Sunday, July 01, 2007

The Culture of Busyiness

In any corporation right now, there's only one rule: If you ain't busy, you aint kool. So for you unkool people here's a quick 5-point guide:

1. Whenever someone is passing you in the corridor and says: Hey, how's everything? always answer: Busy, busy!
2. Don't answer mails on time, and when someone asks you about the mail they sent you, complain for 5 mins about the 700 mails you get daily. They don't know you get 10 messages half of which is spam.
3. Don't get back to voice mails, you will sound very needy if you answer back, and what are you going to say: I'm returning your call! That's just a reputation killer.
4. Always block your calendar even if you don't have meaningful stuff to do. For example: 9:00-10:00 stare at the screen mindlessly; 10:00-11:00 think about my happy place ...etc. Makes you seem very busy for people wanting to book you.
5. Most importantly, always, always show up late for meetings. Come in with a pill of papers and spend the first 5 mins explaining how today is a "crazy day".

But seriously, why do people do this? I can understand that as you go up the corporate ladder your responsibilities increase, but this does not mean you become less efficient at your basic time-management skills, right? I work with senior people and some of them are usually very prompt in: getting back to mail, answering calls or attending meetings, yet others are not. Some would argue that some positions attract a lot of mails or calls versus others, but again isn't the ability to filter thru and identify really important messages, calls and/or meetings a skill you need to acquire to climb the corporate ladder? The way I see it, we should be promoting people who can coupe with the increase amount of mails, calls and meetings and not we promote people and hope they could.

Finally, please feel free to do any of the above first 4 points with me, it's your choice. But please, please when I ask you: How's everything? spare me ANY statement that has "busy" in it. I get it the whole world is BUSY and I'm the last person on earth who has some spare time to say: Fine, how about you?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG, that list is totally me! hehe. So i know for a fact that half the time these people aren't really busy at all they just SAY they are because it makes them look hard working. I'm totally guilty of that one. Not that I'm that far up the ladder or anything. :(

I've known many up-the-ladderers that aren't busy at all but will always make it look like they're the busiest shit and don't realize that other ppl can read their outlook calendar. So when they block out time to "take a walk" or "go shopping" or "hide under my desk" these are all visible to the entire department and generously gossiped about.

Basically, if you're not busy it looks like you don't have enough work on your plate. So either ask for more work or get on the "I'm busy" bandwagon! Yala!

Anonymous said...

I was wondering... What about those people, who don't have time to spare, who are ACTUALLY overloaded with work that they spend 15 hours AT HOME, ON WEEKENDS, Working and are REALLY BUSY all the time..... YET... They do have enough time to say "Fine, how about you?" and when asked for a favor they do their best to help, and whenever called, they always answer!!!???

I believe they should be RESPECTED. VERY RESPECTED.
And be given access to the corporate elevator!!

Anonymous said...

Oh.. I also noticed the Title of your Post "Busyness". You know this is ACTUALLY how it evolved :) People used to get Busy doing stuff, then they were described "He is always Busy doing so and so" And then, "His Busyness is keeping him away from his wife and kids" then Busyness became Business..
Very interesting!!

I like how you unintentionally (or intentionally) reverse engineered that word :)

Munqy said...

Sorry I didn't reply to this earlier, I've been busy as hell. It's been one of those weeks...

Fesh said...

nilegirl, heheheheh you know what, I had some up-the-ladderers tell me they are very busy. And when I checked their calendar I found 2 meetings amounting to 1 hour! :) so I can imagine that you didn't update your calendar with all your meetings... but 7 hours of meetings not reflected in your calendar! Time management issues? :D

Fesh said...

Me, well yeah those are the folks who have what we Corporate Executives call: Can-Do-ers .. we keep promoting them until they break down under pressure and are shipped to the nut-house ... it's Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) # 199. And oh, the title, totally unintentional :D

Munqy, we all know you’re a bottom-feeding corporate whore.... nice try though.

Munqy said...

:(((((

Busted...