Photo by Sonnett

It’s tournament time again, and I thought I’d share my projected first-round winners:

Midwest

• Kansas
• UNLV
• Michigan State
• Maryland
• Tennessee
• Georgetown
• Georgia Tech
• Ohio State

I picked Georgia Tech over Oklahoma State, otherwise it’s favorites all the way.

West

• Syracuse
• Florida State
• Butler
• Vanderbilt
• Minnesota
• Pittsburgh
• BYU
• Kansas State

Two underdogs here: Florida State and Minnesota.  One of my buddy’s has a son that goes to Florida State, so maybe that swayed me.

East

• Kentucky
• Texas
• Temple
• Wisconsin
• Marquette
• New Mexico
• Missouri
• West Virginia

The only underdog that I picked here was Missouri.

South

• Duke
• Louisville
• Texas A&M
• Purdue
• Notre Dame
• Baylor
• Richmond
• Villanova

Louisville over California is the only underdog pick.

You can check out all of my picks by clicking on the following Excel file: NCAA

Tomorrow: My 2nd round projected winners.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

• Beware of the Office Snitch! Photo by AlexK100 Today, at work, I had an encounter with a shadowy figure;  a cunning, pernicious specter;  a wolf in sheep's clothing.  I caught him in the act, doing what he does best: undermining the cohesiveness of the workforce.  He's that well-known office stool pigeon.  Smell a rat? ......
• Productivity Tip: Script Your Action Items to Vanquish Procrastination Just like an NFL quarterback, having a defined script will help you blast through procrastination and start your day productively. This is the productivity version of the West Coast Offense. Each NFL quarterback has a wide wristband that lists his plays for the game. But many teams have their first......
• Bad Weekend for My Fitness Goals Well, the weekend started off strong.  I reseeded the bare spots on my front lawn, and kept up my exercise routine.  On Saturday, however, one of my buddies came over, and I had a few beers, a jumbo-sized cheeseburger at Applebee's, and too many chocolate donuts.  I forgot to mention......

• College Football Bowl Winners - Recap [/caption] Conference Bowl Records Conference W-L Games Pct. Mountain West 4-0 5 1.000 Independents 1-0 1 1.000 Sun Belt 1-0 2 1.000 Big 10 3-2 7 .600 Big 12 3-2 8 .600 ACC 3-3 7 .500 Big East 2-2 6 .500 SEC 3-3 10 .500 CUSA 2-3 6 .400 WAC......
• Even Lottery Winners Feel Financial Crunch In Lansing, Michigan, an unnamed lottery winner recently won a $42 million dollar Mega Millions jackpot. Lottery officials in the state are surprised to say that this lottery winner is doing something that is virtually unheard of in the history of Michigan's involvement in the Mega Millions jackpot lottery: The......
• Intriguing BCS matchups add sizzle to uninspiring college bowl season [/caption] by: Stewart Mandel>INSIDE COLLEGE FOOTBALL> Sport Illustrated Welcome to my seventh annual ranking of this year's bowl games, No. 1 through 34, in order of anticipated entertainment value. Much like the bowl business itself, these rankings are based only marginally on the teams' actual merits. They also take into......

Change it had to come

We knew it all along

-from The Who song “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

We had another reorganization at my company.  That’s the second in about six months, for those keeping score at home.  Divisions were consolidated, all in the name of enabling future growth.  I’m a skeptic and a realist (and maybe a little paranoid), so I expected some announcement about cost-cutting.

But the world looks just the same

And history ain’t changed

Well, we didn’t have to wait long.  Two days later brought an official release from our VP, who broke the bad news in an email.  Layoffs would start in a month.  Anyone who wished to be put on a voluntary list should stop by HR for the necessary paperwork.  Happy Monday!

Meet the new boss

On a surprising note, the incumbent leaders in my area were all sacked.  That there replacements were from a lower pay grade was merely a coincidence.  Yeah, right.  We had our first staff meeting with the new big cheese today.

