Fake Your Way to the Top!

First, starting way back in the 1950s, you had to be “positive” to get ahead in business, i.e., ready to see the glass half full even when it was lying shattered on the floor. Then, somewhere in the first few years of the 21st century, the bar was raised to “passionate.” It wasn’t good enough to feel “positive” about spending your day doing cold calls to potential customers in Dayton, you be had to be “passionate” about it. And now, apparently, even that isn’t good enough – you have to develop a YES! Attitude, as in throwing back your head, balling up your fists, and screaming YEESSS!!!

The purveyor of this new over-the-top, fan-like, enthusiasm is Jeffrey Gitomer, in his brand new Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude. What attracted me to the display in the bookstore was the odd packaging: a hardcover, but smaller than the average paperback, with a bright red ribbon for a page-marker (a biblical touch, someone in the publishing industry explained to me.) Most of the pages contain fewer than 200 words, but don’t try filling in the margins with notes: The pages are too slick and shiny for your average pen, so if you want to make notes, get your own damn paper.

How do you achieve a state of transcendent YES!-like excitement about your job? Brainwashing is recommended. Gitomer himself read Napoleon Hill’s 1937 classic of delusional thinking – Think and Grow Rich—over 100 times in one year and watched the same motivational video five days a week plus weekends. While reading the gurus and reciting the prescribed self-affirmations, it helps to cut off contact with the outer world. In particular, Gitomer says, don’t watch the news. It’s all “negative” anyway.

Of course you’ll have to purge your environment of “negative” people too, as all the motivational gurus advise. Gitomer tells us he walks away from their “pity parties” to “focus on me.” “Let nothing or no one get in your way.”

Now, with Darfur, global warming, Iraq and any recently bereaved or otherwise afflicted co-workers out of the way, you can “SMILE ALL THE TIME.” “A simple smile,” Gitomer tells us, “is a powerful atti-tool.” Smiles “show your internal feelings, externally.” And if you don’t actually feel smiley internally, just fake it till you make it.

Nobody said it would be easy. In fact, the YES! Attitude takes constant maintenance, and one of the illustrations shows Gitomer wearing a blue work shirt with the label “Positive Attitude Maintenance Department” on his chest. Read something “positive” every day, say “positive things all day long.” Practice being “selfish on the inside” while exuding helpfulness on the outside.

Don’t be distracted by the crude selfishness. What Gitomer and countless other motivational gurus are recommending is the mentality of a crafty slave: “Oh master, I am SO glad you transferred me to the Dayton accounts (even though they’ve been inactive for 18 months), and, while I’m at it, would you like me to polish your shoes with my neck tie?” Smiles, at least in human society, are gestures of submission, and routinely demanded of women as a token of subordinate status. The happy slave smiles; the well-trained “lady” smiles; now even the male white collar striver has to keep his lips pulled back in an expression of eager compliance. Only the top guys get to snarl and snap their way through the day.

Here’s another idea, one that’s every bit as “positive” as the gurus advise: Call it Constructive Complaining. Don’t avoid “negative” people – seek them out and talk about what needs to be changed. Remember the movie “Nine to Five,” where the much-put-upon characters played by Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton finally get together to share their woes and plan the overthrow of an abusive boss? Take your grievances seriously and turn that “pity party” into a revolutionary strategy meeting.

Comments

[realpc]

Anarcissie,

I think Barbara E. should start another organization, for people who think being nice is torture. How about "Nasties United?"

[Hattie]

Real p.c. If I thought that maybe you had a heart, you have disabused me.

[Melker63]

Quote: "I think Barbara E. should start another organization, for people who think being nice is torture."

You obviously missing the point. One cannot in the long run command true loyalty and happiness through economical fear and retribution. Even Jesus talked about good fruits not comming from bad trees - and I think he really had a point there. Dont you?

[Ceci]

I remember a t-shirt I saw that poked fun at the heavy handed ways management uses to get employees to fake enthusiasm, happiness, and contentment.

