The Diary of a Reluctant Management Consultant

"The weather was fantastic!"

The first week back at the office can, quite possibly, be the most frustrating of the year. The reasons are many and varied but can usually be traced to the clash of the idiots (like me) who worked over the festive season and the lucky schmucks who took leave and went on holiday. As the holiday-makers pour back into the office with their relaxed demeanours, golden tans and childlike, optimistic attitudes, they are met by a small group of disgruntled, envious, aggravated and pale pessimists.

Everywhere you go in the office a shiny, happy person wants to tell you what they did over the holidays and those who lurked around the office over this time are eager to justify why the chose to work while the rest of the country was at the coast trying to get sand out of their nether regions. The result is the same, numbingly dull and repetitive conversation had at the vending machine, in the lift and even at the urinal, despite the unwritten urinal “absolutely no conversation unless you’re absolutely drunk” rule. But there’s very little straight talk in these conversations; the truth is carefully hidden from view. Take for example some of the things that the vacationers regularly sprout forth:

And here’s a little sample of what the poor, unfortunate, self-appointed martyrs have to say:

That’s right; the first week back at the office is filled with boring people telling you boring stories of the boring things they did on their boring holidays. And when you eventually make it back to the office, you’re met with some idiot parking in your parking spot; your access card doesn’t work because Security re-set them on 1 January and you can’t log on because you’ve forgotten your password.

But it’s good to be back at the office – I was running low on Post-It notes and besides, I was cut-off by a dunce in an Audi this morning, so at least things are back to normal.

“Hi, my name’s Mao… and I’m a workaholic”…

All together now, “Hi Mao!”

The problem with work today is that there’s so much of it. Everyone’s getting in early and leaving late, people are working weekends and much to my irritation, some are even working and eating at their desks! I confess it’s the potential for crumbs and the reality of the Stewed Yak Surprise odour that disturbs me.

And let’s not even begin to discuss the Crackberry-addicted workaholics. These people are permanently affixed to their Blackberry devices. They begin to tick nervously if their “productivity tool” doesn’t vibrate with annoying regularity in meetings. “I’m very important, surely someone must have sent me an e-mail in the last thirty seconds”, even if it’s a pointless cc-All announcement, telling the entire company that the Basel II team is having a team lunch and won’t be available for the rest of the afternoon, thus forcing you to put on hold any pressing Basel II issues you may have had. To demonstrate their omnipotence, their inability to focus and to create the impression that they’re working 24/7, they will reply to every e-mail, no matter how trivial or critical, with a brief, but curt I’m-too-busy-to-use-full-sentences message, such as “Thanx”, “FYI” or my favourite, “Yes”. But I digress… back to excessive amounts of work.

There are some signs that you might be overworked… If your mailbox is over the limit, as a result of work-related e-mails and not videos of someone’s pet dog chasing the light from a torch, clips of Paul Potts or Susan Boyle auditioning for Britain’s Got Talent, amusing Australian beer commercials or let’s face it, porn, then you may be working too hard. If your office and cell phone voicemail are full because of work-related queries and not your bunny-boiling ex wanting to get back together again, then you might be a slave to the grind. And, if your calendar in Outlook is fully booked from eight till five every day because of work-related meetings and not because you booked the time out to complete your tax return (for example…), filled your diary with fake meetings to surreptitiously suggest that you’re busy, preventing people from setting-up meetings with you and artificially dousing yourself with work credibility (known in the cube farm as work-cred; it’s like street-cred, but not as cool), then you may be a corporate drone. Even more sinful is if you have and even plan on attending meetings scheduled on a Friday afternoon. Unless of course, these are faux meetings, designed to throw your colleagues off the scent that you’re actually going for Friday afternoon drinks and you don’t want to invite them:

Subject: Doctor’s Appointment

Venue: Their Offices (News Cafe, corner Gwen Lane and Fredman Drive, Sandton)

Attendees: Dr. Beat; Gloria Estefan

When work begins to impact your personal life, then you’ve really got problems. At university, if you got 51% for an exam, you were considered neglecting your friends. If your handicap is now carpal tunnel syndrome and not a -4, then you’re clearly neglecting your golf buddies. If you refer to your children as Resource01, FTE (Full Time Equivalent) or TBA (To Be Announced) then you’re neglecting your family. If you think ‘The Dark Knight’ is Sir Salman Rushdie, you haven’t been to the movies in a while. If you think ‘Ugly Betty’ works in accounting, then despite this being perfectly true, you’re obviously not watching enough TV. If you’re reading this blog on your Blackberry, while waiting to board a flight back home after spending two weeks in Lagos on business, then someone needs to get a life!

Have a great week and don’t work too hard…