Same as the old boss?  Maybe not.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised by the new head honcho.  He stated that the restructuring made little sense to him, too.  He said to expect personnel cuts in our organization, and admitted that he had no idea in which direction the company was moving in regard to our division.  A pretty candid admission for the first day.  I think I’m going to like this guy.

As long as I’m not on his layoff list…

• How Long Have You Been At Your Current Job? John-Morgan My company has an intranet home page where they post service milestones.  One of the guys who was featured this week has hit the 40 year mark.  FORTY YEARS AT ONE COMPANY! Wow.  These guys must be as rare as 300-game winners in baseball.  It's like Cal Ripken......
• 10 Jobs that Require No Bachelors Degree Attention high school grads: You don't have to rack up a mountain of student loan debt in order to secure a good career.  And you don't have to go to the School of Hard Knocks, either.  A recent Yahoo! Hot Jobs article listed ten jobs that require no bachelor's......
• 8 Things that Will Get You Fired Photo by clementine gallot A recent Yahoo! Shine article discussed the 4 lies that can cost you your job.  I'm sure that we've all experienced some of these first-hand.  You can read the original article by clicking the following link: 4 Lies that Can Cost You Your Job The......

• I’m Tired of Receipts Swipe, print; swipe, print; swipe print sign; swipe print sign… These are the sounds of money leaving my accounts and moving into the merchant accounts of dozens of businesses all over town.  Restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, clothing stores, book stores, office supply stores… you name it I swipe it. ......
• Credit Card Companies - How to really stick it to them My disdain for credit card companies and their unethical practices isn't a secret.  I've written quite a few articles here on Gather Little by Little about how I dislike them.  The unfortunate reality for many of us that previously lived in the land of stupid for too many years......
• 15 reasons why you might want to be a consultant Yesterday I talked about the downside to consulting. I presented the bad news first to make sure that it would be clear it's not all roses. No job is, whether it's an employee job or a self-employed job. But there are a number of advantages to being a consultant,......

Photo by B Rosen

A while ago, I talked about my company’s newest green initiative, which consisted of most of the lights being turned off at lunch time.  I know a few facilities people received some type of award for this brainstorm, and they were flown, business class no less, to our company’s headquarters for a ceremony.  I don’t know what the carbon footprint is of a transaltlantic flight, but it would seem to negate some of the savings from leaving us in the dark.  I hope they enjoyed their in-flight cocktails while we ate our lunches in the semi-darkness.

Each day, there’s a groan heard throughout the building when the lights are shut at noon.  Another sound can be heard when they go back on again, something akin to a primitive tribe viewing the magic of a Zippo lighter for the first time (I guess my coworkers are easily amused).  I try not to make it a habit to work long hours in the office, mainly because I have a life outside of work, but sometimes deadlines make that unavoidable.  I discovered that our lunch hour phenomenon repeats itself in the early evening (I took it as a sign from God that I should go home to my family).  It was during my walk through the darkened corridors to the exit that I had a brainstorm.

Why not leave the lights on during lunch, when there are hundreds of people in the office, and shut them off a half an hour earlier at night, when there are maybe 20 poor souls toiling away?  This way, only a few people are inconvenienced, rather than the whole workforce.  The few that are left at the end of the day seem to be repeat offenders.  While some people are actually fighting deadlines, I suspect others, such as my nemesis the Office Snitch, don’t have anything to go home to.

Screw ‘em, I say.  Let them ply their trade in the darkness.  Then I can paraphrase Winston Churchill by saying:

Never in the field of inconvenience was so much owed by so many to so few.

• Productivity Tip: Three Things to Do Before You Leave the Office I've gotten into a good routine over the past several years: I do three things before I leave the office for home. What are these magical tips? Whatever you want them to be. There's no magic here, just some end-of-the-day maintenance. You don't have to accomplish anything difficult or elaborate.......
• Corporate Barbarian Links: Another Day Closer to Death Edition Photo by h.koppdelaney I received some sad news this past week - one of my former coworkers died suddenly on his long commute home from work.  Thank God he pulled over to the side of the road, or he probably would have taken some other poor slobs with him......
• Success is Boring Strevo (back in a while) Earlier this season, William Peterson, Grissom on CSI,  one of the top-rated shows on TV, walked away from the role that put him on the map.  The reason that he gave was that he wanted to do something different.  Like theater.  Many people thought......

