Originally Posted: 2003-02-10 13:09 (no longer live)
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spineless yes-man

Face it Boss: after the Vital Procurement Policy Meeting has ended, after the last conference call on Enterprise Management has concluded with a Big Thanks to the participants, long after you’ve replied to the arcane emails on Standards Restructuring – late, late at night in the office, with your children asleep at home and your wife enjoying a nice cocktail with the new neighbor, when it is just you and your close colleague the Director of Process Improvement alone in your office, you don’t speak about how you want a clever, handsome, successful young man in the lower ranks, do you? What you want is a sycophant.

Let my 20+ years of brown-nosing, butt-kissing, and servile pandering help you on your road to Personal and Business success. Harvard Business School grads are available by the bucketful, MBAs are common as muck, and in these dark economic times experience means bupkis—but a good toady with the greasy smile and cheap clothes is still a prime commodity and increasingly hard to come by.

Here’s what I can offer:

SMARTS. None whatsoever. I guarantee that with me around no one will laugh when you stumble over the bizarre jargon and meaningless acronyms of your chosen profession. Nor will I ever make you look bad by pointing out mistakes or errors, no matter how costly they might be to the company!

AMBITION: My only desire is to please you, and to these ends I will stroke your ego in every way I can without actually dropping my pants and taking it up the bum like a barnyard animal. I will celebrate your authority, I will wallow in reverence, and I will blindly do whatever I am told (in a completely reverential, non-threatening way, of course)
INDEPENDENCE: None whatsoever. I will never question the reasons behind what I am doing. I am, after all, your employee. You are a Manager, and really an entirely different species than myself. I remember well that lesson from so many years ago in the restaurant kitchen when I was told “We’re not paying you to think!” I have never forgotten those words; I have lived by them ever since.

Additionally, I am available to be used as a sniveling scapegoat should your company ever run afoul of the SEC. Auditing anomalies? Hey! just send the folks to my cubicle and keep your own hands clean.

During these foul, stagnant, hideously tight economic times we’re lucky we have air to breathe. I understand this. I have nurtured a sense of fear, paranoia, and envy into my professional and personal life. I will smile when yelled out. I will take the blame. I will be your whipping boy. All the while, I am too dumb to ever cause any real trouble or make your own position irreverent.

I am, humbly, the man for you, Boss!






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