Bing - How to relax without getting the axe: a survival guide to the new workplace

Executricks in the Post-Retirement Age

I wrote the hardcover edition of this book almost two years ago now, I think. The world was a different place. Subprime mortgages and arcane financial instruments had been invented to keep the massive bubble of corporate capitalism floating high above a sea of debt. Budgets were flush. Armies of executives cruised the streets of every city and town, their snouts in the collective trough of excess. Smaller folk dangled off the pelts of these sharks, feeding on their success. Things were good. And the concept of a life of idle retirement while still on the job seemed not only possible but easily achievable. This was, after all, the way our bosses did it. Why not we?

A little before New Years 2008, our sales guys started to feel a definite softness in the market. Our chief financial officer, an amusingly dour fellow, said to me at a staff meeting, This is all going to come tumbling down. The banks are exposed to trillions of dollars of losses. Trillions. They will fail, and our entire financial system will come crashing down around them. Then he took another plate of berries. I thought, What a bummer Ned is.

In October 2008, as we all know now, our merry magic bus drove at top speed over the cliff. It hung in the air for a while, like Wile E. Coyote in pursuit of his despicable foe, and then noted its true situation and fell into the abyss. This changed things for a lot of people. The question for all those who still sought to suckle off the system mutated somewhat. It was no longer, How do I pursue a life of elegant retirement while still employed by Big Bob? but rather, How do I keep my job without having to revert to my former life as a turd-stained Morlock?

The good news is that the Executrick continues to stand tall as the way successful people in the world of business do their business. And there is still no reason that we, the working aspirants to their thrones, cant move forward under slightly different assumptions and learn from them.

Practitioners of the executive arts are, of course, all around us still. Some are sitting in executive country clubs that have bars on the windows, and perhaps we can agree that there is less to glean from these moral midgets than from others. Personally, I am more interested in the guys who engineered the downfall of our economy, made millionsand in some cases hundreds of millions of dollarsand then, when the time bombs they had planted blew up, took huge bonuses and moved on to new and bigger jobs. These are the masters of the Executrick to whom we all must kneel, if only to tie their shoelaces together.

So were not looking to retire while on the jobnot anymore. Were after a cleaner, less jovial operating model. Were going to study the way successful people operate in every environment, including this one right now, and either figure out how to fight the tricks they pull or learn how to gently and discreetly pull them ourselves.

Because make no mistake: they do it still. There are fewer of them, it is true, but those who remain are even more clever and accomplished tricksters. We see them in the expensive boites, slapping down their plastic as they take each other to lunch. We attend their industry panels and hear them bloviate about how to fix the situations they in large part created. They continue to fly in First Class, to yell at people from the comfort of their town cars, to delegate with impunity and enjoy all that a business life, even one in reduced circumstances (mostly for others), has to offer.

I should know. Im one of them. Been at it for some time now. Right now, times are hard. Soon they will be better. The ultimate trick is to play your game no matter what condition the field is in. Ill try to help you figure out how thats donewithout, of course, doing any harm to myself.

To get that job done, Ive pretty much had to rewrite a lot of this entire goddamned book. If I could think of an easier way to do it, I would have, believe me. But there was no Executrick I could play to get around it. The upside of that situation, for me, is that even those who purchased the original edition will have to buy this paperback version as well, just to stay current with the most advanced thinking on the subject.

The Executrick, or How These Guys Operate

W e didnt go into business to work hard. Personally, I did it to make money. Then somewhere along the line I got to be the guy who had to do everything. Its like being in a bank. You look at the tellers, and theyre busting their humps. Somewhere behind them theres a guy in an inner office picking his ear. You dont have to be a rocket scientist to figure that thats the guy you want to be.

In meetings, I find I cant listen to meaningless drivel anymore without feeling the urge to get up and leave. Thats a significant liability. PowerPoint presentations, in particular, put me into a sleep so deep it involves drooling. Im up every night at 3 a.m. wondering why Im up every night at 3 a.m. No matter how small the potential snafu or fubar situation, it rears up and seizes my imagination like a golem. I need some relief. And yet there will be no relief. Because the end of work as we know it is not in sight.

On the bright side, while I worry a lot, I actually work approximately 127 percent less than the guy who works for me. And the guys who work for him? Their situation makes me want to cry. Id feel really sorry for them if their constant grind didnt make my life possible. In the old days, theyd be resentful. Now were all just happy to have jobs.

People actually say that. You go in for a raise, and the Human Resources functionary looks at you like youre crazy. Be grateful you have a job, man, he says. And he means it.

Hes basically right, at least at this juncture. Forced retirement, like the genuine article, is problematic, even if you can afford it, which so few actually can anymore. Because loss of position means more than loss of income. The evaporation of persona and status is worse. I see the newly decruited in the places where I eat. Theyre in the back by the potted plants. Theyre talking about mashies and niblicks and great lies on the fifteenth fairway. When you ask them what its like to be free of the daily bushwah, they talk about golf, and they talk about all the organized travel they are doing, and in my minds eye the void opens up like a cosmic space that only Stephen Hawking could understanda place where people mall-walk in fugue states. And before long, no matter how brave and self-reliant he or she may be, the guy or gal without a gig will hit you up for a job.

I know this fellow, not old, not young. Well call him Albert. About three years ago, in one of the general constrictions of the industry, Alberts position became redundant. You like that terminology? I dont. But its better than any alternative that anybody has come up with. Its better than We didnt need his sorry butt around anymore. At least I think it is.

At any rate, I decided that it just might be possible to save Albert. I offered him a very secure post, same money, less power in the reporting structure. It took some doing, too, believe me. HR wanted to defenestrate him. But I said no. So I told Albert the good news, and he said, Ill need to think about it. And I thought, Huh? And about a week later, which was already too long, he came back to me and said, Ive decided to go out on my own. I believe in my own future potential more than you guys do. So thanks, but no thanks.