• Recommendations About Office Furniture Most of the modern representatives of the middle class work for big companies, firms and enterprises as clerks, managers, etc. To cut the long story short, these people are office workers and this class of people can be already considered as the fourth social class. There are thousands or even......
• Online Business: Main Reasons Of Popularity Online business is in the bottom of the internet. Millions of people have gathered millions of dollars with the help of the one. Why not? Why do not you try? Just promise you will make bottom up when you will get your first million with the help of online business......
• Five Tricks To Nip Your Spending Addiction If you’re trying to live more frugally, you already know that you need to cut down on your spending. The trick now is finding ways to accomplish that. There several different methods to reduce your spending, so you can choose one that works for you (or combine methods if you......

Photo by riddle_

I was in a weekly program status meeting today.  Call me the token beancounter.  I attended just to give the impression that the finance department was keeping an eye on the exploits of these engineers, and that they didn’t go to far off on a tangent, and just stuck to the contract requirements.  I’m not sure if they bought all of that.

After I spoke my piece, I was forced to spend the next hour listening to the propeller heads argue about:

• the benefits of a swappable circuit card configuration;
• where to locate a fan in the test bench;
• who was taking the lead in sourcing a new cable.

If you don’t understand what these things mean, don’t worry - I didn’t either.  Also, what had started out as a status meeting morphed into a staff meeting for the lead engineer and his underlings.  I couldn’t blame them; their group has been stretched thin by layoffs and attrition, so it was probably the only time most of them had been in the same room in a while.

But now I’m getting off-topic.  While the engineers were engaged in heavy technical discussions, I passed the time gazing out the window at a white birch tree.  I tracked the flight of a red-tail hawk as he flew over our parking lot, and thought about how many emails would be awaiting me at my computer.  It was then that I vowed to be better prepared for a boring meeting.

“The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you’re finished.” - John Corey, in Nelson DeMille’s novel Plum Island

Here are some of the ideas that I brainstormed while I served out my sentence:

1. Bring some paperwork with you - if you can do it inconspicuously, why not pass the time by catching up on some real work?  Try to limit it to actual work; one of my buddies got busted for balancing his checkbook in a staff meeting.
2. Answer emails - if you’re blessed cursed with having a Blackberry, you can knock several emails out of your inbox while someone is droning on about test program cycle times.  Why not use this freedom-robbing device for your own benefit?
3. Drinking game - keep track of how many times someone says “system”  during the course of the meeting.  Then, have that number of drinks after work.
4. Beating game - if anyone utters “proactive” more than twice, drag them out to the hallway and beat the living shit out of them.  There, that feels better!  Bow to the applause as you return to the conference room.
5. Separated at birth - look around the room, and try to figure out which celebrity or historical figure each person physically resembles.  In this meeting alone, I got Grizzly Adams, Charles Bronson, Napoleon Dynamite, Ruth Buzzi, Droopy Dog, James Caan, Aaron Neville, T-Bag from Prison Break, Kathy Bates, and Bobby Knight.  A few participants defied description.
6. Grab some Z’s - this only works when the room is dark, otherwise it’s too obvious.  Larger crowds offer better protection from discovery.  Not recommended if you snore.  Or drool.
7. Stare out the window - provided you ‘re in a conference room with windows.  Watching that hawk sure put me in a better mood.  It doesn’t have to be a hawk; maybe an attractive person might be bending over to pick up something that she dropped, and she’s wearing those pants that…well, OK, I’m a pig.  Use your imagination.
8. Daydream - if you’re certain that you won’t be called upon, why not let your mind wander?  You might be able to let your subconcious solve a problem.  You could even combine it with staring out the window.
9. Paging Mr. Ben Dover - have a prearranged time when a coworker buddy calls the conference room to request your presence at an urgent meeting.  When I worked in a building with a paging system, we used to do this all the time.  The receptionist would call you over the P.A. system to report to the boss’ office, and you were home free.  So long, suckers! (That was 2 “systems”, for those keeping track)
10. Pay attention - a last resort, perhaps, but if you really want to broaden your horizons, you could try to get past the technical jargon to really understand what’s going on.  I usually can pick up a few new terms in these meetings.  It helps when trying to relate to the engineers, who are a different species than us beancounters.  I think this is a proven fact, but I could be wrong.

