Keys To Business Success
- 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
caféteria. 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.
- 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 fees. 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.
- 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.
- 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.