Sparkie and the Vertically Different Brotherhood: Part I

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a young woman of unspecified ethnicity and racial origin. Her mother, in a wrongheaded and prejudiced moment, had christened her Snow White, but she preferred to call herself Sparkie. Her father was the democratically-elected ruler of the country, where they had polls every three years and all sentient creatures had the right to vote.

Sparkie’s father, on the death of his first wife, had married again. The girl’s new mother was a victim of the unfavourable circumstances surrounding her upbringing and for that reason was in the habit of resorting to unorthodox and even illegal means to get what she wanted. However, as the psychologists pointed out, this was entirely due to factors beyond her control and was not her fault at all.

Sparkie was a political activist and spent her time championing the cause of the less privileged. This made things somewhat uncomfortable for her family. One day her stepmother, in a fit of madness for which she could in no way be held responsible, decided that enough was enough and the living room could no longer be treated as a storehouse for pamphlets saying, “Alfalfa is sentient too!” or, “Votes for budgerigars!”

She called her chauffer, and asked him politely if he could see his way to taking the girl to a country house the family owned and leaving her there. The chauffer knew that this was a violation of the girl’s fundamental right to ruin her parents’ peace by calling press conferences in the garden in the middle of the night, but his devotion to his employer was so strong that he consented.

He took Sparkie out of the city, but he had not the heart to leave even the person responsible for the fact that curly-haired spaniels had the right to stand for public office in a place where she would have only those curly-haired spaniels for company. Happening to be aware of a small rural branch of the Vertically Different Brotherhood in the vicinity, he took her there and returned to the city.

The Vertically Different Brothers, of whom there were seven in this particular establishment, had heard of the girl and her activities on behalf of the downtrodden, and they welcomed her warmly.

The Idiot's Guide to Surviving the Corporate World

It’s called the real world. It’s the name people give to long hours tapping away at a keyboard with benumbed fingers and staring at a computer screen as though it is about to reveal the deepest mysteries of life.

A friend of mine, on condition of anonymity – he assures me that his boss has a well-developed sense of humour, but feels it would be better not to put it to the test – gave me some advice from his own experience.

The first step, he told me, is to develop a rapid walk and cultivate a permanently harried expression. This will serve to give the impression that whenever you leave your desk, even if it’s for a coffee break or to buy tickets to the Friday night movie, you are on an assignment whose success is vital to the continued profitability of your company.

The cell phone must be your best friend. Commit to memory every technical phrase and bit of jargon that is used by people in your office, and as soon as you sense the attention of a superior on you, start reciting them at random while talking into your phone and nodding vigourously.

Excel must be your second-best friend. Contrary to popular myth, the simplest formulae and spreadsheets are seldom the best. An ideal spreadsheet to send your boss has formulae that sprawl across three lines and references to at least eight different workbooks. The more he has to flip from sheet to sheet tracing your logical acrobatics, the more likely he is to feel that you have put serious thought into your work.

If you are relatively free, the safest way to spend your time is to sink into a pleasant daydream. But before that, ensure that you adopt the classical thinker’s posture and lean towards your screen. If possible, furrow your brow as well. Shake your head and mutter under your breath from time to time. (It is best to practise this in front of the mirror first, so that you look like a hardworking employee grappling with a fundamental problem in the way the company’s IT systems are run, and not like a deranged lunatic with a neck tic.)

Find an excuse to do as much work as possible outside the office. Sure, it might be an hour’s commute in the baking afternoon heat to make a ten-minute presentation to somebody who isn’t even listening and has already made up their mind anyway, but is anyone really going to notice if you take a half-hour longer than necessary to get back?

These five simple measures, I am assured, will make the corporate jungle seem like a children’s amusement park.

And if they don’t work? Well, there’s always Dilbert.