Curse and Swear All You Want

Both of them apparently do you good.  Swearing helps us deal with pain.  Unload some four letter bombs, and all of a sudden things don't hurt so much and you feel better.  There's a similar effect for yelling.  The conventional wisdom has been that yelling raises your blood pressure and stress, but in reality the opposite is true.  It's good for your health to let the lungs and vocal cords rip out the decibels.  Yelling makes you feel better.

This is good news indeed.  When I get frustrated with dealing with my lazy and unproductive employees, I really feel like screaming at them and asking why they're so $#%#* incompetent.  I used to try to hold back, but holding it in is unhealthy.  I feel so much more relief if I just yell and tear into them.

Contributions of the Pointy Hair Boss

Pointy Haired bosses get an unfairly bad rap. Without PHBs, things just wouldn't run as smoothly. PHBs bring important contributions to the table. For example,

1. Making employees arrive at work early and leave late helps the employees avoid the worst of the rush hour traffic. They arrive less frazzled and with more energy so they can get more done.
2. Having employees work through lunch and dinner helps with the nation's growing obesity problem. With no time to eat meals, the workers are consuming fewer calories, which makes it easier for them to stay trim. Combine this with the long work hours where the employees are burning more calories, and there's a double benefit. It's a win-win situation all around.
3. What is perceived as "micromanagement" is actually the PHB helping educate his employees. The boss is higher up for a reason: he's smarter and better than everyone else. Giving instructions on every little task is his way of imparting knowledge.
4. Keeping employees at work virtually round the clock helps the employees save money. If they just stay at work, they don't have to waste money on gas for commuting. The more time they spend in the office, the less money they spend on utilities at home.
5. The negative criticisms are tough love from the boss. Positive reinforcement isn't always a good thing. The criticisms toughen up the workers and bring them up the right way.
6. Assigning a multitude of seemingly pointless and unrelated tasks is the boss's way of improving worker productivity. When workers are overwhelmed with things to do, they learn to focus and become more productive by multi-tasking.

These are only a few examples of the many important contributions from PHBs. Clearly, the PHB is an important part of every company.

Poor people are fat

The idea that poor people are skinny because they don't have enough to eat is complete myth.  The poorest states in the country are also the ones with the most obesity problems.  There's a strong correlation between debt and obesity.  If you borrow a lot of money that you probably shouldn't have, then chances are a lot higher that you're lazy bastard who's severely overweight.

The solution to controlling weight is to get off your fat ass and start working.  When you're working all the time, you don't have time to eat and make yourself fatter.  Getting that paycheck slowly pays down the debt and takes you out of the vicious debt-obesity cycle.

Anti-social[ism]

"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money." -Margaret Thatcher

This country appears to be heading towards a more socialist system, which is a trend that disturbs me greatly. Socialists like to "re-distribute" wealth which has been hard earned to lazy leechers who have less money. This just breeds resentment by the people who have worked hard and de-motivates them. In the end, you get a system where no one is motivated to work and there's no productivity.

"God helps those who help themselves." -Benjamin Franklin

What we should be doing is rewarding the go-getters and putting them in charge. They have more money because they make more money from their endeavors instead of complaining and trying to get a free ride. Weed out the unproductive, or at least let the people who have risen through the ranks crack the whip on them. This is how we should be running the country. Those who are suffering are in their positions from their own fault. Giving them free handouts doesn't do anyone a favor.

Falling behind in worker hours

Did you know the average U.S. worker only worked 1792 hours in 2008?  That's less than 40 hours a week over the course of year.  Even accounting for an absurdly generous 2 week vacation, that's still less than 40 hours a week.  Several countries still rank ahead of the U.S. in total annual hours worked.  Notably, Mexico, Italy, Iceland, Korea, Hungary, Greece, and the Czech Republic topped the U.S.

Does anyone else find this totally unacceptable?  Where is that American Protestant work ethic?  Apparently, my suspicions have been confirmed that American employees have started taking it easy.  It's up to us PHB's to crack the whip more and get those numbers back up.

Lessons from the Ig Nobels

The 2009 Ig Nobel winners have been announced. While science isn't usually my realm of expertise, I still find the research results of the Ig Nobel Laureates to be valuable. This year's winning research contains several significant PHB-relevant knowledge:

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Dairy cows called by names give more milk than cows that are nameless. What's true of livestock is also true of employees. Cows give more milk when you refer to them by name, just as employees get more work done when called by name. I make it a point to use a person's name when giving instructions or critical feedback. "Bob, finish up the TPS report pronto!", "Brenda, why can't you do something as simple as take dictation?", or "Bill, you're going to have to stay late tonight to implement this new program feature we need." When you call out employees by name, they know you're paying personal attention to them and will get more done.

PHYSICS PRIZE: Pregnant women don't tip over due to spine anatomical adaptations. It turns out humans have evolved a particular lumbar spine curvature to account for the shift in center of mass of pregnant women. That's good to know. I was always annoyed at the coddling treatment pregnant women get. They're adapted to standing up and perfectly capable of continuing to work on their feet. Now, I've got evidence to shut people up when I suggest that women not take a load off and continue to stand and work like the rest of the productive workforce.

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas. I personally know all about crappy research, but this example of crap research really takes the cake. Sometimes you strike gold in a stinking pile of poo. I can totally relate to the researchers of this project. I have to sift through mountains of crap work from my employees. Despite the immense amount of dung, I do usually find something usable. Even the stinking pile of software my company releases has a use somewhere. If there wasn't value even in crap, I couldn't continue running my company.

Capitalist Prozac

The U.S. surprisingly ranks as one of the world's most depressed countries.  In non-intuitive results, less developed countries fare far better on national depression surveys than the U.S. and other developed countries.  American workers apparently feel pressure to achieve grand, unrealistic dreams that most of them will never be able to achieve.  Few are destined to be mega rich and famous; most people are destined to be cubicle rats.  Only few people have enough drive and perseverance to rise the ranks of power and money.

Fortunately, the solutions to this widespread depression are simple.  According to the article, people in less developed nations tend to be ostracized and even jailed for admitting mental weaknesses like depression.  Naturally, surveyed people in these countries tend to have fewer reported instances of depression.  It's a prime example of market forces at work.  Provide a disincentive for depression, and it will disappear.

Also, according to the article:

"In strikingly undeveloped countries, Kessler says, people don't talk about being fulfilled. They're often just focused on making it through the day."

This just shows what I've been espousing all along.  If you're keeping your workers busy enough, they don't have time to think.  When they're too inundated with work to think, they don't have time to do non-productive things like get depressed.  Idle workers are troublesome workers.

Finally, we need to dispel this misinterpreted notion of equality in this country.  There are bosses and there are employees.  If you're a grunt, accept that fact.  When we can deflate expectations of the underlings, they can't become disappointed with their careers and will be far less likely to become depressed.  Employees who know their place in the corporate hierarchy don't waste time claiming depression.  They just play their role working for the company.