Author Archives: Dr. StrangeJob

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About Dr. StrangeJob

If you want to know what happens when the Peter Principle collides with Kurt Vonnegut and Stanley Kubrick then you found the right place.

Ode to D.J. and the drunk tank – it’s still about black and white

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That police man said, “Mister Cool, if you ain’t drunk, then you’re a fool.”
I said, “If that’s against the law, then tell me why I never saw a man locked in that jail of yours who wasn’t just as lowdown poor as me?” – Kris Kristofferson

Listening to The Best of all Possible Worlds by Kris Kristofferson always reminds me of an old friend and the night we received free lodgings courtesy of the local police constabulary. Although we were both in an illegal state of mind at the time, I believe it was the song, actually me paraphrasing the song to a police officer, that resulted in our overnight stay in the drunk tank.

D.J. and I were having a few at his place and ran out of mix and munchies. We should have called it a night, but we foolheartedly decided to take our last drinks, plus a few doobies, for a walk to the corner store for pop and snacks. On route, we stopped at a nearby park for a break but stayed until we finished our drinks and joints. At that point, we decided to call it a night and head back to his place to crash.

When we left the park, we were met by two police cars with blaring sirens and flashing lights. Apparently, the police had been watching us and had decided that the two puny long-haired kids having a toke in the park were being a menace to society. Fortunately, being the conscientious young men we were at the time, we had carefully placed our empty bottles in a garbage bin and had also ensured that any remnants of marijuana were in us rather than on us. As a result, the ensuing police search found nothing that could be construed as evidence of juvenile delinquency.

We almost talked ourselves out of the situation, but then I decided to do my worst ever Kristofferson imitation by asking if they had anything better to do than pick on a couple of hippie kids having a bit of fun. That was when someone turned out the lights, and we wound up in jail to spend the night.

But this post is not about youthful discretions or lost glory days. This post is about prejudice, inequality, discrimination, and profiling. It’s also about the sad realisation that our societal prejudices of yesteryear are still with us today.

I recently discovered that Kristofferson had been asked to change the words of his song when it was recorded in 1969. The verse, I never saw a man locked in that jail of yours who wasn’t just as lowdown poor as me, was originally written as I never saw a man locked in that jail of yours who wasn’t neither black or poor as me. That was then, and this is now: The poor are getting poorer and non-whites are being carded, hated, and misunderstood. In 1969, Kristofferson was talking about the prejudices of the time. In 2017, we continue down the road of hate.

I may have lost touch with my friend D.J. and my days of youthful discretion are only distant memories, but the lyrics of Kristofferson’s song still hold true. We are not where we should be, but I am still dreaming for the best of all possible worlds.

March 21, 2017
International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Dr. StrangeJob

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One Gaffe at a Time – Step 3

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Step 3: Made a directive that all minions turn their will and lives over to management care. 

Full disclosure: I might have gotten this one backwards.

In our previous discussion on Step 2, we peered up the corporate ladder and unwittingly came to believe that senior management, thinking greater of themselves, could restore the hierarchy to complacency. In Step 3, our focus remains on senior management, but this time we discuss how that group view those working below them on the corporate ladder.

The Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Step 3 reads: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Unlike AA, the Incompetents Anonymous (IA) version of Step 3 is not about finding God, but rather about finding yourself working for someone with a God Complex. I have had my share of decent bosses, but I have also worked for a few assholes. You know the kind, the autocratic and controlling type of boss that demands blind allegiance from staff. You are not considered a colleague, partner, or co-worker. You are merely an underling to be exploited, used, or abused.

Similar to AA, an IA member may pray to God, but they are likely praying to God for their God Complex boss to stop preying on them. In fact, the IA understanding of a God Complex boss is a boss that has a backwards view of their own managerial worth. It is no coincidence that God spelled backwards is dog. That is why a boss with a God Complex is always barking up the wrong tree.

