Saturday, December 3, 2011

End to overtime!

Finally, a sensible law is hitting the books: an end to overtime pay for IT workers. Quite frankly, the whole concept of overtime pay is ludicrous. Employees should be grateful for their job and work as many hours as requested for the same pay. It's completely senseless to pay extra because they are working over an arbitrary low threshold of hours. If you ask me, the first 40 hours should be free labor since people just waste that time anyway. If a worker puts in 80 hours, probably only half of it is useful work. They should only be paid for the amount of work I've seen them accomplish (which is almost nothing in most cases).

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Negativity and Expertise

What separates a novice from an expert? The same thing that separates positive from negative. Novices require positive feedback, but experts respond to negative feedback. I use this to good effect when managing my worker bees. The soft modern management style of creating a positive work environment just leads to lazy incompetent workers. I make it a point to criticize and create a negative work environment. No one improves if it's just mamby-pamby land at work every day. I think all of my employees are incompetent idiots, and I let them know exactly why. I do this so that they can improve themselves. I don't want a bunch of novices working for me. I need experts!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Don't pursue happiness

The pursuit of happiness is an inherently flawed paradigm. If you spend all your time trying to be happy, you will paradoxically feel something is wrong when you cannot achieve happiness. It's simply setting expectations too high. It's better not to pursue happiness. That's particularly true in the business world. Happy employees tend to gloss over the details, to the detriment of the company. I find it better to keep everyone more on the dour side, so that everyone is more detail-oriented while working. A happy employee is an ineffective employee; an unhappy employee will actually pay attention to the details of getting the job done. The job of the PHB is to stamp out this counterproductive concept of pursuing happiness. To get things done in life, you have to actively pursue unhappiness. Since all my worthless employees can't do that for themselves, I take it upon myself to direct them towards unhappiness.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Scandura Syndrome

As you probably know by now, my approach to bossing is to exert full control over all my employees. Being tough and cracking the whip is the best way to keep a tight running ship. In fact, I prefer to work everyone as hard as humanly possible so that work takes over their entire existence. An uninformed person might think that I have no employees acting like a total asshole, but that person would be gravely misinformed.

We know that abused abductees can come to admire and empathize with their captors. The cases of Stockholm syndrome are well-documented. As an expert in psychology, I reasoned that a similar phenomena could be observed in the boss-employee relationship. A boss who forces his will upon his employees and traps them at work could paradoxically become idolized by his employees. This is what I have observed with my own employees, particularly those employees who are young and impressionable. I impose long hours, skipped meals, conflicting work goals, and nonsensical projects, all while constantly yelling and criticizing them. I eventually break them down until I have them completely wrapped around my finger. I call the effect the Scandura syndrome. Exerting your power and authority over your employees to the fullest makes them beholden to you. It's a secret of pointy haired success that I have discovered in my years of successful bossing.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Slacking Profesoras

As a former professor, I know how much work being in academia is. I worked my ass off to become tenured. I managed to raise my kids, form a highly successful software company, and be a top researcher in my field. When I read this article about the supposed plight of female professors, I was incensed. Please, spare me the sob story. If a woman feels that having children and professorial duties conflict, then she should obviously not have children. She just can't hack it as a normal working adult.

It just goes to show that hiring a woman for any important position is a dicey proposition. The maternity leave and child care hassles make a woman more of a liability than an asset. Don't believe me? Take a look at Germany. You know why you don't see many female doctors in Germany? Because of the entirely too long maternity leave that companies are required to give mothers. Why would anyone take on a woman for a job if she could have a baby and be out of the workforce (but still on the payroll) for a year? No fiscally responsible organization would. Universities need to re-examine whether it makes sense to hire women professors when the possibility of children could drastically reduce their ability to perform their job.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

I am the 1%

With all this silliness in the news with "occupy" movements and ridiculous "we are the 99%" signs, I felt I just had to say something. I am the 1%. I'm proud to be in the upper echelons. If you are in the bottom 99%, it's no fault of mine. You are too lazy to work hard, stupidly bought more than you could afford, got a worthless education, and have no employable skills. Suck it up and deal with it.