What do you do to pass the time in those mind-numbing meetings?

• Seek Discomfort Photo by colinedwards99 There are always two choices, two paths to take. One is easy. And its only reward is that it's easy. - Unknown Just about every piece of advice tries to make your workday less stressful.  To-do lists help us rank our tasks in order of importance. ......
• Momentum: Keep Your Feet Moving! _-=Dreemreeper=-_ "Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state  by forces impressed upon it." - Newton's First Law of Motion It's advice that they give every running back in the NFL: "Keep your feet moving." ......
• For the Love of God, Don't Just Read the PowerPoint Charts! danorth1 An Invitation to a Meeting I received an email at work that invited me to attend an overview on a new procedure.  Attached to the email was a copy of the PowerPoint file that would accompany the presentation.  Nice touch, thought I.  I can skim through it beforehand,......

• 6 Inexpensive Ideas for Living Rooms Many ideas for living rooms involve changing the walls from paint to a textured look to wallpaper, or remodeling a fireplace. Most of the remodeling options for living rooms are large and expensive, like new flooring, windows or even new wall framing. But there are several things you can do......
• Vanguard Starts a New Investing Blog Vanguard, one of the leading firms in the investment management business, has finally ventured into the blogosphere. Vanguard is very well known for their pioneering work in passive investing among the personal finance and investing community for their low cost index funds.  However, if you mention their name to someone......
• 6 Reasons Why You Should Work With a Personal Trainer and Hiking Phelps Mtn in Lake Placid /caption] Hey, hope your day is awesome! Before I talk to you about why you should work with a personal trainer, I wanted to share with you a little bit about our wicked fun weekend. Scott, Buddy, and I went camping in Lake Placid, NY with our friends. I think it was......

Another month bites the dust, so it’s time for a goal update:

1. Drop 50 pounds

After losing 14 pounds in January, my weight loss tailed off in February.  I still lost 6 pounds, bringing my total to 20.  Only 30 more to go.  I’ll blow this one away!

2. Benchpress and Deadlift 300 pounds

I’m able to benchpress 235 and deadlift 225 pounds, 8 reps each.  If I stick to my routine, I’ll hit this one, too.

3. Post more frequently

FAIL!  While I surpassed my January post total, this is still only the tenth post for February.  But it’s the shortest month.  Yeah, that’s the reason.  I need to kick myself in the ass.

4. Fund my 401(k)

On track, due to direct deposit.

5. Read a new book each month

I read a collection of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories.  I’m open to suggestions for March.  Any ideas?  Leave a suggestion in the comments.

6. Run 3 miles

The bad weather has curtailed my walking program, but I’ve shoveled a lot of snow lately.  Spring is coming.  I’ll get back on track.

Check back for more updates!

• SuperSlow Weight Lifting rick Sitting at a computer for most of the day, I'm constantly fighting to keep my weight at a reasonable level.  At the beginning of February, I started my yearly ritual of shedding the holiday pounds.  I threw myself into the Metabolic Diet, and started lifting weights in the......
• Corporate Barbarian Links: Sports Physical Edition My son had his sports physical this week.  Two doctors had to accommodate hundreds of high school athletes.  Needless to say, the wait was a long one.  I waited in the car, and a baseball game on the car radio would have passed the time, but the Yankees were......
• Lifehack Monday, August 17, 2009 Having conquered my coffee addiction, I started my quest to clean up my diet last week, and hopefully drop a few pounds.  Last Monday, I tipped the scales at 214 pounds.  I had regained nine of the twenty pounds that I took off earlier in the year.  My tight......