If God is a semordnilap (a word that spells another word in reverse or palindromes spelled backwards), then there may be other clues to suggest that a boss with a God Complex sees things from the wrong perspective. Your boss, for example, may think he is a star, but perhaps they are all rats in disguise. They treat minions like pupils and are just waiting for them to slipup. Some bosses say they just want to be our pals, but they are actually trying to slap us down. You just want to live, and they just want to be evil. You say that you lived for God, but perhaps you are just working for the devil dog.

OK, I give up on this one. I was hoping to deliver a positive step but now fear that I will be reviled instead.

So, if you are working for someone with a God Complex, then all I can offer you is sympathy and a piece of advice. You may be tired of getting crapped on, but as the old saying goes—if it is on the wheel then it will eventually come around. Instead of getting stressed, let’s just hope those bosses get their just desserts. Smile, be patient, and remember that diaper is repaid spelled backwards. Incidentally, Step 3 is where the idea for the  DIAPER Awards 2017 came from.

Future columns will discuss my journey through the IA recovery process. Until then, feel free to view the inaugural IA meeting, learn about Incompetents Anonymous, read the Audacity Prayer and 12+1 Steps, or become familiar with IA’s additional support groups.

Dr. StrangeJob

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Dr. StrangeJob enters the terrible twos

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Happy Birthday to me! Dr. StrangeJob forced himself on the world on February 27, 2015, with the following simple, but pathetic prophetic tweet: This is what happens when the Peter Principle collides with Kurt Vonnegut and Stanley Kubrick. It’s birthday number two, and a chance to review last year and take a glimpse forward to next.

Although I survived my first-year birthday celebrations, this last year was a bit of a hit and miss. My Anonymous Goes to the Legion video was a Facebook success, accumulating 17.3 thousand views, but managed a measly 480 views on YouTube.  Although the Doctor is slowly building a Facebook presence with over 31 thousand likes, he has only 69 followers on Twitter. Hurray for Facebook, not so much for Twitter or YouTube. Perhaps I shouldn’t’ have called Twitter followers Twittlers or YouTube users YukTubbies.

My attempt at stand-up was simultaneously well documented and rarely viewed on the Dr. StrangeJob YouTube channel. Although presented with a Like Award for opines on workplace culture, corporate accountability, and municipal politics from goCapeBfreton.com, I was subsequently censored by that site for using the term bullshit in one of my posts. Not to be daunted, Dr. StrangeJob started writing a satirical political column for the Cape Breton Spectator, until I lost my political chops when blocked from running in the local municipal election.

Maybe next year will be better, or will it become a case of the terrible twos?  If I learned anything from year one, it is that failure is always an option. Now that I know what doesn’t work, I will search out new venues in which to mess up even further. As my Father would say, “If you’re being thrown out of town, then get in front and make it look like a parade in your honour.”  With that in mind, watch for the Doctor’s new mini-panel webcomic, Annals of IA, which will chronicle the trials and tribulations of a local chapter of Incompetents Anonymous. Also, coming very soon is the first in a series of short stories that follow the antics of the Cape Breton Liberation Army – Intelligence and Competence Squad (CBLA-InCompts). The first chapter of CBLA-InCompts is going to raise a bit of a stink.

Dr. StrangeJob

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One Gaffe at a Time – Step 2

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Step 2: Came to believe that senior management, thinking greater of themselves, could restore the hierarchy to complacency.

I have been trying to get through the 13 Steps of Incompetents Anonymous (IA) as quickly as possible, but my previous three sponsors kept telling me to slow down. Fortunately, I just found an online IA sponsor that believes I will be ready to start Step 2 as soon as my check clears. I also hope I can use his digital signature to verify attendance at court-ordered recovery meetings. Does anyone know if one-on-one texting sessions can be substituted for group sharing sessions?

Step 2 is one of the easier steps for a recovering incompetent to complete. With Step 2, we are not searching internally for personal recovery, but rather focusing our attention on senior management and their inability to restore malfunctioning hierarchies to some semblance of competence. As discussed in the brown-nose nose-diving effect, there is an inevitable downward spiral of incompetence permeating the upper echelons of many of the world’s corporate ladders. Also, keep in mind that Step 2 refers to your existing management’s ability to restore the hierarchy to complacency. In other words, we are asking if current management, (i.e. the very same group that caused or allowed the mess to happen in the first place), has the ability to bring a semblance of competence back to the organisation.