Admitting that you're in the lowest 99th percentile is nothing to be proud of. You are just advertising to the world how pathetic you are.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Boss pump up

How do I get pumped for a day of hard bossin'? With some kickin' tunes, mofo!

"I'm the biggest boss that ya seen thus far"



"cuz it's just another day in the life of a goddamn boss!"

Saturday, October 15, 2011

An argument against maternity leave

As you all know, maternity leave is a huge drain on a company. When an employee takes unnecessary time off, it hurts the company and royally pisses off the boss. I've always thought maternity leave was an unnecessary burden to place on a company. That's why I tend to avoid hiring women, since I can never know when they are going to stop working to fulfill a silly biological impulse.

Women these days have it far too easy with maternity leave. I say we should abolish the wasteful practice. Case in point: a pregnant woman runs a marathon and gives birth the same day. If a pregnant woman can run a marathon and give birth the same day, pregnant women can keep coming into work until their delivery. After a day or two, they should be back to work. If a woman can run a marathon and then give birth in a few hours, there's no reason she can't be back to work in a couple of days.

Monster Boss

Last year, I posted about monster employees that I encounter. In the spirit of Halloween, I thought I would post a similar list for bosses. These are the types of bosses the aspiring PHB can model himself after.

The Mummy - Older than the hills, slow moving, and totally behind the times. This boss type groans all the time while plodding around chasing employees. He still thinks the stuff accumulated in his tomb is still usable.

The Vampire - Has a minor title and an inflated idea of his grandeur. He can't thrive on his own; that's why he has to fly around trying to suck the blood out of others.

The Zombie - Completely brainless. He must constantly seek fresh prey to consume their brains.

The Ghost - Insubstantial has been. Can't do anything effective, except haunt his employees.

The Banshee - Loves the sound of his own voice and loves screaming at his employees.

The Wraith - An evil spirit who just drains the life out of his employees.

The Grim Reaper - Working for this boss is the kiss of death. Your career can do nothing but nosedive straight to hell working for this boss.

The Devil - Evil incarnate himself. The devil boss promises a lot, but his primary interest is in taking your soul.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs, PHB extraordinaire

Pointy-haired bosses get a bad rap from those who are jealous of success. Case in point: Steve Jobs. He's widely regarded as an incredibly successful CEO and effective leader. Under his tenure, Apple has taken off. Has he done that by being a nice guy who coddles his underlings? Hell no! He takes the reins and micromanages. He acts like a royal asshole to get people's lazy asses in gear. What's the result of his actions? He gets credit for bringing immensely successful products to market and for leading his company through a huge boom. He's an effective leader.

I strive to model myself after Jobs. I micromanage my employees, take credit for their work, and generally make myself a total dickwad of a boss. My employees can bitch and complain all they want. If they can't deal with the work, they can go take a non-existent job with the pansy boss at Failures R Us.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Repeal Article 8: No right to family life

For those of you who keep up with international news, you may have heard the brouhaha over Article 8 in the UK. In essence, criminal foreign nationals cannot be deported if they have family ties in England, since Article 8 states that they have a fundamental right to a family life. Personally, I applaud home secretary Theresa May for standing up for sanity and clamoring to remove the ridiculous loophole of Article 8. In her own words, "the right to a family life is not an absolute right, and it must not be used to drive a coach and horses through our immigration system."

I would take that statement just one step further. There is no fundamental right to family life, period. If I hear employees make up excuses about needing to spend time with their family, it makes me mad. That is not a valid excuse to not do your goddamn job. If I want an employee to finish the work I've assigned them, they should be grateful for the opportunity to get something done. If they need to see their family, they can feel welcome to bring their family into work with them. This idea of a right to a private family life is ridiculous. What we should be focusing on is a right to remove people to are counterproductive, without this whole issue of family life bogging down the system.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Unappreciated Benefits

Wired has a story up about the unappreciated benefits of dyslexia. Being dyselxic myself, I feel vindicated. Dyslexia is not a disadvantage. Dyslexics can see the big picture better. That's why I never bothered with the details. I'm the boss. It's my job to see the big picture and let the underlings take care of the details. But this recent news got me thinking about other "handicaps" that really aren't a disadvantage.

