So today I got an e-mail that I seem to get a lot more frequently…I’ll spare you the exact transcript, but the wording was along the lines of:

“Hey, that project we e-mailed you about doing last week that was due this morning…where it be?”

These e-mails always bother me because they usually mean that I overlooked a previous e-mail that I had written off because it possibly fell into one of two categories that exclude it from my personal attention. The categories are as follows:

1. Things that require an exertion of effort, no matter how small, on my part.
2. Things that might be boring.

In order for an e-mail to elicit my personal attention, it must first meet one or more of the following criteria:

1. Things from people I know that will no doubt amuse me, such as personal correspondence, interesting anecdotes, or links to websites that involve totally inappropriate things. Example- Pictures of people from other countries pooping on each other.
2. E-mails that possibly contain hilarious mpeg videos of cats being spun around in ceiling fans, stepped on, hit by cars, kicked or otherwise getting whomped on.


I am sure that I opened this e-mail because this is standard procedure for me but I highly doubt that I actually progressed to the actual READING portion of it. I open it so that it sends a ‘read receipt’ to the sender. That way they feel as though I valued their input enough to read their correspondence. In reality it is really just the second step in a 3 part process in which their e-mail goes to my trash can.

At any rate, I was now getting the angry followup e-mail that sometimes happens when you fail to do stuff that had a deadline. The basic question that was now being posed to me was: “Well, did you do it or what?” I mean, there was more to it than that, I am paraphrasing here, but for all intents and purposes, that’s what it all boiled down to.

This means that I now have to enact my emergency contingency plan, which I have creatively named the “Shit to do when you done fucked up and need to make it look as good as can possibly be expected under the circumstances because you did indeed fuck up…you fuck up.” Plan.

Although the procedure itself is a trademarked maneuver of Zachary Byron Helm, I feel comfortable passing it on to you. Feel free to use it any time you find yourself in a similar situation.

Step 1: Panic. This is important because it sets the proper atmosphere that you will need to work under, now that you have exactly 5 to 10 minutes to cover your ass. I need to preface this by stating that total ass coverage may not be a realistic goal, given the short amount of response time you are going to have. At best you may be able to expect 3/4 ass coverage, although statistically in my experience you will be able to forecast an average of 50% ass coverage. This is of course the origin of the term ‘half assed’ which was no doubt pioneered by our lazy ass ancestors

Step 2: Assure your superiors that the project is done and will be right over in a moment. This is of course a total falsehood. The project has not even been started, let alone finished, but the good thing is that you wait about 5 minutes before sending the response. When you send the response be sure to not commit to anything, just basically say something to the effect of “The requested project is completed. Would you like the completed product at this time?” which is of course a totally stupid question…of course they want the completed product, they wanted it 4 freaking hours ago, but by asking a stupid question you now have afforded yourself even more time because it is going to take them another 2 minutes to respond with something that is along the lines of “Of course we want it” by that time you should be well on your way to step 3…

Step 3: Work feverishly, like a bitch. I would recommend that you also take a moment to review and determine the actual projects purpose. Although this might seem unnecessary, I assure you, this is important. Occasionally management focuses on some sort of end result so you will want to find out what that is, so you can make it seem like you recognized it too and your work in some way relates to it. From here you will progress to the next stage

Step 4: Do the actual work but REALLY quickly. Most of the time your project (in corporate America at least) will be some sort of report or analysis of something. Both are soft touches when it comes to completely and totally bullshitting your way through it. Observe:

Analysis- This means you have to look at a situation and tell management what you think of it. Your opinion on ANY situation should never waiver, your analysis should ALWAYS be the opinion that the company is doing great, all the right decisions have been made, yet we are falling short of actual potential and something should DEFINITLY be done about this. I know this seems far fetched, that one analysis would be applicable no matter what the situation is, but check this out-

Obviously something is screwed up. Don’t be a fucking schlub, of course it’s screwed up, otherwise management wouldn’t want you to analyze it, they’d leave it the hell alone. You can easily chump out of this by just finding a fancy way of saying that it is all screwed up but being totally vague and non-committal. Sure, it might seem like a long shot because you have no clue what the problem actually is, but management will not nail you on this because, and this is a good one here…THEY DON’T KNOW EITHER! Think about it, if THEY knew what the problem was, would they be asking some crap on like you what to do about it? Some goober who half the time doesn’t even read their e-mails until it is too late? Hell no! They are even more clueless than you!

The other project you might have to panic and put together is the report. This is a cinch.

Report- This is just like an analysis but they probably want some other stuff along with it. Basically you just need to type a bunch of stuff in regards to a situation, but you probably want to tack some sort of recommended course of action on the end for good luck. Sometimes they refer to this as a “Plan” which is something that you obviously never had to begin with or you wouldn’t be in this predicament to begin with.

A plan is easy to formulate. Basically, your plan should always be to make everyone ELSE work harder to meet your goals. Of course you cant just COME RIGHT OUT and say this, that would be way too obvious. You are going to want to draw it way the hell out and expand on the idea exponentially. Double space that mofo. If you are feeling particularly industrious you can add a cover page as well as an introduction. I also recommend citing precedent and quoting authorities. Be sure to make up names completely at random so that no one can check out your references later for accuracy. Maybe they will just figure that you’re sources were so avant guard that they have never heard of them. If you are running low just throw in some quotes from Star Trek. I do.

You are also going to want to be sure to church it up a little, for appearances sake. Throw in a lot of 50 cent words that sound good in a corporate environment. Use them liberally, things like ‘incentive’, ‘exemplify’, ‘projection’, ‘indicator’, ‘tantamount’, ‘conducive’, ‘plateau’, ‘contention’, ‘encompass’, and if you really want to blow them all away try to work in ‘extrapolate’ or if possible ‘penultimate’. Hell, make up some words. Use ‘Congredious’. It sounds about like it could possibly be a word and who the hell is going to call you out on some shit like that? Who wants to be the one to admit they have no idea what you mean when you say that “Projected productivity forecasts point to a shortage of congredious proportions”?

So there you have it, the underlying concept that has led me to a management position in corporate America.