Passive Delegation

When you are assigned a task, it is because someone with authority doesn’t want to do something themselves. While you may be tempted to just perform the task, this is rarely beneficial to your career as it sends the message that you are uncreative, subservient, unimportant and, worst of all, not busy.

You could actively delegate the task by going up to someone and saying "do this". This can be effective, particularly if you are yourself in some position of authority, but keep in mind that this is exactly what has happened to you. You are in the process of shirking someone else's active delegation and there is every chance that your minion will try the same.

The most effective way to offload a task is through Passive Delegation. You know this task is important to the person who asked you to do it, otherwise they would not ask for it to be done. It is, in fact, more important to that person than it is to you. Therefore, all you need to do to passively delegate a task is to avoid doing it. Eventually the person that assigned it will give up in despair and take the task back to do themselves.

Be careful, though. When asked whether it has been done, do not say "whoops, forgot about that, let me get straight on that." Instead, tell them that the reason it isn’t done it is that you have all this important work to do (a messy desk helps here). Do not be afraid to belittle them in the process. The more snide you are about the job, the more in control you will seem. "Why would I do that when I have this to do?"

In no time at all you will be seen as too important to do anything useful and will be promoted to management.

We Wish You A Merry (insert where appropriate)

December is the time of year when companies stress about whether they are allowed to participate in traditional festive activities. Increasingly it has become more difficult for companies to celebrate religious or cultural festivals for fear of either excluding someone whose culture has been missed or, even worse, including someone who does not wish to be happy or witness the happiness of others.

For this reason the Plankton office has now been equipped with a culturally neutral “festive” room. In this room staff members of different backgrounds and denominations may celebrate their religious (or otherwise) holidays throughout the year when their “festive cycle” occurs. The room is soundproofed to ensure any singing or merriment does not leak into the rest of the building. There are also drawers of Lego™ and an extensive catalogue of instruction booklets which can be used to build a menorah, Christmas tree, statue of Vishnu or any other piece of religious or cultural apparatus that you may require. Please disassemble these before leaving so as not to accidentally indoctrinate future merry-makers.

If you are in your festive cycle please refrain from sharing any kind of “joy” or “spirit” with your fellow workers outside of this room, as this may cause offence to those not in their festive cycle. If you are not in your festive cycle (or do not have one) then please do not participate in the traditions of other cultures. Appropriating the celebrations of a different culture, even through the use of a greeting, is seen as particularly disrespectful. If you want to wish someone “Merry Christmas” please ensure that you can prove you are a Christian.

The following greetings will be acceptable all year round:

• Hello
• Enjoy this time of year if it is appropriate for you to do so.
• Happy Plankton

Kraken Out

The Plankton board would like to follow up on the announcement made here about a potential takeover by the multinational Kraken Group.

The Kraken executive team released a statement soon after their visit to our offices that they are no longer interested in purchasing Plankton Software Systems. They did not say why, but Plankton management would like to assure everyone that the decision had nothing to do with the fact that their visit coincided with Plankton’s fundraiser month Unprofessionalcember and want everyone to continue with their charitable swearing, scruffy dressing and unhygienic attitude towards dirty dishes.

Many have asked “where to for Plankton now?” This is a great question, and it seems clear that we as a company must take this opportunity to take a look at our operations and ensure that future takeover bids do not occur. In particular we need to review our standards related to customer service and product quality. These standards must be lowered immediately to ensure Plankton is no longer an attractive company to buy. Our success up to this point is what caught Kraken’s eye, and this success must be stopped. As such, the board would like to announce a new company-wide performance benchmark: if Plankton posts a loss of 1 million dollars by first quarter next year, everyone will receive a 5% bonus. This bonus will be increased by 1% for every customer we lose in that same time.

And you can help bring those profits down. If you have a deadline, ignore it. Encourage more managers to take an interest in your project. And most importantly, book more meetings. We need to be as unproductive as possible. With your help, we are sure that Plankton can become the best software company that money wouldn’t want to buy.