Deafness - I can barely hear anything without my hearing aid cranked up to high. But this works to my advantage. I don't have to hear my lazy ass employees whine when I tell them to get to work. I also can blame my hearing and say I misheard them when I have no clue what the hell they are talking about with our products. I can't be bothered with those details, so I just pretend I can't hear them.

Ignorance - They say ignorance is bliss. How true that is. Time and time again, I remained blissfully ignorant of how any of the company's products work. That allows me to focus on my job of managing the workers and leaving the piddily details up to the paid grunts.

Being a crotchety old fart - I don't know why people look at this as such a negative. Studies show that a negative attitude actually helps you pay attention to details more. That's why I maintain a negative attitude towards all my employees. It allows me to better micromanage them when I can be more detail oriented with controlling them.

See, there are two sides to every coin. I've turned my negatives into advantages. That's why I'm the boss of a highly successful company.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Friday, September 16, 2011

FU F-book

What terrible news. An activist judge ruled that employees can't be fired for talking about a boss on Facebook. It's my policy that my employees should never talk to each other unless I am present. Once they can start talking to each other, especially about work, is a first step to having a union. My employees are already ineffective enough as it is with me constantly watching them. Once they can collude with each other behind my back, they will become even lazier and unproductive.

I should have a new company policy in place: just using Facebook should be grounds for being fired. If you have time to be using Facebook, you just aren't working enough.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Pro-Business = Prosperity

Alberta is Canada's wealthiest province. It also has the lowest minimum wage and fewest child labor restrictions. Do you see the connection? Low paid labor is crucial for prosperity. Overpaying workers is financially irresponsible. The less you can pay your workforce, the more prosperous business will be and ultimately the more prosperous society in general will be. Businesses can generate more wealth if they are not encumbered by employee salaries.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure."-- Mark Twain

That quote succinctly sums up my management strategy. I don't have to know anything about my product to successfully run my company. In fact, I know basically nothing about it. But what I do know is that I know how to run a company and how to make people get work done. My company has been enormously successful over the years precisely because I'm so ignorant. I pay other people to be competent. That allows me to focus on the important part o the company: being the confident figure head leader.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

"Labor" Day

Why is there a holiday called "Labor Day"?  Isn't it just a little assinine to call it a day of work when you give people a day off.  I'd understand it better if it were a day where women could deliver their babies, or people got to repair roads for a day with the chain gang.  But firing up the grill and relaxing is the exact opposite of what I consider "labor."  It's a royal waste of time.  There's only one holiday that's worth anything: Boss's Day.  Give thanks that you even have a job, and do some actual work this Labor Day.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Discontent

"Discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I'll show you a failure." --Thomas Edison

Research shows that workers who are in a bad mood pay more attention to the details and are more productive. That's a guiding principle in my management principles. Happy employees aren't actually doing their work. Thomas Edison realized this principle. A content man isn't doing anything; he's a complete failure. An employee who is discontent is far more likely to be one who is actually doing work. Manage you company to keep the workers unhappy, and you will have a more productive workforce.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

An argument for lower wages

The Great Recession is drawing to a close as we see corporate profits go up. What's driving the uptick in financial results? Well, for starters, companies are getting more productivity out of their current employees and paying them less. I have always contended that paying workers more was a huge drag on a company. We see that bearing out in the current economy. With wages correcting back to their correct lower levels, we see companies performing better financially. This is why I like hiring as few employees as possible (preferably just one) and getting as much work out of my employees for as little pay as possible. It's a fun efficiency maximization problem that I enjoy doing for the health of my company.

Monday, July 4, 2011

PHB Resources

As any good PHB knows, it's a tough job to keep a company running. You've got limited resources and a seemingly bottomless money suck known as employees. You have to conserve resources however you can. Here are my top resources for saving the company a little cash:

Free Labor - Too few companies take advantage of the free labor you can get out of interns, especially in the current down economy where there is a glut of people desperate for a foot in the door at a company. Unpaid interns are a great resource. Get a student intern and you're even better off since the parents might very well be paying for all of junior's expenses. Of course, there are also other ways of getting free work out of people, as I've discussed in the past in my Free Labor posts (pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4, pt 5).