Bottom line – If you are waiting for senior management to circumvent corporate calamity, then don’t hold your breath. I should know because I am a survivor of corporate mayhem and have the employment insurance claims and layoff notices to prove it.

The process of bureaucratic recovery generally starts when a newly appointed senior manager proclaims the need to think outside of the box or warns of the need to make tough decisions. These pronouncements are followed by a series of focus groups, external consultations, rebranding, reorganisations, and all kinds of money and time wasting activities. The process ends with huge fanfare and the release of the updated organisational chart that was pre-approved by senior management prior to the start of the corporate review.

Although the above may sound like a “glass half empty” view of corporate efficiencies, I should note that sometimes things can accidently work out for the better. The “glass half full” scenario does not require direct intervention from senior management but may involve sheer luck, legal interventions, management bonuses, senior level severance packages, or external auditors.

I implore you to be vigilant in pursuing Step 2, watch for the warning signs, and stay clear of the layoff zone. If management even hints at the need to think outside of the box, then they are looking for someone to blame. If they suggest a willingness to make tough decisions, then they are looking for someone to fire. If they claim to be working in the best interest of the company, then they are about to give those that question their authority a layoff notice, those that support them a promotion, and themselves a bonus.

Damn. I just lost another sponsor. Turns out what I thought was an online IA support group was actually a robotic Artificial Intelligence (AI) self-help website. That explains my sponsor’s weird voice. My first hint was when I tried to prepay for my Step 13 session and noticed that the site only supported 12 steps. What would IA recovery be without Step 13?

Step 13: If you have sincerely worked through the preceding 12 steps and still remain incompetent, then you are basically screwed. Your only recourse will be to follow the advice of Dr. Wilbur Swain (Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.) – “Why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don’t you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?”

Future columns will discuss my journey through the IA recovery process. Until then, feel free to view the inaugural IA meeting, learn about Incompetent Anonymous, read the Audacity Prayer and 12+1 Steps, or become familiar with IA’s additional support groups.

Dr. StrangeJob

The Audacity Prayer: Grant me the authority to eliminate those that will not follow, the ability to terrorise those that remain, and the audacity not to care about the difference.

 IA Final Logo A

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StrangeJoberisms: Volume 2

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I’ve always been crazy but its kept me from going insane, so it came as no surprise when my physician told me that I was ill and my condition was not tweetable. Cure thyself I proclaimed and set forth to quibble in tweetable quips of 140 characters or less that I affectionally call StrangeJoberisms.

Following the success of StrangeJoberisms: The Unlimited Birthday Edition, I proudly present Volume 2.

StrangeJoberisms: Volume 2

If your latest managerial solution is to “think outside the box”, then you’re still in it.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar (Sigmund Freud), and sometimes a person is just a dick (Dr. StrangeJob).

If all else fails, then try non-violent civil disobedience. Shame can be a powerful motivator.

Do we distrust career politicians because of ignorance or apathy? Or is it because we don’t know and don’t care.

If it is true that those that can’t do are teachers, then does it follow that those that never did are professors?

People who say “good things come in small packages” are usually men with small penises.

Warning! Chance of incompetence increases with increased exposure to idiocy.

Opening your mouth to change a foot is not a great feat, especially if you forgot to remove your other foot first.

Life is unfair when bad things happen to good people, especially when there are so many assholes around to choose from.

Dr. StrangeJob

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One Gaffe at a Time – Step 1

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Welcome to the first in a series of posts following my journey through the Incompetents Anonymous (IA) recovery process in my quest for competence, spirited enlightenment, and workplace sanity. Let’s start at the bottom.

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over incompetence – that our hierarchy had become uncontrollable.

