Creeps

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that the world is mainly comprised of weirdos, oddballs, and downright creeps.

Our office building is full of creepy people. Here are just five examples.

1. Romeo on Wheels: The King of Creeps is the smarmy delivery guy who just loves the receptionists (but gets no love in return). He enters the office with grandiose swagger because, of course, he is the highlight of our day. He pretends not to struggle with heavy boxes as he goes on about how he DJs on the weekend and dabbles in poetry. Wow, maybe if I play my cards just right he’ll let me ride in the delivery van with him!

2. The Wanderer: This guy is seen wandering the halls but never actually enters an office. He’s always out there, pacing around, but what is he really doing? Who is he? Could he be a ghost but just not a very scary one? No one knows.

3. The Restroom Wrecker: Comes in both male and female versions — you just don’t want to use the restroom after them. Maybe they live somewhere where there are only outhouses or people just go out in the fields. Even if so, I think a toilet is rather self-explanatory, don’t you? Perhaps this is their version of marking territory?

4. The Mystery Man: He has an office but he’s rarely there. The business name above the door gives no clue as to the nature of his work, and on the rare occasion you do see him slip in and out of his office, he never speaks nor acknowledges anyone. Obviously he is a time traveler who uses his office as his base. Well, either that or a drug dealer.

5. The Cryer: The woman seen on a cell phone roaming the hallways screaming at her lover/husband/wife. She steps out of the office to make these calls so that no one in the office knows her business. Now, everyone in the building knows her business but no one in her office does.

Click HERE to learn how to do the creep!

On a more serious note, I am shifting over to the marketing department as the new marketing associate so this will be my last post, but have no worries, my replacement Josh Millican will be taking over the column with as much attitude and personality.

The No-Nos of Office Wear

Box Foot, don’t let it happen to you.

San Francisco is a major city and many national and international corporations are based here, including a number of clothing labels (Gap, Brooks Brothers, Levi Strauss, Banana Republic). Given this (and given how we are such an international draw for tourists), why is it that our downtown financial district denizens dress like it’s casual Friday in Grand Rapids? Here are five moving violations of the sartorial kind that I see every day in our neighborhood:

1. Box Foot: Square toe shoes should have never happened, but like a lot of other things that should have never happened (like Furbies), they did — and refuse to leave over a decade later. You might as well forego the shoes and wear the cardboard boxes they came in if you like the shape so much, at least then you can pretend you’re homeless and this is the only footwear you can afford.  If you want to know how you look in these sorts of shoes, simply Google “Frankenstein cartoon” and look at the images that pop up.

2. Pleats are the Devil’s Tailoring: No one knows why men wear pleated pants, many men don’t either. Yes, pleats give you a little bit more room, however, they also make you look like you have solid child-bearing hips. Pleats don’t flatter anyone and most women consider them a most effective form of birth control because a man in pleated pants reminds them of what their dad used to wear on Sundays because he was clueless about leisure wear and wore a suit and tie all the other days.

3. T-shirts with ironic slogans/images: Irony is a tricky thing to master but the key is in being unique. Let me give you an example: it’s ironic when everyone is wearing hip, tight black t-shirts for you to be sporting a Pabst Blue Ribbon vintage t-shirt that you bought at Goodwill for $3. What is NOT ironic is when you and every other hipster-schmo is wearing the same ironic t-shirt that you all bought from Urban Outfitters for $58. That’s just overdone and pathetic.

4. LieStrong: Those fluorescent yellow rubber bangles with Lance Armstrong’s “LiveStrong” foundation name are annoying enough when you see them everywhere (including on some 400-lb guy — where’re you living strong, buddy? At the local Quizno’s?) Yeah, Lance Armstrong beat cancer and raised money and built a foundation and all that. He also CHEATED and had more juice running through him than a Florida orange grove, so now, please, throw those ugly things away, okay?

