Chapter Three, Part Two -- Make The List

(Note: This is Chapter Three, Part Two of my book, White Collar Warrior(tm). You can read the chapters that came before this one by clicking on the links to the right. If you are interested in representing or publishing my book, please let me know at whitecollarwarrior@hotmail.com. Thanks!)

Now, let’s break down The List in greater detail…

NAME

Besides plain old first name and last name, you’ll also want to take note of nicknames. If a guy is known as “Skipper” to his friends, start calling him Skipper as soon as you can. You want to be familiar, friendly and unthreatening to your co-workers, especially the ones you want to ruin. Also, if you can call this guy Skipper in front of executives or during a high-profile meeting, that’s a good thing. There aren’t many vice-president Skippers for a reason.

Now, speaking of names, with The List, you’ll also want to keep track of a target’s email addresses (professional and private), chat program names, and user names for the company website and email programs.

Also, on a separate sheet that you keep secured somewhere, keep track of your target’s passwords. I’m not saying spy or use electronic trickery to get someone’s passwords. I’m just saying if you happen to be in someone’s cube and you happen to watch him open his email program, and you just happen to notice that he types in “Fluffy123” for his password, then that might be a piece of useful information one day. For instance, you might have legitimate need to read his email after he’s left for the evening. It could happen. That’s all I’m saying.

Here’s a fun thing to do with names…Put them into an internet search engine like Google, Yahoo, MSN, or Dogpile. Search not just for website mentions, but also for photos and newsgroup postings. You never know what you’ll find. Could be nothing. Could be your rival occasionally wears a prom dress complete with a tiara and can’t resist posting the pictures on www.dudesinpromdresses.com.

I’m assuming if that’s the case you’ll know what to put in your action plan. Clue: it involves a mass emailing from an anonymous account.

RANK

Out of a choice of five: Employee, Peer, Direct Superior, Superior’s Superior, Big Cheese

Employee

This is someone who happens to work for you, your minion, a person you can boss around, a person whose miserable life you hold in the palm of your hand, someone you can crush.

Don’t get cocky about it. No one, and I mean no one, can ruin your faster than someone who works for you. You need to know your people inside and out. You need to know how to make them make you look good, and you need to know how to eliminate them when they stop doing that.

If you feel one of them digging their heels into your back, trying to climb over you on the corporate ladder, you need to know how best to kill them. Not literally. Unless of course they pull a knife or a gun on you. Then you can do what you need to do and it’s all perfectly legal. Just something to keep in mind.

Peer

Peer means someone who has the same job title as you, the same pay grade as you, the same skill set and almost always the same boss. There are some exceptions to this. For instance, if someone with your job title happens to have a different boss or works in a different department, that doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t want his job, his boss, or his potential promotion. If you work in a big company, keep an eye on peers in every department. If opportunity is lacking where you happen to be, don’t rule out making a lateral move, especially if you spot a weak peer ready to be cut down quickly. Keep your eyes open.

Obviously, peers are your most direct competition. They are the first people you’ll need to eliminate when necessary. You should consider them mortal enemies first and friends only if the need arises. Someone has to take your boss’ job when he leaves. It will be you or one of your peers. Who is it going to be?

Now, what you really don’t want is your peers knowing what you have in mind for them. You want the fight to be unfair, tilted so far in your direction that your enemy doesn’t have a hope in Hell. And more than that, you don’t want your enemy to know he is even in a fight. You want him to trust you, to ask for your help, to solicit your advice. And if your peer asks you to share the workload on a project or two, you say yes and roll up your sleeves. Just make sure your name is in the credits of any documents created, and make sure you give some, or all, of the presentation when the project is complete. You feel me?

Think of your peers as the people you happen to be sharing a cabin with on the Titanic. You all overslept and didn’t even hear the iceberg hit. Now the cabin is filling with ice water. The boat itself is pretty much underwater now. There is only time for one of you to get through the cabin door. Everyone else in the room will die an icy death. One of you will get to escape to the top deck and fight to get in a life boar. You might even get a front row viewing of Leonardo DiCaprio turning blue and freezing to death because Kate Winslett won’t scootch over a little on her piece of wood. Look at that thing. There’s plenty of room.

Why would you want to miss that? Do you really want to be one of the ones left in the cabin wondering what that really loud noise was?

Direct Superior

This is your boss.

A long time ago, a grumpy preacher from a red state gave a sermon about how people are sinners in the hands of an angry God, and at any second, God could dip them in a pit fire, roasting them alive, and then pull them out again, heal them, make them feel better, give them ice cream and a hand job, then dump them back into the fire just for the fun of it, laughing while their skin crackles to a golden brown.

Think of your boss as that crazy, power drunk God. Benevolent and kind one second, cruel and sadistic the next, your boss can you make you miserable like no one other than your spouse.

