Thursday, August 6, 2009

The Secret to Success

This morning I realized the secret to success. Well the secret to success in a cubicle world anyway. I'm pretty sure that if Donald Trump applied this secret to his line of work, he'd be bankrupt again. But for a cubicle world, success is simple: don't do anything.

Pretty simple right?

There's a little more to it than that, but essentially if you don't do anything, you will be rewarded.

When I got to work this morning, there was an email waiting for me. From Veronica. Our psuedo boss. Amy is away for a few days, which means that Veronica is in charge. And Veronica loves to be in charge. Problem is, she doesn't actually know what she is doing. But she makes up for that by adopting a condescending tone and sending emails outlining things that we all already know.

But back to my email. Basically, after I brought up the fact that I was having trouble getting a co-worker to help me out with a task, I was berated for not doing my job. Again. I am getting so tired of this.

And this is when I discovered the secret to cubicle success. The co-worker in question didn't do anything, she actually acts really stupid and people buy it. Nevermind the girl has a science degree, when it comes to mundane tasks in a cubicle, she is "hopeless". All about the stupid questions too. She has perfected this act--I'm jealous. No one expects anything of her. No one questions her. No one accuses her of not doing her work. They are just proud that she managed to put her shoes on the correct feet this morning and all her buttons are done up. She's a genius.

I started to appraise other co-workers. Maurice, my cubicle buddy. I seriously don't know how he functions. But he got the job because he grew up with Amy. Small wonder. Otherwise...well I really don't know what would become of poor Maurice. But again, no one questions him. They let him move around his stacks of paper and reward him for moving it all to one side of his desk.

Then there is Veronica herself. She's not stupid, but she has perfected the art of passing the buck. She also flagrantly disobeys shoe rules. I know, I know--I do it too. But she is a supervisor. She is supposed to be setting standards here. But she waltzes in with runners or flip flops on a shockingly regular basis. She sends pointless emails, always managing to capture a patronizing and inappropriate tone. And when you ask questions, you are waved off. She is too busy trying to pass things off to pay attention you see.

If I pulled any of this stuff, you can bet your a$$ I would be hauled into a small meeting room pronto. And would be forced to listen to that crock of s**t teamwork speech that John has handy at all times.

Its all a big joke. I'm still waiting for someone to jump out and scream "GOTCHA" because this can't seriously be my life. For now I guess I will pretend that I'm a moron. Apparently this is how one gets ahead. And I could use the money.

2 comments:

  1. My cubical is more of a Victorian MauveAugust 6, 2009 at 3:27 PM

    It's important to remember the more money you make the less work you do so when you come in to work try to do nothing and you'll be CEO in no time! Don't worry if you screw up on things such as...oh I don't know line of credits because you can just send off letters asking your customers to waive their contract with you otherwise you'll threaten to call in the loans!

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  2. yes...it's true the less you do the more you are rewarded. at least that's what i've been taught...sadly.

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