Weekend Warrior

If you have been asked to work on the weekend it is because there is a task that has just come up suddenly which needs to be done quickly and you are the only expert in your field capable of doing it. Work on the weekend is never work that could have been done any time in the past three months by any button pushing monkey if only the project you were working on was managed better and the company knew the first thing about what you actually do. Never that.

The normal office rules don’t apply to weekend work. This means that you can wear whatever you like, use as much internet as you like and adorn your cubicle with MORE than 4 personal items (although these must be removed before 7am Monday). You can also come in at whatever time you like, listen to music through your speakers and drink openly at your desk (rather than hiding a 4 pack of wine cooler in the climate controlled server room).

Working on the weekend does comes with responsibilities, though. Not only do you have to prove that you were in at all (see this previous tip for advice) but you owe it to your workmates to show how important you are. So in the following week constantly refer to the work you did on the weekend. Get included in the Monday morning sports wrap-up and say “yeah, I couldn’t catch the game, they needed me to come in on Saturday”. Your workmates will feel honoured to share a break room with you.

Most importantly, let your boss know you are always available as you had a fantastic time. This will guarantee you are never asked to work on the weekend again.

Riding the Social Media Horse

Plankton has recently enlisted the help of a SMEG (Social Media Expert/Guru) to ensure that it keeps its relevance in these new and exciting times.

The first recommendation from the SMEG is that every Plankton employee should be active on a number of different social networks. While this might seem contrary to Plankton’s strict Internet policy (which, like all Plankton policies, has remained proudly unaltered since it was hastily introduced after Tim Berners-Lee flicked the switch on the World Wide Web in 1990) we have been assured that it will provide a number of benefits.

• Disgruntled employees are asked to sign up to Twitter. Not only does Twitter give the impression that people are listening, it also provides just enough space to air minor grievances about Plankton, while actively distracting anyone from Plankton’s much bigger problems.
• Any staff members who regularly meet with clients are encouraged to use Facebook. This will familiarise staff in communicating with people they don’t know or like, and yet feel some kind of obligation to be polite to.
• Programmers and developers should be scouring KickStarter for any startup companies that a) have innovative software ideas and b) look like they can’t afford a legal team.

On top of these recommendations, the SMEG has also suggested that Plankton create its own social media presence. As such you can now follow Rob’s Office Tips on Twitter at @robsofficetips where you will find lots of new helpful hints compressed into 140 characters of easily misconstrued advice as well as a large amount of recycled content from this newsletter.

You can also use this twitter account to ask for help on office etiquette as well as clarification on Plankton policies and procedures. Any complaints should be written in a single tweet and must include the following hashtag:

#IWouldLikeToRegisterAFormalComplaintAboutTheFollowingIssueWhichIHaveFullyDetailedAndDocumentedInThisTweetToTheHumanResourcesManagementTeam

A Kraken Good Time

Followers of the office tips may have noticed there has been no update for the past 17 months. This is because Plankton has been in a media blackout since it was first leaked that there may be rumours of a corporate takeover by the multinational Kraken Group. Plankton management can now confirm that those rumours do in fact exist and would like to announce that people have indeed been speculating about the possibility of a takeover.

Plankton would like to assure each and every one of its employees that they are a valued member of the Plankton community for as long as their contract is in place (the exact value of each employee will be known once negotiations with the multinational Kraken group are finalised and a price per head is agreed).

While Kraken has not indicated whether it will sell or support the product that Plankton currently makes, it is important that you continue in your day-to-day tasks until such time as you are told to destroy any and all intellectual property, wipe your hard drives and deny your own existence. Exploit the fact that no-one may ever see your creation to get really imaginative. Think outside the box! Experiment with that design. Use code no-one has ever used before. After all, the skills you gain here will look great on your newly polished LinkedIn profile.