Make sure you add you boss to The List. His page is going to get a lot of attention.

Superior’s Superior

This is your boss’ boss. Your boss hates him (or, poor soul, her). He might act like he doesn’t but he does. Your boss wants nothing more in this world but for his superior to go away and let him feel like he actually has some power.

You see, as a middle manager, you get to sip from the cup of power. You get to boss people around. It’s a rush, and the more employees you have, the bigger rush it is. You can make a direct report feel like a million dollars with a few kind words, or you can crush his spirit with one snide remark. It’s like being a god. A really small god with no cool powers but one, you have the power to make your underlings taste heaven or hell, depending on your mood.

And what does a god resent more than anything else? A bigger, tougher more powerful god. All by himself, he feels pretty divine. But when a higher god walks in the room, his divinity looks pale and weak in comparison. That bigger god can even undo all his work, tell his employees to do something completely different, send them off on errands that have nothing to do with their original commands. And then, after that humiliation, his boss can then tell him exactly what to do and how to do it, reminding him of how powerless and pathetic he truly is.

That’s why a little power is a curse. You get a taste for how good it feels, and afterward, all you can think about is how you don’t have nearly enough. A heroin addiction is tougher to kick than a hunger for power.

So, that’s why your boss hates his boss. However, do you know how you feel about your boss’s boss? You love him! (Or, if you’re lucky, her!)

Think of your boss’ boss as a kind of grandparent. Grandparents always love to spoil the grandkids. They love saying things like: “Let’s take off early and grab a steak on the expense account” or “I bet you’d love to get a new computer next quarter” or “How would you like to come with us on the next trip to Fort Lauderdale? We could use a hand during the next executive retreat.”

For some reason, I’ve always found my boss’ boss to be one of the most delightful and generous people on the planet. He’s overly benevolent to his employee’s employees because it gives him a double buzz: 1. He gives joy to someone who probably has little. 2. Giving that joy gives great pain to someone else, your boss, who is busy screaming profanities into a pillow as you walk to the bar across the street with his superior. Your boss’s boss is having all the fun of being Satan combined with all the power of being a god.

Another thing you need to think about: You want one day for your superior’s superior to be your superior. Your boss needs to go, and one day he will, and you want to replace him. To do that, you need to be ready to step right in. You need to make sure it’s inconceivable that anyone else could do the job. And the person you need to think that is your boss’ boss.

And that’s why he’s on The List. Not because you want to destroy him, but because you want to know what he likes and dislikes so you can embody everything he favors and reject everything he doesn’t. You want to be the grandson he wishes he had (not the snotty, pot smoking, money-grubbing troublemaker he has to bail out of jail once a year). If he likes paisley ties, find yourself some ameba-covered silk. If he likes to talk football, you are now a fan of his teams, and you are going to spend a few hours every week studying them to the point you know where the quarterback went to high school and who he lost his virginity to. If he’s gay, you’re not going to turn away when he puts his hand on your knee. Of course, you’re not going to do anything you don’t want to. But you’re not going to make him feel bad. Christ, it’s just a friendly hand on a knee. You big baby.

A Big Cheese

These are the true gods of the corporate world. These are the guys who can fire you without even meeting you. If they don’t care for your division anymore, bam, you’re gone with one email.

These are the guys that before they arrive on your floor, someone calls ahead so you can prepare. “Hey! The big cheese is on his way. Get ready.” And at that point, there is a flurry of tidying up and men in $3,000 business suits are suddenly wielding brooms and dust rags. Such is the power of a Big Cheese.

I especially appreciate all the fake work that happens once the big cheese finally arrives and the air becomes filled with keyboard clacking and inside every cube is a person trying to desperately look to importantly busy. The braver souls actually take part in fake phone calls, haggling down prices, chewing out vendors and taking imaginary orders. Only a truly important person can cause this much spontaneous dishonesty.

So why is the Big Cheese on The List? Isn’t he so far above your head that it’s not even worth thinking about him? Of course not, idiot.

The guy has the power to do whatever the hell he wants, including promoting you to King Jr., if he wishes. Sure, it’s a long shot, but it has happened before. If the Big Cheese presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and you need to be ready. If you put him on The List, you’ll be just that.

The problem with the Big Cheese is that you aren’t going to know much about him unless he’s one of those CEOs who insist on writing books about himself. If that’s the case, then read his book and make your life easier.

What you want to do is talk to old timers who have been around the company for a few years, the folks who have stories to tell and will tell them all for the price of a steak and a Jack on the rocks. That might be your boss, or it might be your boss’ boss, or it might be a co-worker. Either way, there are people around who know the king.

