Office gossip

Every office has its gossip. Yes, even the place where you work. If you're not aware of that, you are probably one of the topics they are talking about. I'm sure that most of you already consider me a chauvinist, so I really don't have to be careful what I say about women. Women gossip, a lot. My ex workmate spoke wise words: if you want to keep the gossiping at minimum, hire a one woman (althought this maximizes the caveman effect, check out my last post). Women don't usually gossip with men and only place left for her to gossip at is the Internet. Once you add another female to the equation, you're deep in the gossip shit. It'll take few days once legends and stories start to evolve. But here's a strange thing: if you add a third female, they start having some kind of power struggle and the  Weakest one will be the target of gossiping.

Did you hear that the blogger has a HUGE di...

Usually this is done at coffee break, lunch or at the smoking area/room. Men do these things differently: they gather all their anger and hatred to a big lump and hide it inside them for months and months to come. Then, at the spring picnic they get drunk and EXPLODE. They might yell at their bosses, grope female (or male) co-workers or even attack someone physically. This happens especially here in Finland where people don't know the ways of small talk and usually drink WAY too much.

Want to start gossiping? Here are some good topics for ya to get started:

- How fucking idiot your boss is
- How fucking huge (gossiped by women)/juicy (gossiped by men) his secretary's ass is
- Co-workers personal problems (depression is a good one, if someone is depressed, hit them while they're in the ground!)
- Someone's getting fatter/thinner

Oh, there are those who don't gossip. They're called Aspies or interns. Since I know nothing about Aspies (I'm not a mathematician or phycisist), tomorrow I'll be writing about interns. Have your say at gossip in the comments section.

Women of the work place and caveman genes

Me want ugly chick. Ugh.

If you have worked in an office environment, you must you know this phenomenon - a beautiful woman arrives in men are divided into two groups: quiet nerdy types and chest pounding alpha-males. If you work at the IT, she doesn't even have to be hot. Some kind of boobs and hitch-pitched voice is enough. These rat racing engineers then do what they do worst - flirt.

Women usually take advantage of the situation and when they notice that they're treated like royalty they claim the queen's title and role in the process. In the process they get free meals, coffee warmed up, free carpools, free drinks on friday, etc. This list is as long as the queen's imagination.

However, this is a win-win situation. These engineer-types also get something out of it. It's kind of a symbiosis, an office organism. They usually have a nagging wife and two kids waiting at home and they were good looking maybe 15 years ago. Now they can be in the spotlight again and they can feel young, energetic and charming once more. Once they get back home harsh reality hits them in the face. Kids are screaming, dog is sick, wife is nagging (usually about money) and bills are piling up.

These are the kind of people who like to work late.

500 ways to make money FAST!

If I were to write a book about getting rich quickly and easily my number one tip would definently be: Write a book about getting rich quick and easily. These self-help and moneymaking books are often on top of the Amazon's bestseller lists and obviously if you write one good book, you're good for the rest of your life (moneywise). But because I'm lazy and not a very good writer, I'll skip the book publishing and just give you some tips for free. These are good ways to get some MONEY:

Be a celeb - Start hanging out in places where celebs hang out (expensive nightclubs, rehab centers, etc.) and try to be seen with someone famous. If you live in the States, I recommend Charlie Sheen (through your crack dealer) or Justin Bieber (I bet he doesn't have a single heterosexual, male friend). Tabloids pay huge sums of money for gossip, etc. about these people. Besides, if you are a celebrity, bars, restaurants, etc. usually give you shit for free.

In Finland we have this "girl" named Johanna Tukiainen. She was sendind x-rated SMS to a top end politician (Minister of Foreign Relations) and she leaked it to the press. After that, she's been the most famous person in Finland and her wedding this month is very popular topic in coffee table. She's fucking hideous (check the picture below) and has no charisma, still she's trying to be a singer and dancer. Probably making good money from the tabloids.

J. Tukiainen - looking hot hot hot

So, good things about being/trying to be celeb:

- Easy money fast. J. Tukiainen got 10 000 euros (~13500 dollars) from tabloid for publishing those SMS's. I could live on that for 6 months, easily.
- If you have your "own" reporter that writes about you exclusively, just phone him and you can think of something crazy to do while you get pissed at local bar. In Finland we used to have this dynamic duo M. Nykänen (ex skijumper) and K. Merilä (journalist). Merilä took Nykänen to exotic places (Canary isles, etc.)
and bought him a lot of booze and Nykänen did stupid stuff. It was kind of a symbiosis and both got what they wanted: Nykänen got his booze and Merilä his story. I don't know if you have this sort of thing in the US tho, probably?

