How to work with people you hate

Hate might be a strong word, perhaps I should have used strongly dislike.  Regardless, whenever you get a lot of personalities together in a corporate setting, chances are not all of them are going to mesh.  And chances are this distaste is not one-sided.  I can pretty much guarantee that the object of your disaffection knows how you feel about them, and probably has an equal opinion of you.

So what do you do when you have to work with someone who makes your blood pressure spike?  Depending on who the person is, there are a couple of strategies that might be successful:

Befriend them.  Assuming you have to work with this person try to develop a relationship with them (and yes it can be fake and superficial). Get to know this evil and conniving co-worker on a personal level.  Try  to find something, anything, redeeming about them and/or something you have in common.  I recently tried this tactic and was met with measured success.  During a painful lunch filled with fakety fake smiles, mind-numbing small talk, and serious indigestion, I did find something we have in common.  They’re still not someone I really like to work with, but it is a bit more bearable, and hopefully over time our lunches won’t make me so nauseous

Frame them.  I’m not talking murder or insider trader here as much as you may like, but frame them for something good—publically if at all possible.  Bend over backwards to give them credit, even if they played a microscopic role in your success.  They’ll appreciate the shout out, and probably start thinking of you differently as well.  Yes, I realize that this tactic might go against your corporate survival instincts, and honestly you might leave this option as a last resort before quitting.  But that said, this is definitely a great way to build corporate alliances. 

Avoiding them and ignore them is probably the best thing to do, but unfortunately not possible all the time.  You can avoid sitting next to them at meetings, but that won’t stop them from talking at you, to you, beside you, near you or around you.  Try to keep a filter on your comments and be particularly careful about inadvertently building alliances.  This is not a reality show with a $100,000 prize for the last person standing. 

Have a drink.  So, if you couldn’t ignore them, you couldn’t frame or befriend them, and you’re not willing to quit, my next suggestion would be to have a drink.  If nothing less, it will make you feel better about your dire situation.  I don’t suggest you drink heavily, because that could lead to regrettable e-mail exchanges with said co-worker, or leave you with a nasty hangover for your corporate battle the next morning.

All in all, if you like more of the people you work with than dis-like, you’re in a good spot.  And learning how to get along with people you want to murder is really and truly a great talent to have.  People love to work with people who are easy to get along with, offer no drama, and are adaptable.  Being tolerant of office “crazies” may lead you to an early death, but if you do survive, it will take you far up the corporate ladder.

The Glass Ceiling - Fact or Fiction?

In my years of working for the man, I have never found there to be a glass ceiling, although perhaps I’ve never made it high enough to see it.  Assuming there is one, I would argue that while it may be breakable, many working women choose not to get bloodied up in the shattering glass.  To explore this further, I’ve segmented working women into 3 stereotypes:

1. Hard core ambitious women
2. Ambitious yes, …but I need to be home by 6:00 
3. I’m happy in my cube, leave me alone

The first two categories are really the women who would run into a glass ceiling – so for the sake of brevity, I’ll leave the 3^rd category out (at least for now anyway).  This first group includes women who are going to be successful period.  They most likely don’t have kids, or have fulltime help raising their kids (and there’s nothing wrong with that!  One of my personal goals is to retire and have a nanny).  These are the women that are either running companies, or about to.  Their golf handicap is under 10, they can drink all night at sales meetings and present brilliantly at 7:00AM the next morning, and they can calculate changes in EPS before their first cup of coffee.  They’re brilliant, they’re successful and usually have amazing designer clothes.   But how common are they?  I would argue less common than the second category. 

I think women from the “Yes, I’m ambitious, but I need to be home by 6:00” are probably a bit more common.  While these women are ambitious, there are obstacles in their way.  The biggest one being their life.  This can include kids, pets, sushi-making classes or training for an Iron Man.  They’ve made a decision, conscious or not, to sacrifice corporate success for work-life balance.  And with this comes ramifications.  Ramifications being that they’ll never be as successful OR as well-dressed as their best friend the CEO.  Additionally, they may question whether or not they could have been as successful and chances are they might even drive a mini-van.  Enough said.  So while these women, and I hypothesize them to be more common than their ambitious counterparts, won’t make it to the top, it has nothing to do with being held back by a glass ceiling.  It has to do with the choices they made. 

So what’s the answer here?  Pick your path and move steadily forward--either in high fashion corporate attire or a mini-van with remote control doors. 

Corporate Polygamy

I am a polygamist.  I have 3, yes 3 husbands.  One I live with and two I work with.  There are no secrets between us.  My spouses all know about each other, have met on many occasions, and sympathize with each other more than I'd like to think.   So what is an office spouse?  As defined by Wikipedia, albeit slightly edited to protect the innocent, an office spouse is a “co-worker, usually of the opposite sex, with whom one shares a special relationship, such as, confidences, loyalties, shared experiences, and a degree of honesty or openness.”  So, pretty much like a marriage without those pesky vows, white tie ceremony, and extra laundry.