Many of you may wonder if there will be a place for you in Kraken’s titanic org structure. Well, by an amazing coincidence, not only will there be the exact same number of vacancies at Kraken as there are Plankton employees, but they will even match our skills and roles one for one. Everyone will have a position in the new company and there will even be donuts on Fridays. Hooray!

Finally, please note that there will be a quick whip-round later in the week to buy a small gift of encouragement for Plankton’s lawyers and accountants who have a big job ahead of them.

Getting There: Walking

‘Getting There’ is a series of office tips about your commute into (and more importantly away from) the Plankton offices.

Walking to work is the slowest of all modes of travel and those who do it are well aware of this. Walking is for people who value the journey, not the destination. The walker has time to relax, reflect and evaluate their life goals. For this reason companies often provide free car parking, subsidised train tickets and onsite bicycle maintenance. Anything to discourage walking and ensure that people actually turn up, instead of wandering to the park to chill out, watch the ducks and wonder if there is more to life than this 8-5 desk job.

Given they are under such pressure to drive, walkers are considered to be quiet rebels who follow their own rules. Pedestrian crossings, for example, are shunned. When they must be used, all signals are ignored. One thing that unites all walkers is a belief in sticking it to the man (particularly the red flashing man).

People often say they live too far from work to walk but actually, this is impossible. After all, anywhere is within walking distance if you have the time and the right shoes. That extra time can be used to listen to long those long mellow tracks by bands like Pink Floyd or Sigur Ros; the kind of track which goes for half an hour before the song really starts. In fact anything shorter than ten minutes is just pop-rubbish for kids with no attention span.

Which brings us to the conclusion that people who walk to work are actually the most well adjusted individuals on the planet. If you ask someone "Why do you like to walk to work? " they will simply answer "Because I do, man ." This seemingly useless response actually says more about the walker than any Myers-Briggs self evaluation ever could. Walking is a not just a way of Getting There - it is, in fact, a way of life.

Getting There: car

‘Getting There’ is a series of office tips about your commute into (and more importantly away from) the Plankton offices.

Driving to work is incredibly popular and one of the reasons for this is that the driver gets to choose exactly when to leave. In fact everything about the trip has the appearance of being under the driver’s control, which makes it the perfect mode of transport for micromanagers. Traffic not moving fast enough? Change lanes. Running late? Go a bit faster. Too many traffic lights? Go a different way. None of these things will actually make a difference to your trip time, but the true essence of micromanagement is never about getting results, it’s about fiddling with things as much as possible along the way.

Driving to work means drive-thru coffee, but one feature a real café has over a drive-thru is free internet. This is why one entrepreneur has started “Java Plugin”: the world’s first drive-thru internet café. Here you can pay a bill online, logon to check the tweets of the latest celebrity drug addict and also form a raid to defeat Ragnaros the Firelord - all while waiting for your baristech to prepare your double chai soy skinny mocha macchiato with a twist of melon. And you’ll never have to leave the comfort of your carbon-emitting cocoon.

Lastly, driving allows you to treat your car like your own personal performance studio. When in the car you can not only turn the radio up as loud as you want, you can also sing along at full volume. This is why all cars built since the 1960s have been factory fitted with a soundproof shield that surrounds the entire vehicle. The shield allows you to sing along to your favourite tracks, even with the window down, without people in the neighbouring vehicle (or suburb) ever discovering that what you want, what you really really want, is to zigga zig ahhh.

Getting There: Train

‘Getting There’ is a series of office tips about your commute into (and more importantly away from) the Plankton offices.

Train travel gives commuters the opportunity to relax. While on the train you can listen to music, read a book or play video games. Of course, many people do all these things while driving, but that takes a special skill. To properly “relax on the tracks” you will need to know how to ignore any workmates who might also catch the same train and who invariably want to talk about work. Simply holding up a sign saying “I get paid to talk to you, and I am not getting paid now” is effective but rude. Instead, from the moment you leave the office look directly down and never ever make eye contact with anyone until you get home.