5. Velour and Spandex: From Juicy Couture to stuff you’re actually supposed to sweat in, people are inexplicably wearing work out clothes to work (even more alarming — they are usually worn by people who obviously don’t work out). Clearly they’re not preparing to complete a mid-day road race or five-set match, so if you’re not exercising, why the athletic gear? Are you a member of Run-DMC? No? Then leave the track suit at home, please.

Remember, I’m not the only one judging you. Everyone is. I’m just callous enough to tell you this to your face.

Outings

At Berrett-Koehler we work together and play together by means of our monthly social events. Karaoke and happy hours are all fine and well, but we need to do better.

Here are five social outings I want to see BK go on:

1. The Pub Trivia Circuit: What good is all that publishing geek-knowledge if it can’t be put to practical use? This is where pub trivia nights could be really useful for BK staff. Creaming the competition would be fun AND bring us closer together! But let us not forget the true reason behind such a directive: beer!

2. The Folsom Street Fair: Okay, so you know how cities have those quaint little street fairs with live music and all? Well, we have those here but the Folsom Street Fair is definitely not quaint or for the faint of heart, but it is highly entertaining, plus, great deals on leather goods!

3. SantaCon: A flash mob of hundreds of people dressed as Santa randomly cruising around the city creating mayhem with the holiday spirit. And they’ll be singing “alternative” versions of popular Christmas carols. What’s not to like?

4. Glamor Shots: This next social event I think could potentially really jazz up our company catalog’s “About the Staff” page. Let’s make like teenages in the 80’s and hit up the mall for some awesome glamor shots! We can go the whole nine yards with props that show off our vibrant personalities like these guys here.

5. Be Tourists in Our Own City: Every now and then I’ll see tour groups being led around and told amazing stories about the buildings in the financial district. I think that we should all buy those cheap “Escape from Alcatraz” sweatshirts (because if there’s one thing tourists know how to do, it’s to match) and be our own tour group and randomly barge into offices everywhere while a nominated “tour leader” fabricates all sorts of stories (“And in this loans office was where Jesse James actually died”) about the buildings we enter.

Oh, please, it beats bowling!

Surprises

Welcome to the top of the ladder, kid.

B-K HQ is by all means a normal office. Okay, I guess normal is relative and maybe I’ve been here long enough that I’ve become blinded to the things that make us…different. Here are five things that surprise our visitors:

1. You’re the what?: So I recently got a promotion that came with a much more apt new title. I am now the Chief of First Impressions. No joke; that is really my title. Unfortunately, everyone seems to think I’m joking when I introduce myself now. I’ve started carrying business cards on my person for proof.

2. I thought you’d be…bigger: People always assume that a publishing house takes up an entire city block and has hundreds of people running about and so they are surprised when they visit us and see that we have only about 25 staff members in a modestly-sized office. If anyone says anything condescending about the size, I’ll tell them that this is just the back office they were sent to and that important or relevant people usually go straight up to the 15th floor where the executive offices and employee spa and gym are located.

3. The CEO’s “corner office”: Steve Piersanti is our founder and President, so it makes sense that he would get the corner office, except that the corner is literally just that – a corner in the main hallway with a small desk and no windows (see photo above). People think we’re joking (especially since all other employees get private offices with doors that close), but we’re not. That’s really where he sits. What? He seems to like it just fine.

4. No Longer Corporate 80s Nightmare: Mercifully, we recently upgraded the office, plush green carpet and all. Guests familiar with the old decor have almost universally identical reactions to the upgrade: their surprise is not at how nice the office looks now, but that we finally did away with the old look. Their reaction is similar to what you would say when a friend finally dumps that ugly boyfriend or girlfriend (“Oh, thank God! I can say this now, but he/she was U-GLY!”).

5. Family Friendly (and Not): My first day here I was told by the girl training me, “You’re part of the family now, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I didn’t quite understand what she was trying to tell me at first, but I do now. We are ALL up in each other’s lives, and like real families, sometimes it’s frustrating, but most of the time it’s awesome. We’re just one big, happy, dysfunctional, slightly disturbed family.