It is a truly spiritual moment when you realise that your work environment is beyond your control and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Congratulations, this is the start of your recovery. Once you take this step then your future path becomes clear. If you are being thrown out of town, then get in front and make it look like a parade in your honour.

I have hit IA rock bottom more than once and at least once in every organisation that I have worked. My most vivid plunge into the void of incompetence took place during an initial meeting with a new supervisor. Did you ever find yourself on the wrong side of a burnt bridge with a boss that obviously didn’t want you to be working for them?  Sometimes you just need to suck it up and move forward, but this time it was clear that my only path forward was out the door. That’s office politics for you, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. At least I was given three month’s notice, but it was perhaps overkill to make those three months the most demeaning of my entire work career.

Then there was the time the first words a new supervisor said to me were: “I bet you’re sorry you complained about me now.”  I wasn’t sorry that I complained about them, but I soon became very sorry that they were told that I complained about them.

How about the time I took a year leave to complete my doctorate and my dissertation advisor dropped me? I managed to find another advisor and complete my degree but was laid-off from my teaching position a week after my dissertation defense. The only thing worse than an academic out of touch with reality is an academic wannabe out of touch with reality.

OUCH! I was just talking to my IA sponsor, and they tell me that I obviously need more work on this step. Apparently, I should be focusing on personal recovery rather than blaming others. Something about there being no “I” in team and that pointing a finger at someone leaves three fingers pointing back at yourself.

OK, I admit it. There is no “I” in team, but you can find a “’me” and an “eat” in there if you look hard enough. True, if you point your finger at someone there are still three pointing back, but if you use your middle index finger pointed in an upward direction, then the message is more clearly received.

I think I must be cured because my sponsor just told me that I should go directly to Step 13.

Dr. StrangeJob

The Audacity Prayer: Grant me the authority to eliminate those that will not follow, the ability to terrorise those that remain, and the audacity not to care about the difference.

IA Final Logo A

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A Dr StrangeJob Pair-a-ball(s) & Trump

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Parables and fables are stories that serve to illustrate a moral or ethical lesson. Welcome to Dr Strangejob’s Pair-a-ball(s), the Doctor’s new series of life lessons learned in the trenches of bureaucratic befuddlement. For your viewing pleasure, below find a reasonable facsimile of a pair of the Doctor’s balls gifted to him back in his university days. I would often take my balls to meetings, just to show those in attendance that I actually had a pair. Otherwise, my steel cast balls served as paperweights on my office desk, providing a visual cue for students that the Doctor was, all in all, not just another dick in the hall. holding-ball2a

Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that standing up for what one believes rarely works unless your beliefs happen to coincide with the gestalt of the current work environment. Otherwise, you are branded an agitator or chastised for not being a team player. Too bad, because those doing the branding are usually just bullies dressed up in business suits.

My favourite fable as a child was Aesop’s The Ass in the Lion’s Skin. The fable tells the story of an ass that stumbled upon a lion’s skin left out to dry by hunters. The ass decided to wear the skin to the local village in an attempt to instil fear in the community. The ploy worked, at least until the ass decided to roar at the crowd, at which point the citizens recognised the ass’s bray and realised that what they thought was a formidable beast was only an ass dressed up in lion’s clothing. The moral of Aesop’s fable is that fine clothes can disguise, but silly words will eventually disclose the fool inside. Sound familiar?

Speaking about President-elect Donald Trump, I wonder if Aesop’s fable can be applied to the recent U.S. election. If we were to replace the ass in the original fable with Trump, then once Trump starts pontificating the world should quickly learn that he is just an ass in disguise. In the original fable, the ass was beaten with a stick by his owner for spreading fear throughout the community. Director Michael Moore argues that satire is the best way to beat Donald Trump. In my version of Aesop’s fable, satire would triumph over Trump who would be beaten with shtick.

Anyway, the moral of this Dr StrangeJob Pair-a-ball is that a person can have balls without being a dick, but a person who is a dick is still a dick whether or not they have any balls.

