Greetings!  Delivering the Uncrapify Your Life! presentation to a division of Peabody Energy today.  They’re the largest coal company in the world, based in St. Louis of all places.  I’m looking forward to asking questions about clean coal, alternative fuels, and various other things that will make my car and house more efficient.  Is clean coal a myth?  Does sequestration work?  It’s one of the nice things about this job, talking to people in so many varied industries.  I’ll tell you what I find out later – thanks!

Welcome back!

By the way, I will be taking the Uncrapify Your Life! message to A’Viands Foodservice in Minneapolis on Friday, March 12th. I am gunning for a free meal out of it.  More importantly, though, I’ll have the opportunity to ask them what, in their professional experience, everyone else’s favorite and least favorite foods are.

I have my money on beets as least favorite.  I don’t even think it is a food.  Just because something is ‘healthy’ or ‘nourishing’ doesn’t mean it is edible. And just because something is edible doesn’t mean it is palatable. I mean, wood chips are edible, but they are not food.

And just look at what happened to the U.S.S.R.  Remember the collapse of the Soviet empire?  Beets did that.

Guess what?

No, no, let me just tell you – I will be performing at Union College in Schenectady, NY on Wednesday, March 10th. I love the name of that town – or, more accurately, am amused by it.  Just say it to yourself (if you can) – Schenectady. Doesn’t it sound vaguely indecent, or perhaps like some type of sports injury?  “Jarvis Fellows, sophomore fullback for the team, is out for the season after the terrible Schenectady he suffered in last week’s game.”

Speaking of sports, the Union College mascot is the Dutchman.  Now I’ve been sitting here for a while, trying to think of something entertaining to say that they would cheer for.  But I admit defeat.  Nothing about “The Mighty Dutchmen” says ‘funny’ to me, except perhaps the fact of saying “The Mighty Dutchmen.”  Point is, I have no idea what these folks could be cheering for.  But I’ll try to find out.

Hello again.

Today I’d like to share with you the four cardinal rules for conducting a bad meeting. This is an art form, ladies and gentlmen, one I do not bring to you lightly. If used correctly, these techniques can wither and ultimately dissolve any remaining work ethic and team identity your subordinates possess. With enough polish these rules will become an integral part of your work life, a glittering gem in the crown you display so proudly on your incompetent head.

So without further ado:

• Start late.
• Have no clear agenda.
• Finish late.
• Save your most important items for last when everybody else has already checked out and is playing with their phones.

Simple, elegant – much like the stroke of a master swordsman. And I know you’re just itching to swing blindly, aren’t you. But perhaps you’re still uncertain how to begin? No worries. Below is the actual transcript of a recorded meeting in which all four are used to dramatic effect:

I’m sorry I’m late. Traffic was just…whew! I just could not seem to get it together this morning. I am well aware that I’ve kept you waiting for… fifty-three minutes, and for that I sincerely apologize. I appreciate you waiting patiently. That shows dedication. Have a seat.

So today’s meeting has to…do…with….where did I put the briefing? Did you get the ones I printed out before I left yesterday? I thought I left them all on your desks. Please go back to your desks and check. I am sure I distributed them to you yesterday.

Not there? Oh, here they are. I had them. They were in my briefcase all along. Here- pass these out. Okay! Have a seat. No, wait. Everyone stand up and stretch! That’s it, yes. You all look tense. Side to side. Now forwards….and….backwards. Now I think we’re ready to begin.

Where is the cord for the projector? I know I brought it. I have a power-point. We will need to view the slides for this presentation. They are crucial for the understanding of the material.

Ah, here it is. It just…it goes into the side of the…the port, here? Like this? That is right, right? Okay. Give me a moment to boot up the laptop.

Alright! Okay…that’s my screensaver. Have any of you ever been to Bermuda? No? It’s great. You definitely should go, if you ever get the opportunity. That’s not the file. That’s not it. That’s not it. That’s not it. That’s definitely not it. No one saw that file, did they? Say no, or you’re fired. Ha ha.

Okay, here’s the power-point presentation! Let me…just….it’s loading. Okay it stopped. Does anyone know how this works? It…it just stopped. I don’t know. I…you…you got it? Okay. Great! Let’s begin.

We’ve got sixty-four slides to breeze through, I’m sure we can…oh, okay, our meeting time is nearly up, people. We’ll just tackle a couple and if we run over, we run over. Actually, in the interest of time, let’s just skip to pages four and seven. Let me get through to the right slides…no, no, no,no,no….no. Okay. This will have to do.

We’re running over on time. I am going to ask everyone to just review the information in the briefing at your desks on your breaks. It’s important information, people! Thanks for coming. Please make sure you take any trash out of the meeting room when you leave. Good job! Thanks.

My god, didn’t that just soften your brain matter? Sheer unadulterated brilliance! And you can do that, too! Never let another meeting go to waste. Make every single meeting feel like a kick in the teeth. I know you are capable of greatness. Prove it to me.