The downside to catching the train is that you are completely at the whim of the megalomaniacal public transport companies who proudly announce that 84% of their services ran in the last month rather than sheepishly apologise that 16% didn’t due to slightly inclement weather. Trains will also stop for no apparent reason just outside the station and stationmasters will alter the timetable at the last minute just to watch the fat people run to the other platform.

The advantage of the timetable, however, is that it’s something that all company drones seem to understand. If you say to a colleague “I’m sorry I have to go or I’ll miss my train” they will say “OK, you better run”. However if you say “No, I don’t have time to look at the major problem that you could have shown me at any time, but have only just decided to show me at 4:58pm, because I have to drive home to a family that is expecting me” you will get the reply “You’re driving? You can hang around for five minutes.”

And it is never five minutes.

“Working” from home

Many people think that working from home doesn’t really involve work at all. With no bosses around, and with a wide selection of daytime TV, you are free to do anything and no one but the Danoz Direct call centre will be any the wiser. The reality, though, is almost exactly the opposite.

When in the office, most workers will try their hardest to do as little work as possible. Everyone can press “alt-tab” with the agility of a ninja and internet logs can be hacked so that no one knows you visit Lady Gaga’s website. Games are installed with “boss” keys, which show something work related when someone is near. (Unfortunately, “work related” is only a spotty game developer’s guess at what real work looks like, which is invariably an out of date spreadsheet of completely irrelevant data. This will only cause your boss to grumpily ask “Why are you spending your time looking at an out of date spreadsheet of completely irrelevant data?”)

However when working from home people are acutely aware that no one is looking over their shoulder and that when they next turn up to work their output will be scrutinised. This knowledge sends most people into a guilty frenzy which means they produce more in four hours at home than they would in two weeks at the office.

Management conferences have whole seminar streams based on this concept of “Productivity Through Guilt” or PTG. This is why, despite the obvious productivity gains, managers must seem reluctant to allow people to work from home. PTG is only effective when sitting on your back verandah with a glass of wine, a laptop and no pants is seen as a privilege that you don’t deserve and that might be snatched away at any time, rather than a right.

Pain in the art

In a response to a recent fashion audit, the Plankton offices will be undergoing a redesign. According to the auditors, the sixteen greys used in the current “Rising Storm” colour palette were too distracting. It will be replaced with “Drabbé”, a two tone palette consisting of “grey” and “gray”.

Management fought against using two tones, fearing that this was still too much stimulation, but Conrad, the company stylist, made an impassioned plea to the Plankton board. ‘She is all about, how you say, comparison, no?’ he said in an accent that he hoped the board would find continental and exotic, but ended up sounding fake and just a little racist. ‘Ow can you make ze claim that something is truly grey, unless you compare it to something slightly less grey, no?’

So, with such flawlessly fashionable logic behind the design, the refurbishment is in full swing, and with it you can expect some aesthetic changes:

• The bright green exit signs and garish red fire extinguishers have been removed and replaced with bas reliefs depicting significant events in Plankton’s history.
• The first aid kit and defibrillator shall remain (as symbolic reminders of the pain and suffering we should all endure) but will be glued shut to the wall to ensure people don’t clutter the office with nasty bandaids or shout “CLEAR!” at artistically inappropriate times.
• Windows will be replaced with a photorealistic mural of the outside view and air conditioning ducts will be sealed over. This will ensure that employees are guaranteed a stable and safe work environment, regardless of what is happening in the real world.

Also, where possible, staff will be asked to work from home. This is to ensure that the office is kept clean of food scraps, office waste, piles of documents, computers or people.

Don’t show your booty

Information is like gold and must be hoarded to ensure its scarcity and value. Within a company, the guardians of information are like dragons who have been laying on beds of knowledge for so long that various bits of data have been encrusted onto their underbellies. Those who seek this information must, like adventurers of old, use any number of tricksy tactics to relieve the hoarders from their infobooty.

