I Hate People...But It's Nothing Personal

Beware the Spreadsheet

Companies around the world have been slashing salaries, budgets and staff. But some cuts are really, really bad for business.

Consider Whole Foods. I’ve spent several thousand dollars there the past fifteen years, and lauded the store in my book with Tom Kelley, The Ten Faces of Innovation, once praising the company’s “creative, engaged, project-oriented teams.” But in my latest book with Marc Hershon, I Hate People!, we explored a style of manager that can sour even the most inspired company if they go unchecked: The Spreadsheet.

On Thanksgiving morning I heard first-hand what I’d felt the last few years. The Spreadsheets have invaded and the excitement appears to have gone out of working at Whole Foods. While I shopped two employees openly grumbled about a century old management tool that is raising its ugly head — the company time clock.

Spreadsheets are in full force at the grocer. Whole Foods has figured out how to cut costs. The firm has slashed the ten-minute grace period workers were once allotted in case they arrived late for their shift or returning from breaks.

First the company apparently cut it in half to five minutes. Then, literally, a tick over one minute. Sixty-one seconds. That’s all it takes to be late at Whole Foods: To get written up. A black mark. Nor is it the sort of place you get rewarded for being early.

Trust would seem to be a casualty, replaced by absurd Spreadsheet logic. While you can’t be more than 60 seconds tardy, the worker told me they also are not allowed to clock in more than 3 minutes early.

Perhaps not the best way to save money and increase morale. The worker smiled, and explained: “A lot of times we just stand around and wait for the time to pass before we can clock back in.”

What a great team building system!

What makes this even more hypocritical is that while workers are not trusted to make up for being a few minutes late — for several years Whole Foods’ CEO trashed the competition online under a pseudonym, a scandal that has led to an FCC investigation.

Not exactly a great shining management example.

Meanwhile, the company’s thousands of workers are imprisoned by those new Draconian Time Clock Rules. The worker shook his head and shrugged before restocking the shelf: “They’ve just turned into a big company.”

It’s an unfortunate example of how to take once “engaged, project-oriented teams,” and turn them into disillusioned hourly workers who can’t seem to catch a break.

My advice is to think long and hard about where you look for savings. Cost cutting that ruins employee morale can be a lousy bargain.

A few hundred years before the invention of the Time Clock, a phrase was coined that still perfectly sums up this silliness: “penny wise, pound foolish.”

— Jonathan Littman

Tell us a recent cost-cutting move at your company that you think was penny wise and pound foolish. No company names please.

Hate Unbottled

A recent important study was released in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health but you wouldn't know it by the title: "Covert coping with unfair treatment at work and risk of incident myocardial infarction and cardiac death among men: prospective cohort study."

Say what?

Talked about in today's Guardian in the UK, it's all about how bottling up anger in the work place and just walking away from a potentially explosive encounter can wreak all sorts of havoc, mainly upping the risk of heart attacks. Kind of a no-brainer, except for the numbers — the chance for a cardiac haymaker is almost five times that of workers who let that frustration out in some way.

The research was done by teams in Sweden and England and involved tracking over 2700 Swedish men over 10 years. The heart attack risk produced by walking away or saying nothing when "treated unfairly" increased as a direct result, and regardless of other factors such as their age, health, lifestyle, status at work, and the demands of their job. On average, there were 1.7 heart attacks or deaths from heart disease for every 100 men in the study.

What the study doesn't go into are ways that people should react in these potentially deadly encounters in the workplace.

That's where we come in.

Whether it's directly encountering that Bulldozer boss or calling a Switchblade on his underhanded behavior, many of the remedies to be found in the pages of our book I Hate People! are specifically designed to call attention to non-productive and —as we see from this study — possibly harmful interactions at work. And the core of our work, that behavior that Soloists exhibit by keeping themselves out of the line of fire as much as possible in order to focus on creativity and productivity, directly relates to the idea of keeping oneself away from toxic people.