Interesting tidbit for your enjoyment:

In his book Why Marriages Succeed and Why Marriages Fail, John Gottman analyzed the ratio of positive and negative interaction with hundreds of couples, and determined the healthiest relationships had a 5:1 ratio. That’s five positive comments to every negative one. Let’s demonstrate this for those of you who are visually oriented:

1. I love you.
2. You are so wonderful.
3. Thank you for cooking dinner.
4. You make me smile.
5. You’ve never looked more beautiful.
6. I am really tired of having to tell you to put your socks in the hamper. Seriously. It’s like you don’t listen sometimes. Do you even listen to me when I talk?

That is the bedrock of a long and healthy relationship, people. Gaze longingly at the socks on the floor. Conversely, Mr. Gottman also determined that couples with a ratio of positive/negative feedback of 1:1 were more than likely doomed to fail (and often did). Again, let me conceptualize:

1. I love you.
2. I wish we had never met.

Get the idea? So how does this relate to your work experience? The simple fact is that these same ratios apply when dealing with praise and criticism in the workplace and can be used as an excellent measuring stick for your ‘marriage’ with your new employer.

“Marriage with my employer,” you scoff (or sneer, depending on your preference), “what kind of creepy associations are you making? Could you possibly be serious?”

Yes. Yes I am.

Think about it, Sneery McScoffington – You spend more time during your life in your place of employment than almost anywhere else. Not in the car, not asleep, not even if you sleep in your car. Your boss, your coworkers…you see them more than your spouse. More than your kids. Is this factual? In many cases, yes. Am I deliberately trying to depress you? Perhaps. So you might want to start looking at your commitment to work the same way you look at your commitment to your significant other.

Listen to the praise you receive, and to the criticism. Take count. What’s your daily ratio? How about your weekly ratio? Are you in a healthy ‘marriage’ in your current employment situation, one of those blissfully sickening types of unions that make the rest of us alternately disgusted and envious? Or are you in a ‘marriage’ similar to any one of the several I have been through?

Food for thought, certainly. Now, go tell your coworkers how much you love them – or how much you wish you’d never met. Whichever feels right.

Hi All,

Just wanted to let you know that I will be promoting my latest book and college lecture How to get Fired!: The New Employees Guide to Perpetual Unemployment on WMBD 31- Peoria on February 24th.

It’s a two-and-a-half minute interview, but I neglected to ask which two-and-a-half minutes out of the one thousand four hundred forty minutes of the day they actually are. So I recommend you watch that channel non-stop, all day long. If you are truly as industrious as I know you are, you’re already fashioning a makeshift bathroom out of an old couch cushion and hoarding food in that elastic pocket on the side of your reclining easy chair so you won’t miss it. I have faith in you.

Hint: 6:20a.m.-ish.

In this season of giving, it’s important not to overlook giving something special to oneself.  That’s why I got myself a very special, and very expensive, present this holiday season.  A new plasma TV?  No, my good friends, even more expensive than that.

I got myself a double hernia surgery this Christmas.  Why?  Because I’m worth it.  But more specifically, because I’d used up half of my deductible for the year already and figured to save a few thousand by doing it before 2010.  I should have gone ahead and gotten a CT scan and maybe a full body MRI, which would have been a super-cool picture collage to hang around the house, but I don’t think I’ll get those in before New Year’s.  So I’ll just have to wait until some other medical emergency comes up for me to capitalize on this particular quirk in our health care system.

Anyway, the surgery was great.  I played my part admirably, I’m told, by being cooperatively unconscious the entire time.  I wanted to stay awake and see the whole thing, but they can’t do a local anasthetic on your midsection, so they knocked me out.  They also drew on my stomach with the best Sharpee marker on the planet, since I still haven’t managed to wash off everything they wrote on me (not for lack of trying, just so you know).  Fortunately I have a kind doctor who just scribbled random things, but I can see some first-year interns taking advantage of their power in nefarious ways.

Aside from the fact that nobody ever wants to get surgery, I actually had very pleasant experience.  Everybody was very nice, except for the anaesthetist, who seemed to be annoyed that I wasn’t already unconscious when he first met me.  Not much of a people person, which explains why he chose a profession that allows him to make people shut up whenever he wants them to.  But all in all, my first run-in with the Big Bad American Health Care System in fifteen years was a decent one.  I haven’t seen the bill yet, of course.  But then, I have insurance, so I know what I’ll be paying.  If I didn’t…well, then I’d probably still have hernias.

What’s this have to do with business?  Nothing really – I just felt like sharing.  I would solicit your advice for the future, though.  I don’t think they’ll overhaul health care too severely in the next year, which means that I might get around to the end of 2010 and have a few hundred dollars left on my deductible again, which of course will necessitate the spending of it in a crazy new way.  Currently I’m thinking about contracting diphtheria, mostly because nobody I know has ever had it, and I’d like the bragging rights.  But if you can think of a more entertaining way for me to spend my health insurance deductible on something extravagant and unnecessary, I’d love to hear it.  Since we’re all slaves to this system, we might as well exploit it the best we can.

Hope you’re all well.  Enjoy the rest of the year.