Machiavellian tactics

KenHigg

KenHigg

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A co-worker and I have come up with what we think is a brilliant scheme and I was wondering what others may think and possibly share their own methods of workplace brilliance. Ours works like this:

I (we) have white boards in our cubes and mine usually has a bunch of illegible scribble on it. I've noticed that when my boss walks by and sees me gazing at the scribble with a stressed gesture on my face he walks past and says nothing. This seems to result in less delegation. My best guess is that he is afraid to engage me in conversation regarding my apparent dilemma as he may reveal his operational ignorance.

So my co-worker is not quite as astute at producing this scribble as I am and hence her white board is just that most of the time - white and blank. This being the case it sort of undermines her attempts at the gazing technique I have mastered. So....

We are considering an underground society dedicated to managing a pseudo, public domain set of scribbled up white boards. These white boards would be re-located from cube to cube at regular intervals to help suppress the over-delegating tendencies of the wandering manager types...

For all of you entrepreneurial types, I have considered providing my scribbling skills on a fee based system but I wasn't sure how to cover my backside from legal implications if a persons boss happened to know the operation well enough to offer assistance to person engaged in a gazing drill. I know the odds are pretty good against that happening but I just can't take that risk right now...

Anyway - That's what we're considering - What do you think? Anyone care to synergize and share their own counter-management techniques? fyi: I personally am fond of anything that squelches the delegate monster...
 
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Well I can't say this was deliberate but a very delegation-prone manager came to my desk the other day. On one of my screens I had the design grid for a simple query. Main table joined to two smaller tables. His comment was "That looks complicated". I didn't disavow him of his perception so it seems the premise works over here too. I'm considering having a complex piece of vba (obviously someone else's - not my own) ;) open on one screen sort of permanently from now on.:)
 
I keep this on my second monitor screen. My boss always runs away when he sees me looking at it...:D
 

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BarryMK said:
I'm considering having a complex piece of vba
Click to expand...
A bit of text doesnt say much to most managers... but a screen with some lines running accross it preverably crossing over eachother put together with a concerned look... Works miracles!

@Friday,
Exactly what I mean... but your relationship screen is missing a few (extra) lines
 
I was thinking it looked suspiciously symmetrical :p
 
Friday said:
It doesn't take much to scare off my boss...:eek:
Click to expand...


So it's a universal premise that the effort required to spook a manager is proportional to their operational ignorance - ? :p

or would that be inversely proportional - ? :p
 
KenHigg said:
So it's a universal premise that the effort required to spook a manager is proportional to their operational ignorance - ? :p

or would that be inversely proportional - ? :p
Click to expand...

More like, proportional to their data programming ignorance...
 
KenHigg said:
I've noticed that when my boss walks by and sees me gazing at the scribble with a stressed gesture on my face he walks past and says nothing. This seems to result in less delegation. My best guess is that he is afraid to engage me in conversation regarding my apparent dilemma as he may reveal his operational ignorance.
Click to expand...

I've re-thought this a bit...

He may be thinking the stressed gesture is a result of sparring with Rich & Col and not the scribble and decide no to engage me, he which case he could be smarter than I was thinking...(?)

See - Thats the liability thing I was worried about :p
 
Can I add these tactics to version 2.4 of my work avoidance inducation course I run for new starts?
 
I'm thinking they need to be in one of the more advanced classes. A newbie’s over-enthusiastic response to it's success may be detrimental to the entire work avoidance discipline - :)
 
I lol'd at all this. Nice to know I'm not the only one keeping ridiculous windows open in case of boss-intervention. I personally keep a window with VBA code that I typically don't even understand close at hand. Great work guys!:D
 
I like using diagrams and VB code...if anyone gets too inquisitive I walk them through an algorithm or two to get them out of the mood.

One of the reasons I like to goof off on AWF is that it says "Access Help" right at the top of each page. I wonder if that was intentional.
 
If you network in a large company or with many outside persons then you could also add little notes to contact ficticious people. Some bosses will fake that they are on top of things by asking if you have contacted or heard back from people just from seeing the name on a white board. You can test the theory by putting Jimmy Loche - Security issues or Bill Ding - Code Architecture in an obvious space on the board.
 
This is Sooo Good, I too keep some complex VBA code handy so when a Manager approaches it flashes up on my screen and I look puzzled....

Works like a charm, nobody bar the IT team who never ever leave the top floor, (that is shrouded in mist), knows anything about VBA or programming. So the Manager daren't talk to me when in full puzzled mode in case I use them to sound off some questions, to which, of course, they have no clue whatsoever as to the hell i'm talking about.

fantastic...
 
Holy Gordian Knot Batman ... I thought this was my secret invention!

How about instead of your secret society ... you create a web based company that creates bitmaps for screensavers, desktop backgrounds, etc., that have scribbles and piece-meal diagrams pertaining to different disciplines and either sell or use site for a trading post.

That way if the company is an oracle-shop, one for that one .. one for a C# shop, etc, just in case the boss is savvy enough to knows the difference in remark characters.

Frigging hilarious!

-dK
 
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