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).

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!"

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.

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.

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.

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.

Like a boss

I'm the boss.

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.

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.

"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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.