Bad things about being/trying to be celeb:

- Everybody laughs at you and think you're stupid (which you probably are). So don't do it if you bad self esteem
- You have to come up with new stuff ALL THE TIME. For example cosmetic surgery, getting into fights or sexual relations with other celebs.
- You have to hang out with idiots.

Create an international website - Good ideas done well usually make huge amounts of money. Both Youtube and Facebook were student projects. Think of a service that you would gladly use and is not yet found in the web. Even some (fashion)bloggers make crazy cash with minimum work. Expect to be poor for a fucking long time before your site starts making money, tho.

Good things:

- Low risk. Creating content is usually cheap, if not free, and the only effort you have to put into it is your own time.

Bad things:

- These sites require a lot of expertise and skill.
- Getting the readers, publicity, etc. can be tough.
- Self-sufficiency might take a looooong time. It may not happen ever.

Marry into money - This is easy for hot girls/women.

Good things:

- Money for the rest of your life

Bad things:

- Can't think of any.


Got better ideas? Write them in comments. If you want me to write about some specific stuff, also write a comment. Thanks for reading!

Make yourself irreplaceable

Finnish newspaper Kauppalehti writes that there are few ways to keep your job: 1) Learn things that other people don't want or don't know how to do. 2) Keep good relations to your boss and co-workers. 3) Ask if you're uncertain about new things.

These are good tips, but they're really not for me. Since I try to slack off and rather do something else (redtube for example) I've thought of few things that make me irreplaceable without actually doing a lot of work. Here they are:

Use old/strange techniques - If you're a coder, use Cobol or Assembler. No one will want to watch your code.

Jargon - If you write a lot, use difficult words, old latin, french, etc. and don't write text that is easily readable.

Documentation - Don't document any of the things you do and don't make any instructions.

Teaching - Don't do it. If you have no choice but to present your ideas/projects/etc. to your boss or co-workers, use Powerpoint. Make a presentation that has lot of pie charts, nice pictures and maybe even animations. Bosses love animations.

SPECIAL tip for developers: Use kludges everywhere. Even when you're coding the simplest thing with Javascript, make a moronic kludge that others will not understand.

Most of these work in the IT department, but not really if you're a cashier or a janitor. Do you have any good ideas to share about making yourself irreplaceable? Share them in comments.

Sitting on the shitter - Precious little moments

Working day in Finland is 7 and half hours. That makes 450 long, painful minutes and sometimes when it's REALLY boring, I count the time in seconds. At it's worst, working day is 27000 painful moments, each one more boring than the previous one. After many working years I have developed methods for making these moments shorter. Here are few of them:

Going to the toilet - You can have about dozen of these in a workday without anyone getting suspicious. Each one can last for 5 to 15 minutes and sometimes you can take an hour or even two out your day (on Fridays it's usually longer). It's even better, if you know that someone is waiting for their turn. If there aren't any magazines to read, use your cell phone / smartphone for spending time: install games, read feeds, listen to podcasts... If you don't have a phone, read what ingredients are in handsoap or make snowflakes out of toilet paper.

HARDCORE mode: take your laptop with you.

Lunch break - This should be a nonbrainer: Make your lunch hours long, but don't do this too often. You don't want your boss to get suspicious. In Finland lunch hour is usually 30 minutes, so just go for 40-45 minute lunch breaks everyday and once or twice a week you can extend it to a full hour. If your co-workers go out to eat, join them. These trips usually last at least an hour, sometimes lot more (especially on Friday).

Hospital visits - This probably works only if you live in Scandinavia/some other European countries with free health care or have somekind of health plan from the company. You can do hospital visits 1-3 times a month. Same rule applies here: don't do it too often or people get suspicious. Some good diseases are: Crohn's disease (nobody wants to hear the details), back pain (just say that you got it at sitting on your desk, they don't want to be blamed) or some exotic diarrhea bacteria (here you get a bonus: no one will come close to you). Don't EVER say that you're going there because of depression or sleeping problems - this WILL make them suspicious and will probably effect you at next cutoffs.

HARDCORE mode: Shave your head and tell 'em that you have terminal cancer. That should keep them off your back for a while. Try to look sick but positive: don't make them think you're going to drug rehab.

BONUS: Don't forget these: taking your baby to doctor, taking your dog/cat/pig/monkey to a vet

Sick days - You can have 1-3 of these in a month without anyone getting suspicious. Just say that you've been vomiting all night or that you have terrible diarrhea. Call your boss right after 7am (we go to work at 8am here) and he'll think that you actually tried to get to work. After this you naturally go back to sleep. After a night of heavy drinking and partying your voice is usually hoarse, so it gives you even more credibility. Therefore, drink during the week and stay at home when hungover.

What are your slacking tips at work? What do you think of my English so far? Is it readable? Does the sun orbit earth or vice verca? Just click the comment button below!

 

The blogger has spend a looot of time on this bad boy.