When it comes to work, however, finding the right office spouse is critical to corporate sanity.  So, how do you find the right spouse in the work-place?  I mean unemployment is still pretty high, leaving us with a fishing pond that's less than stocked.   It's here where my 6+ years of corporate polygamy can help.  Following are some polygamy-principals if you will:  

• The best offices spouse are your current office friends.  All you need is like interests, sense of humor, and office proximity (to nurture your budding relationship) –you also need to be about the same age.  Technically I’m an office cougar, but I think you’re ok if your spousal candidate is + / - 8 years of your age. 
• Sexual preference?  I have no experience here as to all three of my spouses are heterosexual.  However, I do think that variety can add an interesting perspective not to mention the value of unsolicited fashion tips.   
• Disposition is probably the most important thing to consider when choosing your office spouse.  Your office spouse’s disposition needs to complement yours.  If you’re an impatient, glass breaking, pain-in-the-ass, you’re probably going to do best with someone who is more diplomatic, patient and well loved.  But if you’re an impatient, glass-breaking pain-in-the-ass, my guess is finding an office spouse is the least of your corporate concerns. 
• Lastly, a limit to the number of office spouses?  I would say 2 (perhaps because I only have 2).  Anything beyond two becomes complicated and just downright confusing.  My caveat here is if your religious beliefs support more than one spouse and / or you in live in Utah, in which case you can have as many office spouses as you can support and / or remember their names.

All in all, I’m a strong proponent of office spouse(s).  The right one can offer a different and unconsidered perspective.  And this goes both ways, where women might be in need of some rational re-direction, men might be in need of some sensitivity training (just sayin’).  And if you pick the right spouse, you might just get some helpful style tips that you otherwise wouldn’t get at home.

Tweeting, Twittering and Twits– OH MY!

I consider myself an "early adopter with training wheels"– technologically somewhere between the beta users and the masses.  But when it comes to Twitter and Tweeting - I just don't get it. I had lunch recently with a technophile and he spent a good portion of my salad course trying to explain what Twitter is and what value it brings.  After getting past all the big words he used that I didn't really understand, this is what I took away:  Twitter is like Facebook for on-the-go people with ADHD, without the privacy controls.   Which means its available to anyone and everyone.  Yes, that means your boss, your boss’s boss and even the creepy guy down the hall with chronic eye twitch.   Its value, however, is a little harder for me to understand particularly when you’re talking about professional twittering. 

I get how if I’m in digital marketing it might make sense to show how I’ve embraced technology and am trying to create a brand for myself.  But if I’m just a normal corporate grunt – what in the world would I want to Tweet about and who in the world would follow my twits?  Tweet about the economic impact on Wall Street?  Pretty high-brow stuff, but it doesn’t sound very sexy not to mention very 2011.  What about Tweeting about how great my company is?  That just sounds self-serving—although definitely a good political move.  I guess I could chirp about more mainstream social events, like the Grammy’s, the latest issue of People Magazine, and the chances of 50 Cent making a comeback (mind you, I also learned the correct pronunciation of 50 Cent's name during this same lunch).   But doesn’t that just get me in trouble with my boss?  I mean, even if he agreed that Adele should have won album of the year, isn’t he going to be pissed that my chirping is keeping me from solving the economic crisis and bringing prosperity back to the free world?  Even if I twit on my spare time, are my twits conveying the right image?  The image that's going to catapult me through the glass ceiling? 

So, twutter away if you have really have something to say--something that will either push your corporate brand or personal brand forward.  Other than that, stick to work and leave your witty chirpie comments to the break-room, your improv class, or to the parking lot attendant.

Do women make b***tchy bosses – or are they just misunderstood?

I’ve long thought that women make the worst bosses in the world.  Great moms, arguably yes, great bosses – jury is out.  My first experience working for a woman was with a Fortune 100 company fresh out of college.  Granted, I’m sure I was in need of some corporate molding – but was a woman boss the best one to mold me?  Let’s call her Katharine Parker (from the character Sigourney Weaver played in the 80’s comedy “Working Girl”) and while she didn’t work in Wall Street brokerage firm, she was definitely a force to be reckoned with.  Her expectations were high, her motivating skills were low, her work product was exceptional, and she was most definitely off-putting.  She had made a conscious decision to NOT have kids (or any social life that I could see) and was eager to work 24X7--and expected everyone else’s priorities to mirror hers.  Unfortunately, at the time, my priorities were to have fun, manage my hangovers, get to work on time and do a solid job (in that order).  Clearly there was a conflict.  Getting to work  2 minutes late was grounds for a conversation.  Leaving at 5:30 to go to a SCUBA class demonstrated my lack of commitment.  Oh, she was a b**ch.  Or was she?  Did I mistake her attempts at coaching as b**chiness? 

It all comes down to delivery.  So even if Katharine’s intentions were good (and I’m reaching here) could it just have been that her delivery was off.  Maybe when she yanked me into her office to explain that our work day began at 8:30 not 8:32, she was really trying to impart the value of getting to work before everyone else.  Maybe when she took credit for my work, she was trying to teach me the value of being a team player.  And maybe her inflexibility with vacation time was to motivate me to become the boss so I could crush some other staffer’s vacation dreams.  Maybe she wasn’t a b**ch at all.  Maybe she was a misunderstood woman desperately trying to turn me into a successful executive.  Maybe she was seriously invested in my career but just couldn’t adequately express her true motivations—a congenital birth defect if you will.  Or maybe she was just really a big b**ch! 

Editor’s note – While this is based on a true story, in my years, I have also encountered some (ok, one) amazing women bosses.  If you are lucky enough to have one of these women as your boss, enjoy it, it doesn’t get any better than that.