Also, feel free to search the internet as well. Big Cheese’s leave all kinds of footprints, where they were hired, where they were fired, what house’s they’ve bought, and who they’ve married. Big Cheese’s are addicted to PR, and thanks to the Internet, PR is permanent.

Look, if you Google yourself and get a few hits (the pictures of your dog on your Facebook page, your listing on your high school alumni page, a guy with your name who is doubtless more successful and better looking than you), then there will be plenty of articles about any Big Cheese worthy of the title.

In fact, I just Googled five CEOs from 5 company not even in the Fortune 500, and got plenty on each one to fill up The List. There are Q&As covering everything from their visions for the future to what schools their kids go to their pets’ names. I have almost enough info on these guys to steal their identities (too bad there are no Social Security numbers in any of these listings) or pretend to be the son of a long lost high school buddy long enough to scam a free night in the guest bedroom and maybe a loan.

One quick note about Big Cheese’s: They are almost always smart and ruthless, which should be obvious, but can also be bat shit insane, which might be surprise to you, as one might expect sanity to be basic requirement for holding that much responsibility. All that money does something to their grasp of reality. Howard Hughes is an easy example, a guy who didn’t cut his hair or finger nails for the last 20 years of his life, and who bought a TV station so he could make it play the movies he wanted to see. (They didn’t have DVDs or VCRs back then.)

But he’s far from alone in the Big Cheese Funny Farm. I know of one CEO who eats nothing but white toast and drinks nothing but whole milk. Other than that, nicest guy in the world. Another Big Cheese I know of will fire you if you don’t argue with him. Doesn’t matter what about. He just likes to argue. He likes conflict, be it over football teams, Stephen Spielberg’s best movie or whether OJ did it or not. Not arguing with him is your ticket to the unemployment line.

Another Big Cheese, this one from the entertainment industry (which does seem to spawn insanity in executives more than any other), would tell specific chosen employees how to dress, everything from suit colors and cuts, to ties, to shirts (French cuffs with elegant cufflinks), to shoes (nothing Italian and light, he liked bulky English heels, laces, and wing tips). And yes, even underwear (boxers, Egyptian cotton or silk). The employees he graced with wardrobe advice were always the ones who ended up being promoted and doing well in the company. If he never bothered to teach you how to tie a Windsor knot, then you might as well have started sending out your resumes.

So, when you add a Big Cheese to The List, make special note of his eccentricities. Be ready to have your cube stocked with white bread, a toaster and a fridge full of milk. Know what to argue about and what to chat amiably about. If a Big Cheese favors those horrid, multi-colored, $300 sweaters that look knitted by Stevie Wonder, then by all means, have one ready to slip into should a BC visit be ready to happen.

And for the love of all that’s holy, if you start fake typing to make yourself look busy during a BC visit, actually type something that looks like work. You don’t want the exec to walk by your cube and see you intensely typing out: “aa;vubrev;iqebeqibwrv;uwvb;bw.”

(To be continued in Chapter Three, Part Three)

CHAPTER 1, PART 1 -- A Journey of a Thousand Miles Starts With No One Caring That You Are About To Start a Journey Of A Thousand Miles

JIMMY’S DAY ONE -- Welcome To The Cube

Poor Jimmy, all alone in his cube, his first day at work, one worker in a building filled with a thousand, in a company of ten thousand, in a professional world of millions, as insignificant as one tiny ant in a colony, the smallest ant, the weakest ant, the ant least likely to succeed.

Pathetic, isn’t he? His white dress shirt too big in the shoulders, his tie poorly tied, his ill-fitting khaki pants sporting a logo with an anchor above the back pocket. Does he really expect anyone to take him seriously?

He’s fresh from business school, carrying a copy of his MBA in his leatherette briefcase. He got the job because of the degree, which happens to be from an Ivy League school. The company recruiter almost always hires the Ivy Leaguers, no matter how disappointing they look in person. Besides, as an assistant to the assistant account coordinator, the lowest rung on the corporate ladder, Jimmy couldn’t cause much harm.

Also, the recruiter gets a bonus when an open slot is filled within a week, so when she sees a candidate that seems to shower regularly and is smart enough to turn on his computer, she hires him. And thus, Jimmy is in his cube, staring at his computer screen, waiting for the blue loading screen to go away so he can start his first day.

He stands. He looks over the gray wall of his cube. He’s in the middle of a field of cubes, stretching to the horizon in every direction. His “welcomer” (a tired-looking woman from Human Resources who rattled off the company rules and regulations with an android’s monotone) said that more than 300 people work on his floor. He can hear them clacking on keyboards, occasionally coughing, sometimes mumbling, sometimes whispering, sometimes their phones ringing, but he can’t actually see one other living soul. He sits back down. The blue loading screen is still loading.