Free Healthcare - Healthcare benefits are a huge drain on my money and the company. I refuse to pay for someone else's doctor bills. Their health is their responsibility, not mine. But since I have to pay huge taxes to the government anyhow, I may as well use their overpriced services. When an employee has a health problem, I suggest he uses the emergency room. They are obligated to see you at the ER and provide health care regardless of your ability to pay. Since I don't pay my employees that much, they can't afford the ER bill anyhow, so they essentially get free healthcare. Another viable option is to tell them to just get arrested. You can get great (and free) healthcare while incarcertated.

Cheap Food - I find it more that just a little irritating that people have to stop working for silly things like eating. Fortunately, there are ways to mitigate the resource and time suck of food. There are these wonderful things called food stamps and soup kitchens. Since any good PHB should be seeking to pay the least amount of money possible to his employees, one of the first things that can be one is to drop your employees salaries enough that they qualify for government assistance. Let "The Man" pay for that expense rather than having it come out of your pocket. Other viable options if your employees feel like they want to go a little more upscale is to suggest freeganism. Again, you get to shift the costs to someone else.

Lower Equipment Costs - The beauty of drawing on a workforce of independent contractors is that you have lower overhead costs. Not only do you not have to pay any benefits, but you don't actually have to buy any equipment either. Independent contractors use their own resources to accomplish their work. If you outsource to a cheaper country (or insource domestically to a desperate enough worker), you can get cheap labor with no equipment costs. It's a win-win situation for your labor and overhead costs.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

T-E-A-M

"There's no 'I' in team." That's an important phrase that companies try to get across to their employees. Unfortunately, they usually go about it the wrong way. While there is no "I" in team, there is most certainly an "m" and an "e," which would be me, the head honcho. The team is there for my benefit.

You know what else is in "team"? "Meat" is also in team. It's what you get when team is spelled backwards. When the team isn't working for me, you're basically as good as dead meat. You're all fired when you're not part of the team working for me. Remember that next time you hear that team-building phrase.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Happy Führer Day!

One of my favorite holidays is happening soon: Führer Day. It's a day where I can be appreciated for the type of leadership I provide. Everyone at work salutes me properly with a proud chest and raised arm instead of just sitting hunched over. I don't know why I can't get people to salute me everyday. C'mon people, show some love for your fearless leader!



While I do appreciate being showered with gifts on this holiday, I do have a few suggestions to make it better. First of all, let me offer a few suggestions on gifts. You all can stop buying me tools this year. I appreciate the thought, but the gift is of limited use to me. Despite being known as "The Tool," I don't actually know how to use anything. Being handy in my book is keeping an underling nearby to do everything for me.

Also, the books are nice, but I have already received several copies of "Management for Dummies" and "The Idiot's Guide to Running a Company." Personally, I think the gifts are selfish ones. They are of no use to me. In the interest of educating my employees, I have put them for employee reading so everyone can understand how hard it is to do my job. So far, the books are just gathering dust, which only confirms my suspicions that all of my employees are illiterate or uninterested in furthering their own education.


I know I have been dropping hints that I could use a few more pink slips since I have been running low on them lately. You can really never have too many pink slips around since they come in so handy. However, I did not foresee that I would receive so many pink undergarments. It was not what I expected, but I have to say they are surprisingly comfortable and I have been wearing them more regularly.

Now, a gift I would certainly appreciate is a new shaver. I don't plan on paying you anytime soon, so I understand if you can't go out and buy me a new one. I'm ok with you just cleaning up your shaver and giving it to me. I need to keep my moustache properly trimmed so I can look sharp for our first customer.