The important thing is to diffuse these encounters as quickly as possible and to do so in a way that can hopefully put a stop to them happening in the future. Sometimes it's simply a case of letting the person who is causing the frustration — be it a boss, co-worker or subordinate — know what's going on. They may be too thick to realize the problem they're causing, especially if you're just tamping down the steam, slapping on a smile and walking away. More severe and complicated business relationships could call for filing a complaint with HR or even seeking some kind of intervention by a higher-up on your behalf.

Given today's shaky economic climate, as soon as a savvy leader sees that productivity is going off the tracks due to bad employee relations, they're likely to take immediate steps to fix the problem. Most likely because it's one situation that they can actually do something about.

— Marc Hershon

Let's turn it over to our readers of this blog for some solutions. How do you vent frustration or blow off steam when someone does you wrong at work?

The Perfect Interview Test

Who’s got the time and energy to interview people these days? One solution for this problem: Watch how they cross the street.

If you can’t arrange for an interviewee to cross the street to get to your building, arrange for the interview at a Starbucks, cafe or restaurant—preferably in Manhattan during rush hour, but any reasonably-sized city will do. Watch carefully. Secretly videotape it, if at all possible. These few seconds will tell you more about their workplace capabilities than an hour of tough questions.

Here are five types of crosswalkers and how they would perform in the workplace:

1. Matador. Fearless, the Matador thinks nothing of daring the cars and taxis with his elegant dance through traffic. Crosswalks are just paint to a Matador. Red lights are mere suggestions. Nor does the Matador care whether the oncoming traffic shows no sign of stopping. After all, what’s a little glancing blow? Best Positions: Entrepreneurs, super salesmen, and financial mavericks.

2. Wader. Bold but not fearless, the Wader is eager to cross, demonstrating ample initiative but a little more common sense. Waders may phone and text while on the move…but not when venturing into traffic. They recognize that getting struck by any part of a car is a bad thing. That’s why they let the Matadors run interference. While the hotshots are busy tempting fate, the Wader is getting to the other side first. Best Positions: Excellent CEOs, vice presidents, software designers, project leaders and design heads.

3. TextWalker. Having mastered typing, talking and walking at once, the TextWalker tends to forget that crossing a car-clotted street is real life while tapping keys on a little plastic box is not. TextWalkers may appear on the surface to be Waders or even Matadors, but with one critical distinction—progress in their case is often an illusion. The Textwalker tends to meander, drift, and even pause midway. They lack the presence of mind to stay on task. Best Positions: Creatives and lower-level programmers. They exhibit flashes of talent but are ill-suited for management or higher-level responsibilities.

4. Light Jumper. Though a Light Jumper starts out determined to follow the letter of the law, when the crosswalk light turns yellow he can’t help but jump the curb. Dr. Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde. A Light Jumper is not above shouting and glaring at motorists who narrowly miss him even though they still legally have the right of way. Best Positions: Dependable but ballsy attorneys, independent CPAs and trusty managers with hidden tattoos.

5. CurbHuggers. No matter how empty the street, CurbHuggers would never dream of leaving the sidewalk for the crosswalk a second earlier than the law (or the “Walk” sign) allows. Ironically, CurbHuggers rarely make it across before the light turns and, by playing it safe, are often sitting ducks for signal-jumping taxis. Best Positions: Accountants, statisticians, or rules-based occupations. Excellent at scheduling and attending meetings, especially when the purpose is to schedule new meetings.

While you’re at it, you should think about how you cross the street, too. You might learn something about yourself—and what you’re communicating about your outlook on life.

This original I Hate People! article first appeared courtesy of Guy Kawasacki in his American Express OPEN Forum.

Hate Free Holidays Contest (Free Books!)

Yes, the holidays are upon us.

Not just Thanksgiving, but the Twelve Days of Christmas and the eight-days of Hanukkah — and the merciless shopping and crass commercialism that cranks right on till the New Year. The Holiday season can be a time of joy — except for all those phony company parties, Secret Santa traditions and manufactured office cheer. What with layoffs, cutbacks, and slowdowns this year may be even grimmer: few vendors will gifting your office with bountiful packages of chocolates and nuts.  But playing the Grinch will just get you a lot of hate from the office Smiley Face. What we all need is better coping mechanisms.

We’re looking for a few good strategies.

