Dear Stanley,
I’ve been at my job for about a year, and I think my boss is completely psychotic. With the economy being the way it is, I’m having a hard time finding another job. I’m an hourly employee with no contract. He refuses to pay overtime and forces me to work more than 40 hours a week. In addition, he threatens to cut my pay on a regular basis if I don’t get more sales — those for which he has stopped buying leads. There is no HR department to run to. What can I do?
Distraught
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Dear Distraught,
Suck it up? I’m afraid that’s the phrase that comes to mind. We’re all in a hell of a situation, frankly. Jobs are being sliced away on a daily basis. Companies are way beyond cutting fat — they’re into gristle, muscle, and in some cases bone and marrow. This is not a time for anybody to be making waves. As in all situations where management holds the cards, the table is set splendidly for rampant exploitation of hard-working employees. Welcome to capitalism at its most ugly and rapacious. In my old corporation where I got my start, we used to say that our annual raise consisted of the right to continue working at our old salary. They’re out of business now, by the way.
All that said, there are many things a beleaguered and over-worked employee can do to help him- or herself. It’s all wrapped up in the concept of Managing Up. Not to be too big a pimp for myself, but I did write a book not too long ago that addresses this issue. It’s called Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up, and I’m sure Amazon would part with a copy if you asked them very nicely. This being a democratic and free-thinking blog, however, I will share some of my thinking on this subject with you — both to provide a service to affable and beloved users of BNET and also to prove that I’m not simply trying to sell you a book here.
I believe it is useful to view all bosses, (myself included, by the way), as gigantic, slow-moving, extremely heavy beasts that require handling. Those best suited to do so are people who have abnegated all sense of selfishness and ego and have reduced their role to one of pure function. To attain this ego-less state, the practice of Zen thinking is very helpful.
This is not as counter-intuitive as one might think. In becoming without Self, one is uniquely suited to dealing with people who are all about Self. If you are very tiny, very small, you can establish incredible leverage over ungainly animals who are almost tipping over under their own psychic weight. This form of Business Zen involves a high level of functionality (doing the job very well), a finely attuned sense of what the elephant might need at any juncture, and a calm, emotionless approach to the daily task of working for it.
Draining the job of emotion, not allowing yourself to be upset, waiting calmly for opportunities to make oneself absolutely essential to the elephant, and great, Zen-like patience — all are very useful in getting through the hours that otherwise might pinch and pain you.
Someday, finally, this damn recession will be over. At that point, having become an important part of the elephant’s life, you can either state your demands in a much different kind of market or simply tell Dumbo to shove and move to a different circus.
