, I am a raging volcano of suppressed rage, given the wrong circumstances, I am liable to rip your arm out and use it to wipe my derriere before beating you senseless with the appendage. All in all, I consider myself a nice guy.

I count myself lucky on account of my friends, people who are smart, fun and capable of handling the fact that I may at any point fly off the handle and commit genocide. Thanks guys, this one's for you.

I get the distinct feeling that society is slowly slipping into a state of mass apathy, and before anyone jumps the gun and says that this has been hashed to death, allow me to elaborate. The individuals of a given society were historically labeled according to their place in the socio-sphere, smith, archer, were all signals of purpose. That has passed and has been increasingly replaced by a singular mentality by the majority of the populace that the importance lies in the perception of the individual of society rather than vice versa.

We are all guilty of this phenomenon to a certain extent, whether you have delusions of grandeur or have ever thought yourself better than someone rather than different, you are guilty. "So what?", you might ask. This id stroking approach to the world is a dangerous thing (although it does have merits), as it fosters ever more human boundries within a given society, and spews forths more 'isms' that are not even based on physical appearance or cultural distinctions. The new criterias for discrimination are now psychological, the fear (or belief) that other people would never understand you and the barriers that are erected as a result. The concept of "only I am me, and no one could ever fully understand, ergo, no one is worthy of me."

God help us all