Tell us a story or two of how you successfully dealt with the pressure and you’ll win a copy of I Hate People! or some cool swag to help you get your work done. Share with us how you survived the relentlessly “Christmassy” cube-mate. Or figured out what “Secret Santa” gift to buy for that special someone in the office you don’t know.  And don't keep how you developed Soloist coping strategies when holiday “music” or decorations threatened your sanity — and productivity to yourself!

 We believe the Holidays are a time when it’s especially critical to pursue two key strategies we explore in our book: Island Hopping and Dig My Cave. Try gaining some peace of mind by taking a break, and bringing back an eggnog latte from Starbucks for your co-worker. Volunteer to upper management in a memo that all that cash the company was going to spend on the Christmas party be donated instead to Heifer International...and give a few water buffaloes to deserving families in the Third World!

Perhaps you’re one of the truly ingenious — smart enough to install an oversized holiday decoration that makes it nearly impossible for the boss to barge into your cube. Or one of our favorite moves: Tape a little orange Unicef box to your office door or cube with the note. “Remember, the needy during this season of giving. Please make a generous donation to a child in need before entering.”

Tell us your holiday office survival skills. We’re in that giving spirit: everyone who submits a story wins! We hope to give away at least a dozen signed copies of I Hate People! But every entry will get some cool swag, too — a healthy supply of our “Do Not Disturb” door hangers and “Stay out of my Cube!” signs, proven defenses against an overdose of holiday cheer! (Not to mention that they make perfect stocking stuffers!)

File your entry in the comment section below. No names of companies, co-workers or bosses, please. Use an e-mail address so that we can ping you back to get a mailing address for the swag (the email addresses won’t be displayed online).

Sharing your story may be the greatest gift of all — practical tools for another soul to enjoy a hate free holiday at the office.

When In Doubt: Meep!

I love when administrators, whether in business or education, come off as bordering on the irrational. Case in point is Thomas Murray, principal of Danvers High School in Danvers, Mass. He recently banned use of the nonsense word "meep" by students when teachers realized they were using the word repeatedly to interrupt classes in school.

Come again?

It seems the students, following the plans for a school disruption organized through other pupils on Facebook, would break out with indiscriminate "meeping" at inappropriate times during class. The word is one used often by Beaker, an accident-prone lab assistance character on "The Muppet Show". (The word has even more of a toonish history, of course, for those who recall the classic double "Meep meep!" uttered by the otherwise silent Roadrunner in Warner Bros. cartoons.)

Meeping was causing such a disruption at Danvers High that Principal Murray sent out an automated distress call by phone to parents in the school district. The call warned that students saying or even displaying the dreaded meep could be suspended.

How would you like THAT on your permanent record?

Banning the use of profanity, while technically a hobbling of the First Amendment, makes a certain degree of sense in schools. But calling a halt to the use of "nofanity"? Where does something like that finally stop?

The principal told news sources that he felt the distress call was necessary when students paid no attention to his request to cease the meeping. Those same news sources are reporting that the word has no distinctive meaning, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. In fact, for business people, next time your cube or officemate does something to really annoy you, take a deep breath, look them in the face and say,

"Meep off!"

— Marc Hershon

Hate Plates: They're All The (Road) Rage In New York

So you're a legislator for a state in these United States, strapped for cash and trying to figure out how to remain solvent in the USA's dissolving economy. Here's an idea: How about nickel-and-diming your own citizens to try and make up the shortfall? Genius move.

That's what's happening in New York starting next Spring, if you're a driver who owns a vehicle. Starting in April, people will have to start shelling out $25 for a new license plate for their car or truck. The plate features a new design and a reflective coating that is being touted as something which will make the roads safer and “reflect New York’s force and its resilience,” that last some pap being regurgitated by David Swarts, the state’s commissioner of motor vehicles. Projected income from the plates: $260 million. And it will be creating a non-whopping 100 new jobs to make them — jobs to be filled by convicts in the state's prisons (who will be paid up to 42¢ an hour.)

This fee is just the latest indignity to be heaped on motorists. With a $50 surcharge that's been added onto registration renewals,a $16 driver’s license renewal fee and even a 5% tax on car rentals in the state, it would seem the government representatives don't understand their citizens are suffering the same fiscal strangling as the Empire State itself.

