Dear Stanley,
I work for a very small company where one of my co-workers is my boss’s son. I’ve only been here about four months and in that time the son has been to work maybe half the days. For example, he took three weeks off to go on a sailing trip and hasn’t been in yet this week (today is Thursday) because he had an argument with his girlfriend. When he does come to work, he brings his dogs, although we work in laboratory, and then uses the dogs as an excuse to leave early. He never works more than a six-hour day, and when he’s there he spends most of his time on Skype and his new iPhone. On top of all that, I know he makes 33 percent more than I do. I want to tell his dad (my boss), “I work at least 40 hours per week, I’m here every day, and I’m productive. What the hell?”
Wage Slave
Dear Wage,
Let’s see how that conversation would go, shall we?
FADE UP ON BOSS’S OFFICE. BOSS AND WAGE ARE SITTING ACROSS THE DESK FROM EACH OTHER.
You: “Hey, Jack, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”
The Boss: “Yes, Wage?”
You: “It’s your son, Marvin.”
The Boss (darkening slightly): What about him?
You: He’s a lazy slob who brings his dogs into our clean environment, works almost not at all, plays on his electronics all the time, and is otherwise the weak link in our excellent chain of hard-working employees who make a lot less than he does, myself included.
The Boss (clipping his fingernails and putting his feet up on the desk): You know, Wage, I like to have people around who have good judgment. Do you think you have good judgment, Wage?
You: Well, I’ve always thought I did.
The Boss: I always thought you did, too.
THERE IS A PAUSE. THE PAUSE GROWS IN LENGTH AND DEPTH. AFTER SOME TIME…
You: Well. I guess I’d better be getting back to work, then.
The Boss: Yes, Wage. Maybe you’d better. I’d hate to think you had so little to do you could waste time pissing me off like this. And thanks for dropping by. Don’t do it again real soon.
You: Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I’ll be going then, sir.
The Boss: Don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out.
BLACKOUT.
Honestly, I don’t see that working out any other way. Fortunately, there is something you can think about once you shake off the relatively stupid angle from which you’ve been seeing things: What in the world does the boss’s no-good son have to do with your terms of employment?
I’ll tell you. Nothing. Even if the guy made tons more money than you do, it’s a different kind of money. Your competition is not this loser. It’s all the other people who populate your competitive landscape. You’re jealous that you’re not related to your senior officer? Really? Don’t you have your own family? Isn’t that enough? Maybe Boss, Jr. doesn’t do anything on the job because he knows that 1.) he didn’t get it honestly and 2.) he won’t lose it even if he screws up big time on a repeated basis. He’s unmotivated and, in his mind, a total flop.
But you’re not. You’re an honestly-hired, hardworking, ambitious employee with nowhere to go but up. Cleanse your brain pan of what are really nothing but distractions, put your head down, and begin working and campaigning for a better title and more money. Books have been written on how to do that, but I can boil it down for our purposes today into three steps. Here they are:
- Work very hard at things that are important to the boss and whose accomplishment makes his life easier;
- After you’ve established your value, make it known that you would like to be promoted and enriched. Reasonable ambition is never disrespected in a sane working environment, and even some insane ones;
- Work hard and apply pressure with periodic polite conversations on the subject of advancement.
That’s sort of it. There are myriad tactics involved in Step 3 - but I’m not going to shoot my wad on one question. You’ll just have to hang with me for a while as I unspool the whole thing for you.
