Lessons in Psychological Sub-Management Techniques

A guy at work looks like Donald Pleasence. Add thicker glasses and a white beard and that's him. Same beady bewildered eyes, ice blue and sort of blind looking. (more sight puns). When he takes his glasses off, his eyes are pale blue discs with pin-points of black. It is through these tiny distorted apertures that he is forced to see his world – like looking through a pair of magnified drinking straws.

This man spends 12 hours per day looking for things. Lost paperwork, lost messages, lost hardware. He once lost an installer; that is couldn’t remember what job he had sent him to. When he tried to phone the installer, the other phone in his pocket began to ring because he had forgotten to give it to the installer. He is a master at creating highly complex, yet arbitrary, systems. His hobby is designing check-lists to prevent losing things. These lists require other lists to explain the arbitrary symbols required to fill in the former. Racks, bins, and cubbyholes are also popular with him. He has been known to interrupt a large production run to have parts made for some rack or other. This requires two re-tools, halts production for several hours, and the parts end up sitting on a trolley for several months till someone gets time to build them. And by then he’s forgotten about it anyway. He is not good with computers - we are fully networked, but we generate paper for him.

Now lets add a healthy dose of paranoia to the mix. Somewhere, sometime, somebody shat on him bad. Because now he truly believes every person he knows is trying to screw him. He’d find a conspiracy in a three-legged chair.

Do not smile when you speak to him, he will assume you are laughing at him. Always look when he is speaking or he will assume you are ignoring and, therefore, laughing at him. Do not laugh at him. Do not make jokes he will not get - he will assume the joke is on him. Do not use metaphors, for they are just tricky ways of laughing at him. If you offer to help he will feel patronized. If you do not offer to help he will feel victimized.

As you can see, I’ve made quite a study of this man. Normally I’d write him off as a curious fellow, but harmless. Unfortunately this man is my boss and it falls to me to appease him. For left on his own, he can cause great damage, turmoil and general malaise throughout factory-land. I’ve seen ten men come and ten men go because of him.

But I’m not complaining. This man is one of the main reasons I am valuable to the company. He’s a Director of the company, and he’s not going anywhere. I work in the background and allow him to take the credit. Things get done. Staff are happy. And those that matter, including owners of other companies, know what I do. His reputation reaches far and wide.

So I do not think of him as an annoyance or burden (though I do get weary, like all parents) and I intend no slander on his character*. There are smarter guys than me working there, but nobody else can do what I do. This man is my ticket. You remember those old Vaudeville acts where the guy spun dinner plates on poles, running back and forth to keep them going? That’s what I do...I keep the plates spinning. (it’s just a metaphor, don’t get upset.)

*the lawyer said to say that.