I just realized that this is a very positively – toned posting. I apologize and will return to regular programming in two weeks.

Needs

Business cat cares about looking professional.

Face it, work is really where we spend the majority of our time. So if we have to spend so much of our lives here, why not make ourselves comfortable? Here are five things we really need in the office, stat:

 
1. Creature Comforts: Do you know what all those deranged killers who showed up at work armed and went on a killing spree had in common? None of them had pets. Dogs and cats are therapy and keep you sane and having them the workplace makes it a better and more fun experience. We should have pets prancing around the office. Actually, that factor about killers not having pets is something I fabricated, but it sounds right.

2. An Aspartame Intervention: A soda intervention, the situation is becoming dire. We go through almost an entire case of Diet Coke everyday, EVERY DAY. Do you know how much soda that is? There’s enough artificial sweetener coursing through the veins of our employees to kill all the lab rats in the country.

3. Company Siestas: It works so well for kids and what are adults but kids who know how to behave in public? A nap at the height of the non-productive hours (usually between 2 pm – 3 pm) will settle the stomach and the mind and replenish energy.

4. Company-Sanctioned Violence: Office disputes can get ugly. Someone makes a remark, you let it fester, the situation boils over, HR gets involved, and things just escalate. I say let’s do away with all that and handle it “Victorian Style.” Nerf guns at high noon; enough said.

5. A Sushi Chef: Nutritious, tasty, fresh, and not filling – what’s the problem? You know what would be even better? A sushi chef who also knows how to twirl knives and throw and catchsharp objects like at Benihana’s.

I think I’ll go draw up the puppy proposal now…

Staff Meetings

Like most everywhere else, Berrett-Koehler has a monthly staff meeting. You’ll know what day the meeting falls on by how the price of coffee beans takes a sharp hike on the NASDAQ following frenzied market demand by BK staff. These are marathon days for my position, too. Amongst the staff, these meetings are as informative and useful as they are dreaded.

Because I favor the dreaded side of things, here are five really annoying things that happen in BK staff meetings:

1. Every Minute Becomes Five (or Twenty): Our staff meetings are scheduled, on average, to be three hours long. I know that this doesn’t seem that laborious, but unfortunately it doesn’t account for the fact that despite years of experience, almost everyone underestimates the amount of time needed to discuss a topic to death. I cringe and hope, but inevitably someone will say “Oh, well, I’d like a bit more time to discuss this issue – perhaps the whole dang afternoon will do?” (Okay, they don’t ask for the whole afternoon — usually only ten or twenty minutes — but that’s how it feels to me.)

2. Yada Yada Yada: At these meetings, I am the scribe (which is a fancy word for “minutes-monkey”) and I am required to record everything everyone says as part of the minutes. This means not only the important decisions, but also the pontificating, lecturing, meandering, really unfunny joking, and out-loud self-obsessed ruminations that are part of this whole circus. You know what the one thing worse than a bad joke is? Having to transcribe that bad joke word for word, thereby reliving the horror yet again in my mind.

3. Space Cadets: I am always exhausted after a staff meeting, not because of the amount of time we’re locked in there, but because I have to be constantly alert and activity listening because of (#2) above. So you can imagine the burning injustice I feel when I look up and see people staring at the wall, employing the hand-to-forehead-in-deep-thought tactic to take a nap, or tweeting about how boring the meeting is. Oh, and by the way, holding your iPhone under the table to play Angry Birds isn’t exactly covert. I’m watching you, and I hate you all.

4. Democracy Is the Biggest Pain-in-the-Butt: We are BK, so when it comes to decision making everyone’s opinion counts and we vote. On EVERYTHING. You see, I’m fine with the fact that we vote on things like pay raises and company health plans, but do we really need to vote about which restaurants to use to order lunch? Note to management: At about 75% of voting scenarios, someone inevitably asks if there’s an “I really don’t care” option. This is a hint.

