Posted by John
So when I got into work last Wednesday, just as excited as a dog who’d just dragged home a raccoon carcass to show his owner, I was immediately met by the other engineer, Gary, who was the second recipient of the original e-mail from that taint of an architect in Dallas, and who was just as mad as a mongoose with a case of infected hemorrhoids. While he was appreciative of my passive aggressive response, he is of he more old school active aggressive variety, having honed his skills back in the Navy in the 60’s or some shit, and immediately forwarded the original e-mail and my response to his boss, who happens to be the head of the department. As it turns out, the head of the department is also of the more old school active aggressive type, having honed his skills in a Harley biker gang back in the 70’s, and immediately forwarded the e-mails to the head of the division. As it turns out, the head of the division happens to be of the more old school active aggressive type as well, having honed his skills while being an asshole himself on his way up the corporate ladder for the past decade, so he immediately forwarded the e-mails to the senior vice president for the entire group. I’m not making this up. So before I even had a chance pick my nose that morning, the e-mails had made their way all the way up the corporate ladder, stopping just short of the CEO.
It didn’t take much longer then for the e-mails to make their way back down the corporate ladder, through the Division VP in Dallas, and land squarely back on the desk of Ol’ Dickface Architect before he even had a chance to wipe his own ass for the first time that morning.
And while I didn’t have the privilege of being a fly on the wall during that conversation, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in the past week imaging how it went. If there’s one rule in any business at any level it is don’t sleep with the boss’ daughter. If there’s a second rule it’s don’t make an ass of your boss. And the best way to make an ass of your boss is to send an assish e-mail out to another branch of your company that then makes it back to your boss in less than 12 hours. If you don’t believe that then just test it out and see how long it takes for your boss to slap a muzzle on your grill and agree to only let you speak when he decides to shove his hand up your ass and move your mouth like a goddamn ventriloquist.
Meanwhile back in Nashville I was still just tickled to death with myself when out of nowhere the head of the department stopped by my desk and said, “Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for the well worded, level-headed response to that e-mail yesterday.” In all honestly that was pretty much the absolute last thing I was expecting – someone thanking me for sending out a cynical, sarcastic e-mail - but I sure as hell wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to passive aggressively stab that fuck-stick architect in the heart of his career yet again, so I responded, “Oh, no problem. I was just a little taken aback by the whole thing and didn’t really know how to deal with it.” Money!
“I know. It was unbelievably unprofessional of him and I can assure you the situation has been taken care of. We do not tolerate that type of stuff around here,” he said.
“Oh, well I really appreciate that. I just hope we can get past it all and finish up the project.” Oh, no you didn’t! Oh, of course I did!
Then before I even had a chance to pat myself on the back, the head of the entire division, a dude who I’ve only ever spoken to like 3 times, stopped by my desk and was like, “Hey, I just wanted to say I’m really sorry about that e-mail yesterday but you handled it very, very well. I appreciate your response.” Are you kidding me???
“Oh, thank you so much. It was really not a big deal,” I replied. Not a big deal? Not a big deal??? If only he could see how big of a fucking deal I’m making of it right now!
Then before I could even stop giggling to myself, my own boss stopped by and was like, “I just wanted to let you know that I saw your e-mail response and thought it was really great.” Really? Did you really read my response?
“Oh, thanks. It was really nothing,” I said, just laying it on as thick as shit.
“Well you should know that your e-mail has made it’s way up to the executive level and will be used as an example of how to properly handle inter-office communications…”
I AM NOT MAKING A WORD OF THIS SHIT UP! An example of proper inter-office communication!?! So just hold on a second while I get this straight – I wrote the absolute most passive aggressive, subversive, sarcastic, cynical, dickish e-mail of my entire life and suddenly the corporate ladder is lining up outside my cubicle to kiss my ass? Have I died and gone to bizarro heaven or some shit? How is this happening? All I could do was look up to the gods and say, “Oh, this is just grand, boys! Thanks for doing me a solid!”
The rest of the day then was a non-stop flood of e-mails, IM’s and people stopping by to acknowledge the whole situation as the e-mail made its way around the office. I can assure you the gratification was sublime and while I don’t know what was said to the dingleberry of an architect, nor have I communicated with him since then, to me it didn’t really matter any more because the whole ordeal had so quickly gone from being about him to being about me. And while I absolutely loath the spotlight in any situation, and especially at work, to be recognized for something I quite frankly should have been disciplined for was absolutely more than I could ever ask for.