With such dashing good looks, I'm sure to win us our first paying customer. In fact, just looking at my handsome image puts me in a good mood. I'm feeling generous today. You can have a half day off this Sunday. Check in around 9 a.m., and you can go home and have an hour or two of leisure around 9 p.m. Haha, I'm just kidding. You know there's no time off. I'm such a gas!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Dare to be different

Success comes to those who don't follow the herd. Followers never do anything but the average. That's fine if you want to be boring and just like everyone else. To stand out, you have to dare to be different. I've built up my company to a success by outside the box thinking and non-standard approaches. Here are a few examples:

Hub and Spoke Hierachy - The typical company is structured like an inverted tree with the boss at the top, varying level of managers at the branches, and the drones at the leaves. The problem with that approach is that underlings are delegated power and privileges. You never want to give any underling any sense of importance. I much prefer the hub and spoke organization scheme. The boss is in the center directly controlling all the nodes. That way no one develops a sense of importance and gets uppity. You have direct control over everyone at all times. This is also known as a "star" arrangement, which is fitting. You're the brains of the operation. Everyone else is just piddily satellites revolving around you.

Centralized Workflow - The trend these days is towards decentralization. Cloud computing, peer-to-peer gobbily-gook, distributed computing, etc. It's all bunk! It's the same theory as giving a bunch of monkey typewriters and expecting the collective to eventually bang out Shakespeare. It's much easier to control everyone when the workflow is centralized. I make everyone log into my computer where I can watch them working and give instructions on the fly. Who knows what everyone could be doing working on their own? Probably just wasting time on my dime. When everyone is under a watchful eye, they keep doing what they are told. Plus, there's the added benefit of not having heterogenous computing environments. When everyone has to work on the same system, they are all working on the same platform by default.

Internal Standards - "Industry standard" is just a nice-name for average piece of crap. Standard industry practices is another example mamby-pamby following the herd. That's why I ignore standard practices and implement company practices which make sense to me. Version control software? Unnecessary! It's a waste of time to install and who understands the cryptic crap the software does anyhow? It's much better to just manually make copies of the source tree with the date appended. Same thing with automated backups. I prefer having my employees manually make the backup at the end of every day. I feel more confident knowing that a human performed the task rather than it being an unknown automated task. GUI usability standards? Totally retarded if you ask me. If I think my design is usable, then that's the way it's going to be. Who the hell came up with the usability standards anyhow? Probably a bunch of desk jockeys who are only soaking up a paycheck with retarded suggestions. Project management software? Also a waste of time. Since everyone in my company is working on the same computer anyhow, they can all access the same Word document that I type out each day. Hell, even standard programming languages are a bad idea in my book. If an employee develops skills in an industry standard development environment under my tenure, that gives him a skill that he can take somewhere else. Well, I say not on my dime! We make sure to use proprietary internal development environments so that no useful software knowledge can ever be taken from the company and employees don't develop any useful skills that they can use at another competing company.

Turnover - Underlings come and go all the time. Some people yammer on about retaining talent and experience. Bull-honky! In a fast moving business, your employees are going to become stale and outdated quickly anyhow. You want high turnover to keep your talent pool fresh and to keep workers on hand who haven't burned out. The more people you have flowing through, the more you get done and the better your product. You have to take the borg approach: assimilate the talent, and then they no longer matter as an individual. They are just another drone. You've taken what they have to offer into the collective, so it no longer matters if they stay or go.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Torturous Effect

As I was recently reading the news, I saw that McCain has spoken out against the use of torture and enhanced interrogations. I used to respect the man, but I can't possibly agree with his ludicrous reasoning. So what if enhanced interrogations didn't directly lead to capturing Obama Bin Laden? Does that mean they didn't have any effect? No, of course torture is effective. I use it, or at least the threat of it, all the time to get more out of my employees.

Even if you're not torturing everyone, just abusing a few is enough to get the rest of the sheep in line. Make an underling grunt the target of your rage and abuse not only makes you feel better, but it establishes you as the alpha boss. You can keep everyone in line from the fear of becoming the next target.

The same principle is at work here. By torturing one man many times, we establish a reputation as tough bastards who don't mess around. Everyone else will cower in fear. Torture had an indirect effect in getting the necessary information. Extraordinary measures are necessary in both the world of international politics and running successful companies.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Stress is a good thing

I always say that a stressed out employee is a sign of a productive employee. Now there is science backing me up. Stress helps people remember things better. When your system is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol (like they would be when you're stressed out), you retain information better.