Dr. StrangeJob

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PD and a pain in the ass employee

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Here is a work shit file entry from 1992 that verifies what you may have already suspected – Dr StrangeJob has a history of being a pain in the ass employee.

It was personal development (PD) request time at the office. The annual event would commence with an all points bulletin asking employees to submit PD preferences and end with the boss’s buddies being approved for free travel away from the office. It may have been my perception, but the selection criteria appeared more related to who you know, rather than what you need to know. As a lark, I submitted the following request for training.

To: Supervisor at the time
From:  Dr StrangeJob’s alias at the time
Date: 27 March 1992
Subject: Strengthening Your Business Writing Skills
——————————————————————————————————————————-
Attached is an outline for a course entitled Strengthening Your Business Writing Skills. Although adequate in this area, I feel that I could increase my efficiency in this skill by taking this particular course.

Kindly keep this in mind as you consider your plans for staff training for 1992. Wit dis course me thinks dat me could do mor better reports fo youse.

cc: Boss’s boss at the time

Yes, I actually submitted the above to my supervisor. My request was not approved, but I did enjoy a quiet week at the office when the boss and their buddies were away on a training course.

Dr. StrangeJob

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Incompetents Anonymous – One Gaffe at a Time

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Audacity Prayer: Grant me the authority to eliminate those that will not follow, the ability to terrorize those that remain, and the audacity not to care about the difference.

Hello, my name is Dr StrangeJob, a recovering incompetent and founding member of Incompetents Anonymous (IA). My recent defeat in a local mayoralty election forced me to hit rock bottom. I admit that I am powerless over incompetence and that my election campaign was unmanageable, but I have a selfish desire to overcome my incompetence in time for the 2020 municipal elections. Future columns will discuss my personal journey through the IA recovery process as I search for competence, spiritual enlightenment, and heavily sponsored campaign ads, but first, some background on IA.

IA is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from incompetence. The only requirement for IA membership is a desire to stop being incompetent.

The IA movement borrows heavily from the traditional 12 step recovery process, while taking into account the unique issues surrounding the recovery needs of incompetents. The Audacity Prayer, for example, is to Incompetents Anonymous what the Serenity Prayer is to Alcoholics Anonymous. The IA triangle also borrows from the traditional Alcoholics Anonymous triangle, but rather than emphasise AA’s three-part solution to addiction (unity, recovery, and service), the IA triangle reflects the three key personality traits most often associated with an incompetent’s mindset (denial, immunity, and self-service).

These unique characteristics of incompetents, as compared to addicts, inspired the IA movement:

  1. Addicts must hit a personal “rock bottom” before authentic recovery can begin. For addicts, this bottom is often very traumatic and obvious. Incompetents tend to hold senior positions in a hierarchy and are often oblivious to the ills of their own incompetence. An oblivious incompetent is, oviously, a more difficult nut to crack.
  2. Traditional recovery programs emphasise the anonymous aspect of the process. Incompetents are not anonymous to anyone other than themselves.
  3. A functional addict can still be a competent worker, but the concept of a “functional incompetent” is an oxymoron.
  4. Challenges inherent in dealing with incompetents has necessitated the inclusion of an additional step in the IA recovery process. The added step makes IA the word’s first 12 +1 step self-help recovery program.

Like an addict, a single incompetent can have a devastating effect on friends and family, not to mention a demoralising effect on an entire organisation. Fortunately, IA has developed its own family of support groups. Similar to Al-Anon, IA-Anon supports anyone whose life is affected by someone else’s incompetence. Ala-Tweet, not to be confused with Alateen, is an online version of IA-Anon designed for the younger tech savvy sufferer.

IA also envisioned the need for institutional and work related support groups. The adage that your workplace can “drive you to drink” receives its own support group in ACOI (Alcoholic Colleagues of Incompetents). Although there is apparent overlap, ACOI should not be confused with either ACA (ACoA) or ACOA. Lastly, IAA (Incompetent Arsehole Anonymous) addresses the dual infliction of incompetence combined with an extreme personality disorder associated with many of our senior IA members. IAA is proving popular with existing members working in the political arena and is expected to become the flagship program for IA.