5. Feeding Time: About half way through the meeting, it begins. I hear the first crinkle of a chip bag, the first protest of plastic wrap being stripped off a sandwich, and I realize it’s lunchtime. And like some twisted Pavlovian  response, I begin to feel rage. Because I have to continue taking the minutes, I can’t eat (and if you refer to point #2 above, you’ll know that there’s no rest from taking minutes because someone is always talking). And our staff are not the most graceful eaters either, which just amplifies the hunger-in-the-face-of-gluttony factor. I secretly wish someone would start choking on his or her food. Then the staff could  vote on whether the person is actually choking or not.

As the song says, suicide is painless. Unfortunately, meetings aren’t. Until next time

Untapped Resources

What is takes to buy my consulting services: raw fish.

Berrett-Koehler has an impressive repertoire of books, written by an equally impressive legion of authors. Their accomplishments are astounding and irrefutable, but sometimes I wonder if there aren’t other books we could be publishing within our current affairs/business/personal growth arenas. Here are five new books I’d like to see BK publish:

1. A High School Queen Bee’s Guide to Dominance: Who better knows how to claw her way to the top than a high school mean girl? Why pretend to like people and try to get along with everyone when you can ruthlessly mock them and take their dignity and become the most feared person in the company? Why not have minions carrying out your dastardly duties? It’s good to be the Queen!

2. Lessons on Rewarding Others I Learned in Grade Three : There are so many books on rewarding employees and providing reinforcement, and they’re fine but how about some more basic approaches? Invite me into your office to tell me what a great job I’m doing? Fine, but how about a fat gold star next to my name in the mailbox area? How about candy or extra nap-time? Basics, y’all, basics – that’s the stuff that really makes me happy. Wanna praise me? Send me an email, but really recognize me? Take me to the wharf and buy me cotton candy!

3. A Self-Help Book That Actually Helps: Granted, I’m a bit jaded and don’t go in for a lot of the self-help titles, but that’s because a lot of them hype things that are…spiritual. I mean, it’s all great to say that you need to align your chakras or talk to your inner child and all, but what about practical advice without the fluff? I would love to see a book that says “Forget meditation and mindfulness and all that stuff, eat French fries three times a week and everything will fall into place!” Fine, that’s an extreme (a wonderful extreme), but you get what I’m saying. I’m jaded and bitter, I want easy solutions not deeper explorations of my jaded and bitter self.

4. Current Affairs Books for My Current Situation: Yes, global economies are falling and DC is a mess, but what does this mean for me, really? I know I should be concerned, but honestly? My concerns are paying rent and getting food on the table. Yes, I know trickle-down economics and corporate behavior impacts my life, but don’t tell me that and say “rage against the corporations!” If they’re being sneaky, teach me how to be sneaky, darn it. I don’t want to be a noble protestor out there on the street getting arrested (I need to be at work). Instead, teach me how to rip them off and not get caught the way they rip me off and not get caught!

5. What Leaders Should Know About Leading: So many leadership books are written by big shots who tell other big shots about how to manage their little people. Here’s a news flash – neither of them has been one of the little people in decades. What about learning how to be a good leader from the people you’re leading and then writing a book based on that?  Don’t hire a hotshot consultant, buy pizza for your admin staff and ask them to talk to you – it’s cheaper and way more effective. We’re the ones who don’t care that you’ve read “Good to Great” three times but that you keep your business running.

I eagerly await the flood of manuscripts, I feel like the new editorial intern is about to get a lot of interesting reading.

Special Delivery

We get all sorts of mail here – most of it pretty normal, but now and again, some real gems do show up. Here are the five weirdest pieces of mail I’ve had to open:

1. The Bribe: First impression of this book proposal package? Standard. One manuscript; check. One lengthy plea to “whom it may concern,” complete with sentiments of manic gratitude, earnestness, desperation; check. A self-addressed envelope with postage; check. And… seven $1 bills? I’m not above bribery, but I don’t come that cheap!