Since my employees have such a hard time remembering the simple instructions I give them (like "get the software working!"), I find it best to yell at them and then check up on them every 5 minutes. The stress of have a screaming boss gazing over your shoulder constantly ramps up those memory forming hormones like nothing else. They should just hand me the Nobel prize now for my genius management techniques.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Decisions, decisions

Making decisions takes energy. The more tired and hungry you are, the more likely you are to make the default easier choice. Makes sense right? Did you know that this is a good reason to delay your employees' meals and breaks? First, it's a good method of maximizing the amount of work you get out of them. But consider this: do you want your workers making decisions? No, that would be your job as the boss. Besides, they typically make bad decisions anyhow. Just keep them a little tired and hungry, and they won't have the energy to resist your decisions. It just makes things run smoother all around.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Working Kids

I've always had issue with silly things like labor laws. Anytime the government tries to impose regulations, it just hurts business. Let the free market decide what to do. If labor laws were necessary to protect people, then let the consumer decide whether they care about worker conditions. Case in point: labor laws restricting children from working too many hours. Kids are restricted in the number of hours they can work, which is a completely ridiculous premise if you ask me. You don't instill work ethic by restricting children from working.

I applaud attempts to reverse this stupid labor "protection" law. That's why I applaud efforts like Senator Jane Cunningham's drive to repeal child labor laws. What good are children for if we're not training them for the workforce? They provide a source of cheap labor for business, and they receive training for becoming productive workers. Who can object to that?

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Control

It's important to always have control of your worker bees. Managing their every action is key for the success of the company since they are generally not competent enough to function on their own (remember, you're the boss and they are just grunts for a reason... you're the smarter more competent one!). I also like controlling when my employees can take their breaks, including food and bathroom breaks. At first, I thought this was just to make sure they weren't wasting time in breaks instead of working. But it turns out that forcing them to work when they claim to need a bathroom break is doing them good.

According to a recent study, people who can control their bathroom urges make better decisions. If you have enough self control to hold your pee, you have enough brains to delay gratification and make better decisions. I'm helping my employees choose to delay gratification. It's good for them, and it keeps them working longer. All in all, I say controlling your employees' bathroom breaks is a benevolent action.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Death by computer

So a man can sit in front of a computer for three straight days playing games until he dies. No sleep, no food, just him and the computer. Find me someone who will do that working, and you will have found me the perfect employee. Continuous work with no food or sleep. And then they die at the end of, so I don't have to pay them. How awesome is that?

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Imagine Eating

Thought for Food: Imagined Consumption Reduces Actual Consumption

Turns out imagining eating a food reduces your desire to eat when it comes time to actually eat the food. This is great news. When I tell my employees to imagine that they've already eaten lunch and keep working, it should work. Lunch breaks are a time killer. Another science win for the PHB!

Friday, January 7, 2011

Undercover Boss

Someone told me about this show. Like I need to watch a show about how a boss goes undercover to see how things actually work in a company. I don't need to go undercover to confirm that the workers in my company are lazy and incompetent. I already know how my company works, since I AM the company. Someone needs to make a reality TV show called "Stupid Employee of the Month." That's a show I can relate to.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

PHB Resolutions

2011 should be a good year for me. This year I resolve to:
  • Work my employees harder. Last year, they simply did not do enough.
  • Get an actual product out the door. This goes hand in hand with the first resolution. I don't know why my employees are holding things up.
  • Cut costs and consolidate. I've already started outsourcing. The next step is to "insource." I need to return to academia and find students willing to work for free for their "education." A free intern would also be good.
  • Increase work hours. If I make all the workers come with a full thermos of coffee, they should be able to put in more hours. And with an international outsourced team, there's no reason not to keep things cranking round the clock.
  • Find a competent employee. I think I may need to do a workforce refresh again.

Joseph M. Scandura, incompetent moron, idiot, pompous, stupid, failure, asshole, arrogant, bullshit, micromanager of the year, technologically clueless, ignorant, condescending, senile, dementia

scandura@scandura.com
mailto:joescandura@comcast.net