Normal Looking

meetingboy:

Yes, it’s become clear since everyone got back to the office that over break he did a lot of thinking about what’s really holding us back. And his conclusion is that our lack of positive attitude is the problem.

He’s a smart man, he even has two undergraduate degrees and an MBA from Wharton, and he has concluded that positive attitude is what needs to be fixed. I guess he eliminated these other causes an idiot like me might have cited:

1. Lying.
2. Not listening when people give well-reasoned concerns about the course we’re on.
3. Changing course every time an executive has a new whim.
4. Trying to change the scope of projects after contracts have been signed with vendors.
5. Jockeying for credit before a project is even done.
6. Hiring people whose only qualification is attractiveness and telling the boss what he wants to hear.
7. Playing both sides of an issue.

 No, instead it’s positive attitude. I’ve seen this before. I know what he means. It means that we’re supposed to just take his orders cheerfully, pretend there’s no conflicts with other departments, and get the job done. And when problems come up, don’t bother him with it, because that would be negativity. If things blow up in his face, then he’ll say “how come no one warned me?” Then give a big lecture on how it’s our job to warn him when we get off course. But he doesn’t really mean it. If a week later we warn him about something that contradicts what he wants to do, then he’ll just say we’re not having a positive attitude and that he’s the boss and he knows best.

There is no bigger lie than this sort of positive attitude. And it’s a lie he insists we tell him, and which sets us all up to fail. We’re thought workers and he insists we stop thinking if it disagrees with him.

Find and replace: She, her, she’ll