It said: "The floggings will continue until moral improves."

My friends and I laughed and at the same time felt sick inside when we read it.

[Ceci]

make that morale....oops.

[chris]

Anarcissie, you wrote:

"The torture of being nice has been imposed instead, and of course (according to reports in this blog) its heaviest weight is falling upon the lowest ranks, as usual."

Imposed? People in many jobs must maintain a friendly and accomodating demeanor. It's the skill their jobs require and the skill they offered to their employers when they accepted their jobs.

Nothing was "imposed." It was agreed upon by both parties.

In any case, it's noteworthy you think being "nice" is torture. Does that mean you think exercising unpleasantness is heavenly?

That's a practice that usually doesn't work well in settings where people have methods and strategies for retaliating in unseen ways.

Even tyrannical bosses have been undermined by subordinates after too many tantrums.

[Anarcissie]

Chris, you know and I know that the system can be gamed. And even if it couldn't be gamed, there are cans to scavenge and refrigerator boxes to sleep in. But many people don't know these things. They think they have to go to work. And due to their various limitations, the choice of kinds of work they can go to may be pretty narrow. As far as these people are concerned, employment isn't voluntary, it's something imposed on them by the cruel world.

The sister of one of my friends, for instance, can't seem to get a job anywhere but in Retail. Retail is hell, Chris. Not the worst hell, but hell nevertheless. Every time she's fired she resolves to get a better job, but it seems only Retail will have her. You see, she's made several mistakes in life: she was born to parents who weren't rich, she's not very bright, she's not pretty, her health is quite problematical, and she's probably a lesbian. Bad choices, eh? And so Retail is her fate, where you're supposed to be nice to everyone.

Well, it could be worse, as I said above. In the Middle Ages she probably would have been burned as a witch. So no one's complaining, really. We're going to be nice about it. Well, some of us are; I've never had to be nice because I could sell my talents as an engineer and a computer programmer to people who didn't care whether I was nice or not. Someday we'll evolve a civilization where everyone has that privilege.

Meanwhile, pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. Or else.

[chris]

Anarcissie, you wrote:

"...she was born to parents who weren't rich, she's not very bright, she's not pretty, her health is quite problematical, and she's probably a lesbian. Bad choices, eh?"

First, as you know, her life situation as you described it was not a matter of choice.

Meanwhile, at least half the population is not too bright. You can safely say that most of the population is not remarkably good-looking. Even a woman who was good-looking in her youth loses that fleeting advantage.

Meanwhile, most families are not rich. She comes from the economic background from which most Americans come.

As for her health, well, I don't know if she takes good care of herself or drinks, smokes and/or over-eats.

Thus, she may have some power to improve her health.

As for her sexuality, well, here you are obviously guessing, and tossing out a guess for effect.

Based on all your qualifying statements, she doesn't seem at all unusual. But you seem to believe the economy has conspired against her, as though some group of tricksters has decided she should spend her life working in the retail business.

Perhaps that same group of tricksters should declare her a doctor and let her begin treating patients. There's an idea.

[chris]

Anarcissie, you wrote:

"I've never had to be nice because I could sell my talents as an engineer and a computer programmer to people who didn't care whether I was nice or not."

I don't believe you. Even people who telecommute have to develop a positive rapport with those who do the hiring.

No matter what, people who bicker unnecessarily with their co-workers lose points where it counts. Some amount of tension among workers has benefits, but fighting and uncivil behavior does not.

Moreover, there are legal limits these days and I've seen insufferable programmers get the ax. There's always someone else capable of handling the job.

[realpc]

What is so wonderful about having the right to be nasty? Why are you longing for a better world where everyone is free to bite each others' heads off?

You gave an example of one person, who keeps getting fired from retail jobs, and hates retail.

How will things be different and better in your utopia (aside from the right to be rude)? Everyone, however talentless or lazy, will have a pleasant, secure job?

Maybe in your world, the rude will rule, and promotions will depend on degree of nastiness.