The whole situation reminded me of a time long, long ago when I was not quite so well versed in office politics as I am now. I had just started working for an engineering firm right out of college and was stuck on a team of drafters that was unofficially headed up by perhaps the biggest dick I’ve ever had the displeasure of working with. His name was Noah, he was just 24 but had already been working for 6 years as a drafter straight out of high school, and felt that 6 years of drafting experience gave him the authority to oversee his entire fiefdom.
There could not have been a bigger ass in the corporate world – you could often catch him flexing his muscles to check himself out in the reflection of the office windows; he would routinely hoard all the work on the team so he could work 6 or 8 hours of overtime while I couldn’t even bill 20 hours of legitimate work in a week; he referred to one of the older guys in the group as “Short Bus” even after I informed him that the guy’s son had special needs; just after the unjustified war in Iraq started he openly suggested that “we” can’t trust anyone with a darker shade of skin, especially in a time of war. I’m not making any of that up. This kid was an absolute piece of work.
Not to be outdone, our boss, Ken, made his best effort to be a pretty big dick himself so in the biggest boner move I could have imagined, Ken appointed Noah as the head of scheduling for our group, which basically meant that Noah got to oversee who was working on what at any given time. In his first act as our fake boss he issued a meeting request for the following Monday at 8 AM to all of the drafters in the group. I found that odd because Noah had already told me he’d be in late on Monday because he had a doctor’s appointment, so I mentioned as much to him. Just that quick that sawed-off sonofabitch immediately sent out an e-mail to the entire group, copying our boss, that said:
“Hey, we’re going to need to postpone that meeting Monday morning because my new secretary, John, just reminded me that I’ll be in late that day.”
I’m not making that up. I’m still absolutely livid just thinking about it today, so you can imagine how I felt about it 8 years ago. I got that e-mail at 4 PM on a Thursday and I sat at my desk until 6 PM that night just positively fuming from every pore in my body, contemplating how’d I’d get back at that fucker. Then, in the single most idiotic moment of my entire career, I penned the following response, copied the entire group and our boss:
“As Noah’s new secretary, he wanted me to let everyone know that the reason he’ll be late to the office on Monday is because he has a doctor’s appointment to have his lips permanently fused to Ken’s ass.”
Again, I’m not making a word of that shit up.
I positively laughed myself silly all the way home that night, right until I walked in the door, told the wife what I’d done and she helped me to realize how fucking stupid I was. I then spent the rest of the night in the bathroom alternating between dry-heaving my lungs into the toilet and emptying my bowels onto the floor. If ever there was a time for that scene in Office Space when Milton burns down the building, that was it.
I reluctantly crawled into work the next morning, absolutely terrified of what was going to happen to me. What unfolded in reality though, still boggles my mind to this day. By the time I logged onto my computer it was full of e-mails, one after the other, each more laudatory than the first – “This is absolutely hilarious!” “Oh my god, I can’t stop laughing!” “This just made my week!” I was getting e-mails, all of which copied our boss, Ken, and that shit-licker Noah, from people I didn’t even know in the company. One girl was even like, “Oh this is so funny! I miss working with you guys so much!” I’d never even met her. And then the cherry on top came from the boss, Ken, himself saying, “This is the funniest e-mail I have ever seen!”
Once I made it through all the e-mails I looked over at Noah to see he was completely red in the face and shaking worse than a dog shitting a peach seed, he was so pissed. It was at that moment that I looked to the heavens, laughing hysterically to myself, and said, “Thanks for doing me a solid boys!”
So the overall moral of this saga is not that I megalomaniacally love sharing my own passive aggressive e-mails with everyone so I can pat my own back, even though I kind of do; the moral of the story is, you can be as successful as you possibly can be; you can have whatever title you need or any level of importance that makes you feel good; but the reality is that no matter who you are, how successful you may be, how much power you may have, no one, and I mean no one, likes an asshole. You can be an asshole everyday of your life if you want but someday – and it may not be for a long, long time from now – someday you’re going to be an asshole to the wrong person and then you’ll be tasting that silent but deadly fart of passive aggression in the back of your throat before you even know what happened.
Happy e-mailing.
No comments:
Post a Comment