Thoughts for 2012 graduates

'Tis almost the season. So, a compilation of last year's individual Facebook posts of inspirational thoughts for new graduates. We writing types call this repurposing.

If these trip your trigger, posts from the year before are compiled at http://bit.ly/HCO3KJ

Perhaps I'll come up with some new ones for 2012, and perhaps not. 

And remember, I AM available for graduation keynote addresses. Inexplicably, I've never been asked.

-- When you go on vacation, don’t be one of those jackwagons who thinks we can’t possibly get along without you here for a week, so you respond to every email, and even generate a few yourself. Once you pick up this habit, it's very hard to break. And remember this: When a person goes on vacation, it’s also the office’s vacation ... from that person. Leave. us. alone.

-- When you interviewed for this job, you said you'd be happy to take a bullet for the team. Remember? Well, today, we're gonna need someone to take a pistol whipping, maybe some light waterboarding. Mmmk? Thanks.

-- Well, you finished decorating your cubicle. Wow, you're really into cats and rainbows, aren't you? And we see by that cross-stitch plaque that you're one of those "It's the Journey, Not the Destination" types. Well, fine, but word to the wise: Things didn't work out with the last employee who had one of those hanging up because she never seemed to get any damn work done. So, make sure your journey gets to some of OUR destinations, OK?

-- The company still maintains a branch office in the roughest part of downtown Detroit -- you know, that area where the zombies are so vicious and voracious they feast during the day -- for one reason and one reason only: Screw up badly enough, and welcome to your new job as assistant to the regional manager there.

-- Meet the boss who "manages by walking around." He is: A) making rounds at 4:59 to see who already has a foot out the door; B) hanging around the desk of the guy whose job he once had because he misses doing work he understands; or C) avoiding his office because corporate's trying to reach him about May's dismal financial report. Whatever the reason, don't feed him, or he'll keep coming back.

-- 73% of your work may be spent on ephemera, bureaucratic and political bullshit and other assorted silliness. Someone must take a stand and put an end to this nonsense. Someone must rise in the middle of the office and proclaim: “I’m sorry, this task does not advance the mission of my workplace or improve the world in any way whatsoever; indeed it may set back both. I pass.” Someone must. We all voted and picked you.

-- Your new boss doesn't get why you snicker every time she mentions TPS reports. She's beginning to suspect she's hired a freaking moron. So, you might want to spend this long weekend repeating "TPS report" over and over again 'til you can do it with a straight face.

 -- Learn the lay of the casual-Friday culture at your new office for at least a month before you partake. And wait at least six months -- you know, after you're past probationary status -- before you break out the Bermuda shorts, flip-flops and mesh shirt.

-- Had I thought to ask my first boss for my job description, he'd have gotten ominously quiet, glared at me 'til pee ran down my leg and barked "whatever the hell I tell you." Nowadays, HR drones labor over job descriptions, run them by the diversity office, legal counsel, etc. But look at yours, go to the bottom. Yes, there it is: "other duties as assigned." Sure could save some money around here by taking out HR, huh?

-- Some bosses are hired specifically to be SOBs. They clean house; talk ominously of new paradigms while scowling at old employees; wear the grim smile of an assassin. But they usually don’t stay long; you’ll all feel a camaraderie if you outlast ‘em; and one day, if you’re lucky, that a-hole will get his, preferably in a hideous and very public scandal involving sexual AND financial misdeeds, both involving a goat.

-- Don't be afraid to step up and admit error, in both your personal and professional life, even when you know you're not wrong and, even more to the point, when others know it, too. This ennobles you, makes you look like a bigger person and may help someone else save some face. And the face you save today may look kindly on you in the future when you really need it, like when you really DO screw up.

-- One day you may have a boss younger than you – not by a few years, but young enough to be your child. You see a callow punk. He sees a dinosaur wallowing in a tar pit. But it's on you to make this work. He's the boss, after all. You'll be OK. You know how to network -- start by taking him out for a drink after work ... Oh, crap. You didn't really just ask him what flavor juicebox he likes, did you?

-- They say you should not dress for the job you have, but rather for the one you want. One caveat, though: If it's your boss's job you're after, don't go all "single white female" on her by dressing exactly alike; that's just creepy (especially if you're a man, natch). Another caveat: If your dream job is to be a circus clown, well, save that for the weekend, OK?

-- A starving artist may be romantic, but a starving journalist is pathetic and a starving MBA contemptible. So, if you're gonna starve anyway, might as well be an artist.

-- People sometimes quit jobs over "philosophical differences;" it sure beats admitting "I quit so they wouldn't fire me." But it's not always a euphemism. At one job, I was a Nietschean and my boss a Kierkegaardian. We argued over whether I was, as he believed, an incompetent fool or, as I believed, it was pointless to assess my work since life is without purpose or meaning. We compromised: He agreed I was without purpose, so I quit.

-- In the first week of your first job, you'll find at least 10 things done in your workplace that make absolutely no sense in the 21st, or maybe any, century. Resist the temptation to write a 25-page memo to staff, and copied to corporate HQ, with your ideas. That's what the suggestion box is for. Yeah, it's that box covered in cobwebs and dust. Hey, while you're at it, see if you can find the key. It's been missing five years.