[barbsright]

Customer service is the 'septic tank' of the modern economy. Anyone can do it so it has low pay, etc. It is one step from being on permanent disability for having an 'antisocial' personality. Ironic, but true!!!

[chris]

Anarcissie, another comment on your false claim:

"I've never had to be nice because I could sell my talents as an engineer and a computer programmer to people who didn't care whether I was nice or not."

I am 100% certain that if you, in your role as a programmer, were nasty to a client and that client pulled its business from the firm that employed you, you would get fired on the spot.

It is a simple fact that "everybody has a boss" and nastiness to people up the chain of command will get you canned. Happens every day.

Even star athletes are traded when there's too many inter-personal problems involving other team members.

[Monica]

The economy has really conspired against people in the sense that most people need to go to work every day for somebody else, whereas in the past, there were more opportunities to stay home or work with family, and to have servants even if not particularly rich. Moreover, nowadays, there is a need to maintain a regular cash flow and buy everything, whereas many of yesterday's poor had their own housing, some way to produce their own food and clothing, and so on. You may not like living twelve in a room in a hut, but that beats having to worry about where the rent money is coming from. Also, some reasons such as the weather (for agriculture) or Catholic holidays in Catholic countries, often reduced the number of work days (except, of course, that things like feeding animals can't wait). In Ancient Rome, some slaves' lives were not necessarily that bad, since even what is now considered professional or retail work was done by slaves. On the other hand, free citizens did not have to work. Now, we are all slaves, my friends. It's just that this is called employment and some improvements, such as not using a real whip to drive employees, have been made. And it was precisely because paid employment may at first seem more attractive to someone who lives in a hut with his brothers on a farm, and because it pays the worker instead of having him or her depend on a spouse, father, or whatever, that our ancestors happily paved the way for wage slavery. As for things like being burned as a witch, I would rather take a statistically rare chance than be on camera in most stores and in my own apartment building. At least, in the past, the powers-that-be could not be everywhere, and it was easier to start over somewhere else by running away without having things like a criminal file or a credit history follow you.

[realpc]

Well Monica, that's progress. We don't have slaves anymore so we have to work. Some things were better then, some are better now. Perfection would require combining all the good from the past and the present, while getting rid of all the bad.

But we can't have perfection because every improvement causes unexpected problems later on.

Traditional societies provided emotional and financial support. But everyone had their fixed inescapable role -- for example, women had to stick with the traditional female role, like it or not.

Subsistence farming, as you point out, allows families to survive independently. They grow and make most of what they need, so they do not have to pay rent, utilities, etc. But they starved if the cow died or the corn didn't grow one year. There was no central heat, air conditioning, TV, insect repellant. You could not choose an interesting professional career -- you had to be a farmer. And, again, women had no choice but to accept the female role, and obey their husbands.

Every modern technological advance has improved things in some way, and has also created new problems. The only way to avoid the problems created by technology is to prohibit inventions. But how can you stop creative people from getting new ideas and making new products? How can you stop the public from wanting these things? And even if there were some way to block human creativity, are you sure you really want to?

[Monica]

Yes, I'm sure. First of all, you may be surprised, but many inventions have fairly reliable ancestors. For instance, some herbs can be used as insect repellant. A cold cellar can replace a fridge. Some people actually hate air conditioning because it makes their environment too cold and they are not the ones who control the temperature. Modern washing machines have manually-rotating or boiling ancestors. There were things for ironing clothes, too. But to get more efficient versions of such things and many other things, people have to sell their own lives instead of having perhaps a little less, but staying home. In fact, the very availability of more goods and services disempowers people because they don't know how to do things (and in many cases, such as if they wanted to raise animals in their back yard, they are simply not allowed). On the other hand, by buying all sorts of things, they further reduce their chances of ever becoming free, because they keep spending their money and they will always need to work for the Man to get more. And many of their purchases won't last for too long and depend on electricity and fuel, and less physical work is not even an advantage for sedentary people who may get fat or actually pay for what it takes to be physically active some other way. As for starving, it's better to have a larger support network in a more community-minded society than to starve and lose an apartment as soon as the cash flow stops, and to be afraid that it may happen any time. And since marriage still exists, I don't see why having to work is any better than being supported by a man for life just because that man was once really interested in sleeping with that woman. In fact, the modern system enslaved more people than ever, even children and teenagers who go to school, under the pretense of giving them something like an education or an income of their own and all sorts of trinkets to buy. They may live longer, but the time is not theirs any more. In the Middle Ages, at 36, maybe I would not even have been alive, but I would have lived my life fully instead of being stuck first at school, then at work.