2. Sexy Time: I received a package I had sent out the week prior with a “return to sender” notice. I opened it, expecting to find the book I sent somewhere for review, and dozens of little pamphlets covered in brightly colored circles fell out. Upon closer inspection, those brightly colored circles turned out to be fluorescent condoms, and the pamphlets touted their different variations and benefits. Cheapskate switcheroo marketing! Well done, sir! Consider yourself blacklisted.

3. Sexy Time II: A lot of authors send author photos with their manuscript. Sometimes I think they’re capitalizing on their good looks, other times, well, it would have been better to retain an air of mystery. But one proposal from a business professional about communicating contained several photos in full color. However, all of the photos were of the author in a skimpy bikini doing Yoga in all sorts of odd poses that showed off her flexibility. I’m sure she was communicating something but wouldn’t want to guess what.

4.The Picture Book: When unsolicited manuscripts come in, I’ll often flip through them to see what kind of “fun” editorial is in for. On one that I was perusing, the pictures immediately arrested me. On about every other page this woman had illuminated her depressing life story with crudely drawn stick figures with captions like, “My classmates throwing rocks at me while I cry on the ground,” and “I get fired again,” and “Everyone hates me.” I wonder if there’s a new one taped to her fridge, “Berrett-Koehler rejects my book.”

5. c/o Berrett-Koehler: We do not give our author’s contact information out with good reason (see points 1-4)! In order to provide some sort of buffer from anyone who might have seen Misery one too many times, we offer ourselves as the contact people. I received a thick envelope from a prisoner on death row. He wanted one of our authors to come visit the prison and write a book about how he had committed the perfect crime.  Somehow it had escaped his realization that a perfect crime would entail not being caught and on death row.

Post Office gods preserve me. Oh wait, I forgot, they’re bankrupt.

Ring! Ring!

The question is, am I feeling lucky?

Answering the phone at Berrett-Koehler is like playing Whacky Roulette. You could get someone making a simple inquiry about where to purchase books, but you could also get someone who needs to tell the world about the messages he has been receiving directly from God through the tin plate on his skull. It’s a mixed bag, but it keeps the job interesting.

Here are the five strangest phone calls I’ve gotten to date (this list will need extensive revisions as time passes, no doubt):

1. When Bald Eagles Cry: A man from Mumbai called trying to get in touch with the production folks and every time I tried to transfer the call, it disconnected (due to our turn-of-the-century phone system). I tried to explain that the connection was bad but he remained convinced I was hanging up on him on purpose. “I would expect this in India!” he yelled at me on the sixth attempt at a callback,  “but not from America! This is not professional! You are un-American!” and then hung up. The shame of being told that I am un-American by a non-American is too deep to describe.

2. The Dark Vortex: A visitor to our company website called frantically trying to describe the evil force that had taken control of his computer. He was on our Web site when all of the sudden, a “dark vortex of energy” trapped him there and he couldn’t move forward and he couldn’t navigate away. He had been stuck there for hours and he begged that we release whatever “demon had been unleashed” on his hard drive. In his magical universe, computer freezes are apparently unheard of.

3. Therapy Session: A woman – a potential author – accepted that we couldn’t publish her book because we don’t publish recovery memoirs, but she still felt compelled to tell me about her previous four years of pain and suffering. I knew I had to get off the phone with her, but I didn’t want to cause her another emotional collapse. What could I possibly say? “I’m sorry your son dropped out of high school, but at least you got away from that abusive husband! And you should try painting, it’s a great stress reliever and it might take your mind off the Lupus. Now, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve got to run, I think one of my colleagues is having a stroke…”

4. The Sales Scam: We get sales reps calling all the time trying to sell us all sorts of things we can’t use, like industrial shredding machines, but the ink reps are by far the most duplicitous. I once received a call from someone claiming to be our rep telling me we had to pay up. I gave him the details of our lease – which includes ink – and voiced my suspicion that he wasn’t really calling from our vendor. He started nervously blabbering about contracts and invoices due. After a couple minutes, I hung up. Less than three minutes later I got a call from a woman with the same company, I then told her about our lease and she added a choice expletive relating to Oedipal tendencies and hung up. What?!?