Since the publication of an Office Tip last year which advised on how to interrupt people, office productivity has plummeted. While the “adventurers” have been able to obtain the information they seek, the “dragons” have been forced not only to part with it, but also to interact with co-workers.

If you are a data dragon, avoid interruptions by making it hard for people to find you. You can achieve this just by sitting at someone else’s desk, however there are alternatives:

• Book a meeting room. Be warned, though: any person sitting alone in a meeting room will attract the kinds of people who will have to ask: “with all your friends, are ya?” (Note that when in school, these were also the people who “made you look”.)
• Wear a disguise. No-one ever asks the new guy for information. Also, no-one wants to speak to the weirdo with an obviously fake nose.
• Call in sick. Sure you will be using your sick leave to do work, but the fact that you are willing to do that is in itself a symptom of a deep illness, and any doctor would be willing to sign a note saying so.

The definitive way to avoid interruptions is to go to work for a different company. You must be aware, though, that when you change companies you will no longer be a dragon but merely another hairy-footed data thief on a quest for truth.

Getting your feet under the desk

Thanks to an Employment Act loophole found many years ago by Plankton’s highly paid legal team, Plankton staff are only allowed 2.5 days of annual leave a year. Most staff store this leave up so that every 4 years they can take 2 whole weeks off - and relatives of Plankton employees have learned to plan important events like weddings, births and funerals around this schedule.

When going on recreation leave, some people like to do absolutely nothing. Other people think “I do that every day at work!” and so try to cram as many active pastimes into their break as possible: waterskiing, snowboarding, waterboarding etc. Either way, returning to work after a long break can take some adjustment, but a little preparation can make the transition easier.

Before going on leave, finish (or destroy all evidence of) any outstanding tasks. If, on your return, you pick up something you were working on before your break it will immediately set your mind back to that time and it will be as if your two weeks on the foreshore of the Bendigo creek never happened.

Upon your return, set aside a whole day just to read emails. Leaving your work computer for two weeks will cause a large backlog of emails which you will be tempted to quickly skim and delete. But just because you have been away does not make an email less important. Therefore each offer for cheap watches or personal enhancement medications should be read carefully and treated on its own merits.

Most importantly, do not start your new work semester with any adages. Statements that begin with words like “This year I promise I will” seem like a great way to start fresh. However it will only make your inevitable fall into the same old rut all the more painful. Remember: zero expectations equals zero disappointment.

It’s not the size that counts…

Any company that produces something will be faced with the task of estimating effort. (A company that produces nothing only has to estimate how long they think they can keep afloat.) Whether you build hovercrafts or databases, someone is going to want to know how long you think it will take, so that they can then ask “can you do it in half that?”

Estimates are used by different people in different ways. Marketing use estimates to determine the maximum amount they can get away with charging for a product. Clients use estimates to work out the smallest amount they can get away with paying for a product. And the estimators themselves use the estimates to indicate their willingness to create the product in question - the higher the estimate, the more reluctant they are.

Estimates are usually based on some form of written requirement from the client. To get an idea of the size of the project, reformat this document using a standard font size, line spacing and margin settings. Then print it on 80GSM paper, and bind with a single 26/6 staple. Weigh this document, in grams (accurate to the 3^rd decimal place) take away 6.738 and then multiply this number by 11.375. The resulting number is your estimate by weight, known as a heftimate. (Note that more important projects, such as tenders, may be printed on a better class of thicker paper, bound in folders with metal rings. These heavier documents will provide larger heftimates which in turn reflects the gravitas of the project.)

Heftimation in incredibly accurate, and takes the guesswork out of sizing a project. This means that projects are more likely to come in on budget, clients will be happier, and most importantly it means that no one will ever need to use the word “guesstimate” ever again.