[Monica]

Monica,

I am not entirely in love with modern civilization either. But I can appreciate the positive aspects and make the best of it.

I have to work, but I am much freer than a woman in the middle ages. I don't feel like a slave, because I can choose where I work, and what kind of job I want.

You see it as being stuck at school and then at work -- obviously you did not have a good experience at either. I hated some aspects of school and some of my jobs. I guess most of us did.

But I think that's just life. Life is not just a big happy party, at least not for most of us. But most people, I guess, find something positive in getting an education and a career.

We are very specialized now, and most of us don't know how to survive in the woods. Yes, I feel some regret about that.

But it's definitely a trade-off. We are freer now in some ways and less free in others.

If you lived in the middle ages you would not be able to read or write, let alone connect to the entire world with your computer.

[Monica]

If indeed I would have been illiterate, I would not have felt the need not to be. But that's not the point. Even if at first they seem OK (that's how people get caught up in the system), things like school and work steal large chunks of people's lives. During that time, the individuals are physically alive but can't use the time as they please. This is more so when the individual ends up with even less time than the average person and with very few waking hours of real life. Yet, that does not prevent the aging process. Only because at 36, I hardly had any time for myself, that does not prevent me from being that old. The concept is similar to prison except that prisoners may at least have the opportunity to sit around and think about whatever they want instead of keeping their minds busy with work. Choosing a job is like choosing the type of slavery that seems less bad. And marriage exists even now, and some women may have been happily married even then, even if that also had something to do with different expectations. I wish I could stay home just because I do you know what with my husband, or because he just can't divorce me, ever. Unless they are prostitutes, modern women do it for nothing and then they still have to work.

[Michael Price]

"My supervisior has gone to the point of having weekly status meetings where no negative items are allowed. If a problem is identified and a solution is proposed, and the solution is worse than the cause, I'm not allowed to say so.

They hired me for my expertise and my professional skills. They won't reward that, and punish when I do express something that is counter to their expectations, and go out of their way to attempt to get me to quit."

What you are describing is the phemonima known as "groupthink", quit now while they can still pay severance, and get your broker to sell their shares short. Don't think this sort of thinking is due to capitalism or corparations, real owners recognise it's the worst idea for running anything. No it's the educational elite that foisted this shit on us, mostly from taxpayer funded universities. The feel good crap wasn't invented by the marketing gurus, they just adapted it.

[Travis]

To - That Girl - Mike Moore owns shares in Haliburton. Enough said.

To - Different - Would have loved to have read your anti-Boomer piece.

To - Boomers - Right or Wrong you are going to cop the blame when things go pear shaped. Social Security isn't going to be there for you as your kids and grandkids won't pay. Why should they? You've had your cake and now you want to eat it?

[Willie Brown Jr.]

Ms. Ehrenreich, my name is Willie Brown Jr., and I am reading your book Nickel and Dimed for a college class and I was hoping to get you to answer this question:What did you conclude about not getting by in America...Thanks!

[20something]

willie: i'll give it to you; you are very enterprising young man. you went straight to the source.

but if you don't want to read a goddamn book, why go to college to begin with?

Please drop out; you are making us look bad.

[shan]

i am looking for fake permmission slip for not going to school!its for my friend name kaset