-- Bin Laden spent years sitting on his ass in his house, stroking his beard, looking at porn, drinking erectile dysfunction syrup, watching TV and making all sorts of grandiose plans, yet never quite following through on any of them. So, don't even think of trying to convince your boss to let you work from home, 'cause Osama ruined it for all of us. Damn you, Osama. I think the terrorists just won.

-- The corner office is traditionally the most desirable and vaunted space in the building. But the shrewd employee eschews comfort and prestige and stakes a claim on the office, no matter how cramped and apparently undesirable, that has a second exit -- and even better if it offers quick access to a stairwell.

-- Stick around long enough, don’t get caught stealing anything more than Post-its, shagging the boss’s spouse or drooling on your keyboard, and you too might be management material. Money’s better, dress code and meeting schedule are worse, you have to pretend to care about dreadful things like end-of-month reports and you never again get to do the things you love and know how to do. Congrats, though.

-- Sorry our office urn coffee doesn't meet your college-town coffee shop standards. Yes, the first 500 cups are a bitch, but after that, it goes down fine. And no, you cannot bring in your cappuccino maker. Maintenance has specific rules on electrical load per cubicle, and our division cannot afford to cross them again. We already have a 3-week wait for bulb replacement, thanks to Greg's use of a blow dryer at his desk.

-- You may inadvertently hire on with a sketchy outfit. If you see your boss escorted out doing a perp walk, that's a signal it’s time to consider other career options. But if a SEAL team has just rappelled down the building, kicked in your lobby windows and you're staring down the business end of an AR-15 assault rifle, it’s a tad late to wander over to the copier and see how those resumes are coming.

-- Don't fall for this old hazing trick: You spend hours readying your first presentation, and a coworker asks the day before, "It's not in PowerPoint, is it? Boss hates that; wants us to be more creative." You spend all night reworking it and the next day, as you shift from the sock-puppet portion of your presentation to the mime portion and catch the look on boss's face, you realize you've been well and truly had.

-- You begin with principles, ethics, a list of things you vow to never stoop to in your career. And that’s nice. But you’ll find your standards are more flexible than you can imagine once you have a mortgage and mouths to feed. Relax, it’s not that bad. It’s not like anyone’s going to demand you perform human sacrifice – though even on that point, your standards might hinge on your kids’ orthodontic needs.

-- When you get hired, find out what management book the boss is reading -- and yes, she's reading one; they all are -- and read it, too, or, even better, be seen carrying it around the office. However, you're overplaying your hand if you arrange to drop it on the floor in front of her in the corridor. Also, you can expect to get roughed up by colleagues in the parking lot after work, suckup.

-- Some offices go in big for social gatherings because, God knows, you don't spend enough time with these people during working hours. Coffees, lunch potlucks, after-work drinks, family picnics. You must go to at least some of these, especially as a newbie, lest you be seen as thinking yourself better than everyone. Even so, ask around carefully before you RSVP to the boss's invite to a slumber party, OK?

-- The first third of your career is an exciting arc of increasing knowledge, influence, power. The second third is spent settling in, perhaps contented, but occasionally asking, “is this all there is?” The final third is spent eyeing your retirement funds and clinging desperately to employment by your fingernails, fighting outsourcing, downsizing, exhaustion and youngsters in the aforementioned first-third phase. My advice: Keep those nails long and sharp.

-- For all the studies, analyses and debates about the differences between male and female bosses, it's really this simple: One you'll encounter in the office restroom regularly, and one you won't. If you want a place to hide from the boss, you want the opposite gender, and if you see every moment of, um, face time with the boss as a chance to burnish your career, you want the same. And, by the way, if you're one of the latter, and you notice the boss has started walking to the adjacent building to relieve him/herself, it may be time to ease up a bit on the restroom networking. For starters, quit passing flash drives filled with your great ideas under the stall dividers.

-- Although you may technically outrank the administrative assistant, don't act like it. She knows where the bodies are buried -- indeed, probably put a few in the ground herself -- and can be your best friend or your worst enemy. In fact, networking with the administrative assistants in your office just might get you farther than doing so with anyone else. Also, they have bowls of candy on their desks.

-- Know the signs of financial trouble in your company: Supply starts doling out paperclips one at a time; middle managers engage in whispered conversations that stop the moment you near, then they scatter like roaches; the boss's desk calendar has nothing on it two months out, except for some very disturbing doodles; and staff meetings have been moved to the 10th floor ledge. Time to update that resume.

-- Sooner or later you'll get named to the office Social Committee. Do not misinterpret this. It is not a reward. You really pissed somebody off, and you really need to find out who, because if you don't get this fixed, your next stop is the Strategic Planning Task Force, and then you'll be chairing the Subcommittee on Organizational Structure, by which time you'd better have your resume updated.

-- Upon reviewing your office email after your first week or two of vacation, you’ll have an epiphany: At least 75 percent of what’s there will involve matters that were resolved by someone else in your absence, or were so insignificant they just went away with no action by anybody, to never be mentioned again. At first you'll feel relief, then dismay and, finally, perhaps alarm.

-- Note to fans of "The Office:" You'll work with almost every one of the show's characters at some point in your career. Unfortunately, they're not nearly as funny. Maybe they just need better writers. Or you do.