A weighty problem

It may come as a surprise to some that the sedentary nature of working in the software industry can significantly increase your weight. Plankton has found that the cumulative waistline of all staff has risen from a modest 1,594cm to 7,438cm in the last three weeks alone. For a company that only employs 37 people, this is quite a concern. While Plankton does what it can to prevent employee weight gain (including providing caffeinated drinks to increase metabolism and hi-carb foods to maintain elevated energy levels) there are measures that each individual staff member can also undertake to help take the stress off the company floorboards.

The quickest way to lose weight in the office is to desimplify your communications. When typing a document, approximately 7.8 kilojoules are burnt with every keystroke. Therefore the more words you use, and the longer each word is, the better your document will be for you.

But the health benefits of a larger document do not stop there. When printed, this mega-document will cause the printer to run for longer and hotter, thus increasing the already sauna-like conditions in the office. The larger printed document will, obviously, be heavier, especially if the company-recommended “weight loss printer settings” (font size 36, triple spacing and single side) are used. This will make lifting the document an exercise regime all in itself.

This larger document will also require more reviewing. Larger review teams, having more meetings, means that more people will move from their desks to meeting rooms and back, all while carrying this impressive dumbell-esque tome. Consequently, the more words a document has, the more changes are likely to be required, which means more reprinting, more reviewing and more meetings.

This cycle will hopefully continue until the documents people create are bigger and heavier than the people that created them.

Busyus Interruptus

For the last 28 years the Grindstone Institute has been performing studies on office busyness, and have today released their findings. The paper, which most people will themselves be too busy to read, reveals that finding out if someone is too busy to be interrupted is the leading cause of workplace interruptions.

‘It’s all very quantum’ said Dr. Charles Higgs-Boson, Lead Boffin on the project. ‘Basically, it’s impossible to observe the state of someone’s busyness without disturbing that busyness. Interrupting someone with the question “Can I interrupt?” will at best result in a withering response of “Apparently” and at worst lead to filling in a workplace incident form.’

If you must speak with someone but suspect they might be too busy, try sending an email. Emails are the most unobtrusive form of office communication. Email servers can be slightly unreliable though, so after sending it also go up to the person, let them know you sent them an email, and give them a quick rundown of the content.

If you prefer, call the person, let the phone ring once and then hang up. If they are busy they can choose to ignore it, and if they are not they can use the caller ID feature to ring you back. Do this every five minutes until you hear from them.

Sometimes you need to actually speak to someone face to face. Rather than talking to the person in question, however, approach their neighbour. Ask your questions clearly and loudly. If you can use words that sound remarkably like the name of the potentially busy person then all the better.

‘But be careful of the Busyness Feedback Loop®,’ warns Dr. Higgs-Boson. ‘Too often we see people spending so much time determining the best ways to interrupt others that they themselves become so busy they can no longer be approached.’

Presentation Palpitations

As part of your role you may be required to give a presentation to clients. This can cause a lot of stress. When you speak to clients you are not just representing Plankton: for that moment in time you are Plankton. Everything you say is a reflection on the company, and it is likely that each client’s opinion of Plankton will be altered by what you have to say. So as long as you perform perfectly, there shouldn’t be anything to stress about.

If you look for help outside Rob’s Office Tips (fine, whatever, as if I care) you will be told that you should know your material. This is great if you are trying to mould impressionable minds - like a “groovy” university lecturer or a cult leader - but a presentation to clients is different. Clients desperately need to know they are the smartest person in the room. So if acting stupidly doesn’t come naturally then make sure you know nothing about your topic and provide clients ample opportunities to correct you.

One common technique to overcome fear of public speaking is to picture the audience naked. However this can be quite taxing on the imagination. Spending all your time wondering what is under Frieda’s cardigan will certainly divert you from stress, but the extra mental effort may also distract you from your actual presentation. The company database contains pictures of many of our clients and by using photo editing software to combine these photos with pictures downloaded from select internet sites, you won’t have to imagine what these people look like naked, you will be able to see it for yourself. To ensure full disclosure, include the pictures in your presentation. This also works as an icebreaker.