New Yorkers being as outspoken as they are, none of this is going down easily. A clerk in upstate New York is organizing a petition against the new plates, pointing out that there' nothing wrong with the present tags and that a more reflective surface is hardly necessary on vehicles that are already glittering with lights and reflectors. Patricia Ritchie, president of the New York State Association of County Clerks, founded NoNewPlates.com, a Web site that has attracted 56,000 visitors in less than a month. And in Albany, state senator Stephen Saland started his own online petition, complete with an Photoshopped image of a plate that reads “A FIASCO.”

Spirited as it all may be, it's doubtful the hue and cry will do much to stop the requirement that every vehicle that rolls in New York must have the new Empire State plate affixed to it. Governor Paterson this past week acknowledged people's anger but pointed out that the state has to make up its deficit somehow. We'll see if overburdening the citizens is a new recipe for success.

The most interesting wrinkle in this gougefest is the "good news" that drivers — if they want — can retain the meaningless jumble of letters and numbers they have on their current plates...for an additional $20.

— Marc Hershon

Bosses Rule: The Letterman Standard

Have you noticed the corporate outrage about the David Letterman scandal? Bosses around the world are using the incident as a teaching example on how to avoid sexual harassment at the office. Major corporations are boldly issuing stern statements about the sanctity of the boss-interim, boss-page, boss-assistant relationship. Corporate human resource departments are furiously developing fresh policy and guidelines. You know, new standards on how bosses can be fair to underlings if they support polyamory in the workplace…Just kidding!

The truth is corporate CEOs — men and women — are issuing a giant collective sigh of relief.  As revelations of Letterman’s prodigious office productivity continue in the news with court hearings on his alleged blackmailer this week, executives everywhere know that the public standard has now been permanently altered.

Letterman lived the life of a hot new movie about wild sex in Late Night TV — and his career appears none the worse for wear. Ratings at the CBS Late Show with David Letterman show have been soaring with news of the salacious office drama.  As the New York Daily News reported: “Being involved in an extortion plot with the added sizzle of a sex scandal has been bad for David Letterman’s home life, but it's been very good for his business.”

My favorite part of this story is how Merrill Markoe, Letterman’s former head writer and part-time flame, has maintained her dignity. Telling visitors to her website: “Okay. Here is its. My big comment on Mr. Letterman…It is this: As you can imagine, this has been a very emotional moment for me because Dave promised me many times that I was the only woman he would ever cheat on.”

In all seriousness, Letterman has taught CEOS everywhere the importance of being the point man for damage control. He hasn’t relied on flacks to tell his story. He appears sincere and apologetic.  He even seems to acknowledge maybe it’s not always OK to sleep with multiple young women who report to you. He’s also attempted to deal head on with some of the internal office tension.

Letterman confessed to his national TV audience that he feels terrible about the “nasty” questions his female staffers have been forced to answer after he made his stunning announcement — he’d, after all, only had sex with some of them.

Not meaning to tell a joke, Letterman said: I’m terribly sorry that I put the staff in that position.”

— Jonathan Littman

What do you think about the Letterman scandal? Why aren’t CEOS using it as an opportunity to talk about harassment in the workplace? Have laws and lawsuits improved the workplace environment for the women who are most often the target of unprofessional attention?

Break Vs. Breakdown

“Going postal” began with a spate of shootings by post office employees in the mid-1980s but quickly became synonymous with the horrific fallout of anyone who was over-stressed to the point of extreme violence. Remember when disgruntled employees or customers going on a deadly rampage was traffic-stopping news? Nowadays it’s barely a blip in the headlines, overshadowed by multiple victim school shootings or the recent tragedy at Ft. Hood. For instance, press coverage on a shooting that happened in Orlando the day following the military base massacre paled in comparison.

Click here for a rundown of the deadliest office shootings in recent years.

Could it be that violence in the workplace is becoming expected?

After each of these tragedies, companies are quick to offer psychiatric counseling to traumatized employees. But what is being done to short circuit this over-the-top behavior before the needle gets into the red zone?