He exhales. He doesn’t know what to do. He looks at his phone, but it doesn’t ring, doesn’t offer a friendly voice telling him where to go or what to do. He doesn’t know where his boss, Dick, sits, or what his number might be. There isn’t a company directory in his cube. He should ask for one.

Yes, good, he thinks. He now has a reason to talk to one of his cube mates, break the ice a little by asking for some minor help. He straightens his tie, stands, adjusts his pants, tucks in his shirt. He glances at his computer. The blue loading screen still blinks at him.

He walks out of his cube, walks around its outside wall, and arrives at another opening where he does indeed find a human-like life form. The name tag outside the cube’s opening reads, “Bob.”

Inside, a plump man in a white shirt, khakis and poorly tied tie is whispering into a phone intently. His cube his filled with framed pictures of sports cars, sometimes on beaches, sometimes on race tracks, sometimes with bikini clad models sitting on the hoods.

“Bob likes cars,” Jimmy thinks. “That will give us something to talk about, maybe.”

Bob glances at Jimmy and doesn’t stop whispering into the phone. He says: “No. I said no. Not at all. No. I have to go. I said I have to go. No.”

Jimmy waves and smiles. Bob turns his back to Jimmy and stares at the framed picture of a red BMW M3 that’s next to his computer monitor. He continues into the phone: “Maybe. Well, no. Probably not. No. I really have to go.”

Jimmy breathes deep, in, then out, then he walks on.

Before he can get to the next cube and try again to make human contact, he hears a phone ring. Could it be his phone? It does seem to be coming from that direction. He trots around to his cube and sure enough, his phone his ringing, signaling the start of his workday, his new job and his new career.

He answers the phone as quick as he can grab it, just after the fourth ring, and hears nothing but a dial tone. He missed the call. The voice mail light lights, a dim red glow next to the caller ID window, which reads, “Dick Wadde.” His boss just called and he missed it, his new boss with the truly unfortunate name. He reminds himself not to even smile about it.

The computer’s blue loading screen has gone away, replaced by a box that wants a User ID and Password. No one gave Jimmy a user ID and password. Maybe that’s what his boss wanted, to give him his password, and maybe some direction on what he should be doing.

No one gave him instructions on how to get voice mail, so he can’t actually listen to the message his boss left him.

Jimmy sits. He looks at the empty gray walls of cube. He wishes he had pictures of cars to hang. He wishes someone would talk to him, tell him what to do, let him prove himself to be smart and capable and worthy of his paycheck.

He hears Dick’s voice, floating over the top of his cubes. He recognizes it from the job interview. Dick’s voice always seems to be booming, like his volume is turned up two notches higher than everyone else’s. He’s an assistant account representative, but he carries himself like a CEO who just got a pay raise.

“First day on the job and already I can’t find him,” Dick says. “Why is it not possible for us to hire good people?”

Dick appears in the doorway to Jimmy’s cube. Dick’s in a blue suit, well-tailored, with a bright red tie over a crisp white shirt. Dick looks like he’s running for president.

“There you are,” he says to Jimmy. “I thought you were all ready AWOL on me. You have everything you need?”

Jimmy stands.

“Well, not really,” Jimmy says. “I don’t have a password for the computer, or the voice mail. But I’m looking forward to starting work and I was wondering what projects you want me to start on. I’m really anxious to get going.”

“Yeah, we really need to talk about all that. Thing is, I have a meeting right now. What I want you to do is go back to Human Resources, find your welcomer, tell her she’s an idiot and she’s wasting your time and my time, and then tell her to get your computer and phone set up, and also, you’re going to need lots of legal pads and lots of pens. I hope you’re good at taking notes. I talk really fast.”

“Got it. I can do that. Thanks again for this opportunity.”

“Yeah. I gotta go. Glad to have you on board.”

Jimmy is about to extend his hand for a friendly and professional shake, but Dick has disappeared. Jimmy breathes, in, then out. He wonders who Dick was talking to before he reached his cube.

He realizes he has no idea where Human Resources is or how to find his welcomer. He feels helpless, abandoned, and that it’s his fault for not knowing what to do, what to ask, who to ask or how to ask.

He looks around his barren cube. There are still thumbtacks in the walls, where someone had posters or something pinned up. There is a coffee mug cast aside in one corner. It reads “Caffeine, alcohol, killing my boss…I’ll choose caffeine…for now.”

The pencil drawer in his desk is slightly ajar. He opens it and finds the items that seem to be in every pencil drawer everywhere in the universe, five paperclips, 36 cents in change, two rubber bands (one broken), two pencils, and an old business card.

He picks up the business card. It reads: “White Collar Warrior – In today’s corporate battlefield, you can be a general, with my help. Call…”

“Who was in this cube before me?” he wonders. “And where did he, or she, end up?”

END OF CHAPTER ONE, PART ONE