The world of business can be a precarious place in 2010, and nowhere is more dangerous than the office jungle. Predators are waiting to prey on the vulnerable and ill-prepared and if you’re not ready for them then they can make your working life hell. Well, fear not because I’m here to describe the three main categories of office menace and how you can overcome them!
Office menace number one is The Snitcher! These people are ultra-ambitious and will stop at nothing to ensure that they reach the top of the ladder. The snitcher will appear to keep out of office politics and will never indulge in the general gossip and chit-chat that makes office life bearable, but beware because they are all ears. They will make a mental note of any indiscretion and will use it to their advantage. If somebody has criticised a manager and you later see the snitcher’s fingers flying across his keyboard then you can be sure that he will be sending an email, with as many names and details as possible, to the manager in question. The only way to combat this danger is to know your enemy: you can spot them by their hawk like eyes, their silence during office debates and the little black book that is kept locked in their drawers. Once you have found the snitcher, just make sure that you praise your managers at every opportunity once the snitch is around and who knows, this might make its way back to the powers that be as well! It also helps if the snitcher is convinced (whether true or not) that you have no desire for advancement yourself, if they see you as no threat then they are less likely to target you.
The second menace is The Joker, do not underestimate this danger because behind the jocular exterior he can be as malicious as the snitcher can. The Joker will spend his days mixing coffee with tea, changing the letters around on keyboards and lowering chairs to the floor ready for the unsuspecting victim to sit on them. The Joker is also prone to give offensive and hurtful nicknames to people and will repeat them ad infinitum as the truth about the joker is that he has very little sense of humour at all: he is simply a bully who hides his viciousness behind a fake bonhomie. The only way to beat the joker is to let them know that you are not to be messed with, to beat them at their own game! One way to do this is to set up a false email (you could use googlemail or hotmail for this) in a woman’s name and then send a series of increasingly flirtatious emails to the joker. When you have enough cringeworthy replies from him you can then confront him with the evidence with the implicit threat that you could forward them to his victims; once he realises that he has been out pranked by a master then he will leave you alone.
The third menace comes in the form of The Teacher’s Pet! This menace, as opposed to the snitcher, is not doing this out of any desire for advancement but simply out of an overactive work ethic! They are always the first to volunteer but the danger with the teacher’s pet is that not only do they hate to be doing nothing but they hate to see their colleagues inactive as well. You, like me and any right thinking worker, may wish to spend a quiet day looking at Facebook or throwing virtual paper planes out of a virtual window. If the teacher’s pet is not checked, however, then he will have everybody tidying an already tidy office or repeating work that was done a month previously. To defeat this menace you have to make them feel that you are already working on a secret project that is too important to be torn away from: use your imagine here, the more implausible the better. Your white lies will go unchallenged, as the teacher’s pet does not have the capacity to think that somebody might be deliberately shirking work. Just don’t let them know that your secret project is really selling your spare CD’s on Ebay!
The modern office can be a dangerous environment but by following my tips you can negotiate a stress-free path to another weekend. Now put your feet up and relax, book a bit of ski accommodation if you fancy it, you’ve worked hard enough for one day!