The pressure to perform and deliver is ratcheting up in the current grim economy. New statistics show worker productivity up a stunning ten percent, with fewer have to pull more more weight.  But this extra burden is taking its toll on many in the private, public and military sectors. What are some of the warming signs? Increasing numbers of sick days taken by employees may be one indicator that pressures are mounting. Tardiness at the beginning of the day or coming back from lunch can also be signals that the office environment is souring your attitude.

While the responsibility for monitoring employee satisfaction may fall with HR or upper management, you should be alert to when fellow employees begin to act unusual. Maybe you think the cube farm crowd is already a little jinky but is there anyone whose peculiar behavior is turning even more bizarre? Or is the office chatterbox becoming more withdrawn?

No one expects us to become trained psychologists or even hazard a guess as to why someone might be acting like a psycho in training. Alerting management to the fact that a loose cannon is in danger of smashing through the ranks is another matter. Such reports can be made quietly, and you should be reassured by human resources that your remarks will be kept confidential.

How about you? The only person whose behavior you can change with any certainty is yourself. Stress and overwork can operate at a very subtle level. So check in with yourself from time to time. If you find yourself scratching, tapping a pen for long stretches, rocking in your desk chair unconsciously or any other repetitive patterns that display nervous or worried energy — immediately find ways to disengage from the tasks causing it. Relax away from your desk and take some deep breaths with your eyes closed. Take a break and go for a walk. If you have sick leave available, go home for the rest of the day. Or take tomorrow off and perhaps read a good book on how to Kick Loose trom the Overbearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work.

And by all means talk to someone. Whether it’s a spouse, close friend or a licensed psychologist, psychiatrist or counselor, now’s the time to get to the heart of the matter.

— Marc Hershon

Hate Messages

Having veto power is one thing for a politician but it takes real cajones to use it with swagger. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently shot a bill back to the state legislature with a cover note in which he rebuked the representatives for wasting their time on trivial matters while dragging their feet on more important issues such as water reform and health care.

It wasn't what he wrote in the note that got folks' goat but, rather, the way he said it. The first letter in each line in the main body of the Governator's letter, when looked at in vertical order from top to bottom, spelled out a rather common profanity. One occasionally issued by Arnold himself while playing one ass-kicking character or another on screen back in his movie days.

Some say that the placement of the letters could be sheer coincidence. As revealed in an story about this incident in the Wall Street Journal by Carl Bialik, a graduate student in cognitive sciences at MIT, Steven Piantadosi, did a complex analysis of the frequency of use of letters in the English language. He figured the chances that Schwarzenegger would have accidentally stumbled across the phrase used in the letter were just a tad less than one in one trillion.

While it may not be family-friendly politics to drop a hazy F-bomb in the middle of public politics — such tactics were not part of Schoolhouse Rock's "How A Bill Becomes Law" number — it is somewhat refreshing to see someone take the politically correct gloves off for a moment and give some politicos a dose of "in your face".

Bland Hatred

For the most part, the American palate is a dumbed down and sad little sensory device. Restaurants from the fastfood end of the spectrum to the poshest cuisine don't want to take a chance of chasing off customers by over-spicing their offerings, so they tend to err in the opposite extreme. As a result, we're largely a nation of eaters who can't take anything zippier than oatmeal.

Except for the Hotheads. Those diners who can't take a bite without slathering whatever it is they're shoveling in with generous dunkings of hot sauce and pepper. A meal doesn't even start to register until their eyes start to water. Every Hothead has their personal stash of bottles of pepper sauces they've picked up in their travels. And they can't order a meal at a restaurant without making sure there's some hot stuff on the table, ready to roar.

For the Hotheads in your life, there is a gift idea from America's maker of Tabasco pepper sauce, a product synonymous with spice and for which drinking a whole glass of water rarely quenches its fire. By visiting the Tabasco Country Store online, you can order up one gallon jugs of the stuff that can be personalized. There are five different levels of fire, from the original to Habanero. Even for the consummate hot saucier, a gallon should probably go a long way — at least long enough to keep them sweating through the holidays.

With his name affixed to the label of one of these gallons of trouble, that means your favorite Hothead can at last be confident in telling people, "Hands off my hot sauce, sucker!"