Please join me in future columns as I struggle through the IA recovery process—one gaffe at a time.

IA Final Logo A

 Twelve +1 Steps of Incompetents Anonymous

  1. We admitted we were powerless over incompetence – that our hierarchy had become uncontrollable.
  2. Came to believe that senior management, thinking greater of themselves, could restore the hierarchy to complacency.
  3. Made a directive that all minions turn their will and lives over to management care.
  4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our minions.
  5. Admitted to senior management, to HR, and to all fellow employees the exact nature of their wrongs.
  6. Were entirely ready to remove all defective characters in our way.
  7. Condescendingly demanded minions to remove their inadequacies.
  8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to downsize them all.
  9. Make direct attacks on all who threaten us whenever possible, except when to do so could hurt us or our inner circle.
  10. Continue to take personnel inventory and when they are wrong promptly admit it.
  11. Sought through fear and intimidation to enforce our will on all minions, paying only for the knowledge necessary to increase personal power or the authority to carry that out.
  12. Having had a superiority complex as a result of these steps, we continue to carry the message of inferiority to our minions and to practice these principles in all extramarital affairs.
  13. If you have sincerely worked through the preceding 12 steps and still remain incompetent, then you are basically screwed. Your only recourse will be to follow the advice of Dr Wilbur Swain (Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.) – “Why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don’t you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?”

Dr. StrangeJob

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Bullshit, brown nosing, and the other 3%

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We all know that knowledge, hard work, and attitude are key attributes of success, at least that is what they preach to us in school. Unfortunately, it is not until we spend time in the real world that we discover that all in not fair when it comes to succeeding in the workplace. Here is a mathematical exercise that verifies what I had always suspected – bullshit is a better indicator of success than knowledge, hard work, or attitude.

Begin by assigning each letter of the alphabet a consecutive number ranging from 1 through 26 (A=1, B=2, C=3 … Z=26). Next, apply the numerical code to each letter of a known success indicator, sum the results, and calculate our Percent Indicator of Immediate Success (PISS) score. The higher the PISS score, the greater chance of workplace success. Let’s start by calculating PISS scores for the success indicators of knowledge, hard work, and attitude.

KNOWLEDGE= 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

HARD WORK= 8+1 +18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

ATTITUDE= 1 +20+20+9+20+21 +4+5 = 100%

Knowledge, hard work, and attitude produce perfect or near perfect PISS scores. This is great news and supports what we have been schooled to believe. Unfortunately, there are other, not so positive, success indicators that have proven to be even more effective indicators of workplace success.

BULLSHIT=2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

That’s right; bullshit gives you that little extra chance of success. Sure, it may seem like a pissy way to get ahead in the workplace, but I guess it could be worse.

A bit of a side rant. The initial source for this post was an old acetate from my work shit files circa 2001. I would often use the overhead as an icebreaker in my university course, until a student took offence to her instructor saying BULLSHIT in class. Apparently, some find the word BULLSHIT to be rather offensive. So much so, I was recently censored for using BULLSHIT on a local community website. Hell, you’d think I was using one of the seven dirty words that you are not supposed to use in the media.

Back to the blog. There was no source listed on the acetate from my work shit file, but an online search did turn up a reference by Gerry Rachar that took the formula a few steps further. According to Gerry, ass kissing is even more efficient that bullshitting.

ASS KISSING=1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 127%

Perhaps I was correct in earlier posts when I discussed the impact of brown-nosing and the brown-nose nose-diving effect. Still, it’s too bad we can’t just tell the bullshitters and brown-nosers of the world to PISS off, because, just like at the office, they have the numbers on their side.

There is a positive side to this discussion. According to Gerry’s calculations, youth and exuberance (206%) will always overcome old age and treachery (153%). There may be hope for us after all. Until then, keep your shorts dry and your PISS scores below 101%.

Dr. StrangeJob

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