Tag Archives: One Gaffe at a Time

One Gaffe at a Time – Step 4

Posted on by
Reply

Step 4: Made a directive that all minions turn their will and lives over to management care. 

My sponsor, Donald D., is pleased with my 12+1 Step progress and was particularly delighted with the reversal of character and wordy transformations pondered during Step 3 of my recovery. Unfortunately, Step 4 may be a tougher challenge, especially considering Step 4 may require competent minions to turn their will and lives over to incompetent managers.

The Peter Principle states that all employees in a hierarchy tend to rise to their level of incompetence. Hence, the higher up the corporate ladder you look, the more likely to find incompetent managers. I refer to this as Ladder Fatigue: the further up an organisational ladder a competent employee climbs, multiplied by the length of time in the senior position, the less likely the individual will remain competent. Although a functional addict can still be a competent worker, the concept of a “functional incompetent” is an oxymoron. Would it be oxymoronic to expect a competent minion to turn their will and life over to an incompetent supervisor?

Step 4 inspired Dr. StrangeJob’s theory of osmosis-moronus—the process of becoming a moron through assimilation. Osmosis-moronus has proven a key factor in the proliferation of incompetent bureaucracies. The adage that one rotten apple can ruin the whole bushel is scientifically proven. Speaking of oxymora, it is my unbiased opinion that the common abnormality with the systematic chaos involving civil servants has brought me to the partial conclusion that I am absolutely unsure how we got into this fine mess. But it does explain absent minded career politicians that are clearly confused and deafeningly silent when discussing corporate ethics. Need I say more?

For every yin there is a yang, and for every incompetent manager, there is a competent employee just waiting to be found. Competence, although rare, can have a positive effect on an incompetent environment, a process the Doctor refers to as reverse-osmosis-moronus. Fortunately, working the Steps of IA may thwart osmosis-moronus as you search for the ultimate higher power of true competence. Step 4 provides hope and a mission to expel incompetence, to seek out the competent, and to boldly go where senior managers have rarely gone before. Join the search for the Competence of your understanding, but be forewarned, we are never truly cured of incompetence. What we have is a daily reprieve, contingent on the maintenance of our competent condition.

Step 4 may sound a bit preachy, but then again, I should never generalise. It may be my least favourite step but it is not a real phony. It is a sure bet or definite maybe that it could be a deliberate mistake or planned serendipity that this bittersweet post makes an honest liar of me. Or maybe I am just being oxy-moronic.  

Future columns will discuss my continued 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

Find Dr. StrangeJob on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/drstrangejob
Follow Dr. StrangeJob on Twitter at https://twitter.com/drstrangejob
Learn more about Dr. StrangeJob at www.drstrangejob.ca

One Gaffe at a Time – Step 3

Posted on by
Reply

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

Find Dr. StrangeJob on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/drstrangejob
Follow Dr. StrangeJob on Twitter at https://twitter.com/drstrangejob
Learn more about Dr. StrangeJob at www.drstrangejob.ca

One Gaffe at a Time – Step 2

Posted on by
Reply

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

Like Dr. StrangeJob on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/drstrangejob
Follow Dr. StrangeJob on Twitter at https://twitter.com/drstrangejob
Learn more about Dr. StrangeJob at www.drstrangejob.ca