Kits How To Survive the Bureaucratic

Lesson One is: Be nice to your bosses and they will be nice to you

Lesson Two: Never let them see you sweat

Lesson Three: Don’t piss off anyone beyond hope of repair; odds are, you’ll be working with them again

Lesson Four: If you’re trying to avoid work, walk down the hall to a restroom/friend’s office/cube carrying a clipboard. You will look busy.

Lesson Five: Spend your first month learning the JOB, not screwing around. LISTEN for the first month before you go spouting off about anything personal. This includes politics, socializing, or whatever else you think or do off-duty.

Lesson Six: Once you learn the game, don’t let on that you know the game.

Lesson Seven: Understand the organization and its hierarchy before going off on your own.

Why? Because hierarchical bureaucracy means that the rules are made by the people with the most power, and often those rules can change based on the mood of those powerful people on a given day. This brings me to…

Lesson Eight: Befriend, don’t piss off, the secretaries/administrative assistants.

Lesson Nine: If the boss wants to share a “war story,” listen to them.

And seriously: if your problem requires an answer right away, interrupt, apologize, and explain exactly what you need. The boss will listen and might even let you go quickly. If he insists on telling the war story again, sit there and listen because they are definitely telling you for a reason.

Lesson Ten: Know when to work through the system and when to work outside the system.

Lesson Eleven: Don’t make the boss look bad.

If you’ve got a situation in your area that is just plain evil, odds are, a decision will be made above the boss’s head anyway. The best things you can do in that case are to be honest (unless your superior is the source of the evil) and offer clear, appropriate solutions to address the problem. If your superior is the cause of the evil, then your honesty should be given to the superior’s superior.

But beyond problem-solving, there are other ways you can make the boss look bad, and they should be avoided if you wish to stay employed. However, if you’ve had it with covering for your boss, then this essay probably isn’t for you because this is a guide for going native and staying employed. Anyhow, if you want to avoid making the boss look bad, here are some useful things you can do:

• If you learn that something bad is happening in your area, tell him, don’t let him get sideswiped
• Don’t bring up issues with the superior to the superior’s boss without trying to settle the issue with the superior first. If you’ve already tried speaking to the superior and not gotten the answer you wanted, you have two choices: escalate the issue or let it go. Logically calculate the gains accrued by winning versus the potential losses accrued by losing your point, starting with irritating the boss and working your way up to termination. People can be fired for unprofessionalism, if it’s severe enough.
• If you’ve got an issue that requires escalation, go by your company’s/employer’s book for handling such procedures first. The forms must be obeyed, whether you’re getting a report approved or lodging a legitimate complaint. If you want to be treated with some respect (whether you stay or go), then you want to demonstrate that you’ve done everything a reasonable person can do within the existing bylaws/guidelines/regulations before you resort to below-the-belt tactics.
• Below-the-belt tactics include bringing up an issue in a meeting in front of your superior’s bosses,  blogging that names names, going to a TV investigative reporter, and hiring a lawyer. I’m not saying give up your constitutional rights; just be very aware about the consequences of your actions before you shoot from the hip. Paybacks are a bitch. Organizations have a long institutional memory, and even if you turn out to be right and get the bastards thrown out, you won’t necessarily be welcomed as a conquering hero when you return from court.

Other lessons will come to me. This is just a primer. If you’re destined for middle management, or merely passing through on your way to the Executive Restroom, be aware of these rules. They will only get more personal and more convoluted as you move further up the chain.

Lesson Twelve: Don’t bring your personal life to work.

From family issues to abuse to drugs and alcohol to bad breakups, some folks are just prone to pain and drama, and insist on inflicting it on their co-workers. This need not be in the form of one-on-one conversations. Sometimes you hear it in the restrooms. Sometimes you hear it in the next cube, as you hear your co-worker yelling at her kids on her cell phone. Some problems are unavoidable. I get it. Take it outside the office. Cell phones are nearly universal. Go out to the parking lot, sit in your car, or far enough away from the building that you can settle your business away from the ears of your co-workers.