If all goes well your clients will walk away feeling smarter and sexier than they will ever be in real life.

Rumour Millers

People love a good rumour. But as with the insane ramblings of Nostradamus, the truthfulness of any office rumour can only be determined after the events in question have taken place. However, certain types of people share certain types of information, and you can soon learn to recognise patterns of rumours based on their source.

• Cynifacts – These people will spread rumours that do contain an element of truth, but getting to it means cutting through Eeyore-esque levels of pessimism and cynicism. Even rumours of positive events - such as a company party - are presented negatively: “I heard they’re not inviting that guy who was sacked four years ago after he set fire to Roger’s fish tank. They’re so cheap.”
• Enigma Machines – These people generally know something but have been sworn to secrecy and so will often speak in code. They wiggle eyebrows, tap noses, and say things like “well I’d like to tell you but…” This means they are more interested in telling you that they know something, rather than telling you what it is. Usually any information these people hold is so trivial that most people either already know or just don’t care.
• Misinformants - These people usually start their sentences with “I shouldn’t be telling you this…” and the reason they shouldn’t be telling you is that they know that they just made it up.
• Management – These people know lots of secrets. In many ways it is a manager’s job to keep secrets so that the rest of the company can get on with their actual work without the burden of knowledge. Managers will not share a secret with anyone until they no longer wish it to be a secret, at which point they will let the Enigma Machines, the Cynifacts and even the Misinformants spread the word in their own special ways.

Social Animals

You will spend over two thirds of your waking life at or on your way to work (assuming you work a 40 hour week, commute from New Zealand every day, and sleep approximately 14 hours a night). It is therefore vital that any socialising at work is done with people you don’t hate.

The Plankton social scene shares a number of similarities to that of any high school. There are the cool kids, the nerds, the jocks and that one kid who smells like wee. Finding someone to have a coffee with is simply a matter of determining into which group you fit. This is easy if you have a realistic idea of your personality but difficult if, like most people, you hold the delusion that you cannot be pigeon-holed but are in fact an individual who is easy going enough to fit into any group.

In the break room there is a chart showing the hierarchy and current membership of each social clique. There are two basic approaches to finding your place. You may choose to start at the top of this chart and work your way down. This can be discouraging because, as you try to fit in to each group, you will be met with a number of rejections. However, this will be offset by a warm feeling of acceptance once you have sunk to the right level.

Alternatively you may start at the bottom and work your way up. Your confidence will soar as you sweep up the hierarchy, leaving the socially inept in your wake, until you finally encounter a group that are, frankly, too good for you. You can then saunter back into the previous group with the confidence that you have found your true home.

If you can’t get any group to accept you it would be advisable to get your bladder checked.

Junket Junkies

We are all important. Staff who work in support, development, administration or yes, even management, all contribute to Plankton’s success. However, there are obviously a few of us who are slightly more important than the others. Those few are the ones chosen to go on company outings, or junkets.

Put simply, a junket is any trip that takes you away from the Plankton offices and provides some kind of free stuff. Not all junkets are the same, though, and learning to recognise the different types can save you some embarrassment when bragging to your colleagues.

Working junket: Sure, you get to stay in a hotel. You get free meals. You might even get a free pen. But they actually expect you to work. And not just namby pamby “give a presentation” kind of work, but the kind of work where if you didn’t look up and see a slightly different shade of grey carpet on the cubicle wall you might think you were still at your own desk.

Junket du jour, or junkette. This is any trip, for example training or a seminar, that lasts for a day or less. You don’t get an overnight stay, but you do get free stuff. An un-catered meeting at a client site does not count as a junkette. If you get a donut then it’s an incredibly pathetic junkette, but a junkette nevertheless.

Maxi Junket: This is the real deal. You get an overnight stay, you get free meals and free merchandise (preferably electronic in nature). You may even fly to get there. And hopefully all you need to do is wear a name tag for three days while industry hawkers try to convince you of the quality of their product in the hope that you are more important than you look.