5. The Little Lady’s Mister: I pick up the phone and it’s a young man wanting to discuss an internship. I poised myself to answer the usual questions about school credits, hours per week, schedule, and so on when he tells me he’s actually calling for his girlfriend. She had submitted her resume a week ago and he wanted to know when she was going to hear back and what next steps she should take. I couldn’t tell whether this young man was either so pathetic that he was his girlfriend’s secretary or whether he was a domineering psychopath. Either way, I told him to have her call me.

And there goes the phone again…

Feeding Habits of the Berretus Koehlus Species

Jeevus Cocoa Addicticus

 

In high school I worked in the daycare room at a local gym. It was a nightmare but I hung in there for the free membership. Whatever those hellion tots threw at me, snack time always took that circus to a whole new level of crazy. I dreamt of the day I would enter the “professional” working world where there were grownups. Sadly, I was wrong.

Here are five food habits of my coworkers that I could live without:

1. Using the Fridge as a Petri Dish: Pay no attention to the numerous signs I post on the fridge asking to keep it clean and not leave food festering in there. Even though it is sternly worded, please, consider it as not a request but just a suggestion – sort of like the traffic lights in Rome. Here’s a hint: when the lunch you packed last month starts to look like it went and got itself a fungus sweater, it’s probably a good time to throw it out.

2. Displaying Pigeon Behavior: The number one rule of pigeons is never feed pigeons. If you give them food, it will just encourage to keep coming back. I made this mistake early in my time at Berrett-Koehler when one of our editors (I will not name him here, oh wait, I will – it’s Jeevan) came to my desk asking for chocolate. I just so happened to have some stashed away so I gave it to him. Now he keeps coming and asking and won’t leave me alone. Now I’ve had to resort to locking my desk.

3. “Let the Maid Clean It”: Here’s the problem, we don’t have a maid, but since I am responsible for the general upkeep of the office, guess who is on permanent feather-duster duty? Picking up loose napkins or the like is okay, but I went to college so that I wouldn’t have to bus tables and abandoned meals. Then there’s the microwave, let me tell you – the savory mélange that results from that blended, congealed mess of a hundred nasty exploded microwave meals is truly a treat.

4. The Leftover Combo-Nightmare: I know that throwing together a bunch of leftovers and making some sort of hybrid dish can be fun, but there are limits. Some combinations were made for consumption and others for the trash compactor. Some of the food I’ve seen staff eat is Frankenstein-ish – an unholy amalgam created from the remains of several long-dead meals.  Oh, and the smell of 2-day old tuna with cauliflower emanating from the microwave? An olfactory garden of delights, I tell you.

5. The Envious Palate: There are many food options around our office but few of them are any good (and the ones that are, you get tired of quickly). So sometimes I’ll actually walk a death-defying three blocks to get my food from elsewhere. But the moment I get back to the office and begin eating, others will start to stare, and then the dance begins:

Them: Oh! That looks good, where did you get that?

Me: I found it in some homeless guy’s hobo bag and stole it (it doesn’t matter what I say, this was only an instigative question).

Them: Oh! Wow! That smells so good…and it looks tasty. All I got was this crappy sandwich from Lee’s, but I’m so busy, I just can’t…you know

Me: Yeah, totally busy, I know. [Thought to myself: but you have enough time to stand around and chat about my lunch?]

Them: Yeah…so…it looks really good…hmmm

Me: Um, do you want to try some? [Thought to self: which is what you really wanted all along but just couldn’t say.]

[The dance ends with me losing a precious portion of my lunch, usually followed by “Oh, that is good!” Yeah, I know, that’s why I hiked three frickin’ blocks to get it only to have you eat half of it.]

Oh, excuse me, clean-up on aisle six…