• Weekly Wrap Up March 9-15 /caption] It has been a busy week but I definitely want to shine the light on the great writing I have read around the web last week so this is a belated weekly wrap up. PT Money had a great post (it was actually a guest post from Wide Open......
• Create a Gold-Laying Goose. “A man and his wife had the good fortune to possess a goose which laid a golden egg every day. Lucky though they were, they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough and imagining the bird must be made of gold inside, they decide to kill......
• 46512 Hits for October! Monthly Traffic Update. Record Breaking Month! [/caption] This has been an awesome month for "There's a Blog in my Soup". We have had a tremendous amount of traffic. Most of which has come from stumbleupon, and google. Our traffic for the month is 46,512 - Of course this is liable to go up a little......

I know.  BLASPHEMY!  UNPATRIOTIC!  I love most sports, at least the ones that fit George Carlin’s definition of a sport.  I’m a die-hard Yankees fan.  I love the football Giants.  I never missed a Knicks game when Patrick Ewing was in the pivot.  I was ecstatic to hear the “1940″ chant go into mothballs when the Blue Shirts won the Stanley Cup back in 1994.  But I couldn’t care less about the Olympics.

Uh, I thought we were going to watch sports…

Curling.  The luge.  Ice dancing?  Are you f-ing kidding me?  About the only event that I’ll watch is hockey, which according to Carlin, isn’t a sport because it’s played with a puck.  I saw the Miracle on Ice back in 1980, but I missed the Canadian women’s celebration after their gold medal win, and I’m sorry that I did.  Looks like they did it up right, smoking cigars and pounding brewskis.  Hey, those are two of my favorite food groups!  All that was missing were the chicken wings and it could have been my last Super Bowl party.  But apparently this earthy celebration was decidedly un-Olympian, at least according to the IOC.  Well, I call bullshit.

A proud sponsor…

If you check this page of Winter Olympics sponsors and suppliers, you’ll notice that Molson and Coors are listed (I couldn’t find Rocky Patel,  or even White Owl).  So maybe this was just good product placement by the athletes.  No stink is ever raised when Tim McCarver is soaked with champagne in the winner’s clubhouse after the World Series.  Maybe the Canadian women were just drinking a brand of beer that wasn’t an Olympic sponsor.  Or that Canadians are held to a higher standard of public behavior than us knuckle-dragging Yanks.  I mean, who but their families were watching this match anyway?  There was probably a larger viewing audience at my wisdom tooth extraction.  Let the ladies have their moment in the sun.

Branding opportunities

Think of the commercial opportunities for these women.  I mean, there’s no professional league at the end of this, so they might as well make hay when the sun shines, so to speak.  I can see a spread in Cigar Aficionado, with the ladies puffing on their favorite puros, debating the superiority of Maduro wrappers to the Connecticut kind.  Maybe a joint commercial with AMF and Budweiser, where the Canadians can play the Americans in gold-medal beer pong.  Think how much weight an endorsement by Marie-Philip Poulin will carry when college students are deciding on their dorm-room equipment.  Hockey players generally don’t clean up in endorsements; they better strike while the iron is hot (I’ve now reached my two-clichés-per-paragraph limit).

Hypocrites

It’s funny how it’s OK to drink beer when it’s officially sanctioned by the IOC.  Hell, even McDonald’s is a sponsor.  The same company that Goose Gossage said was poisoning the world with their hamburgers.  You can bet that Michael Phelps isn’t running to Mickie D’s when he has the munchies; it’s always a trip to Subway after a joint.  They don’t get on his case.

As far as the controversy, I couldn’t care less about that, either.  Pitchers and catchers have already reported to Spring Training, and I’ll be able to watch a real sport pretty soon.

With a Sam Adams in one hand and a Gurkha Ancient Warrior in the other.

• An Ideal Fathers' Day LoretaConte I won't be getting a tie for Father's Day this year.  No, I didn't peek.  I know because I bought one for my son's graduation party, and it should hold me for awhile.  I don't wear one to work anymore, as we have a corporate casual dress code. ......
• Getting Rich in America Book Review and Summary, Part 3 This is Part 3 of my review and chapter summary of Getting Rich in America: 8 Simple Rules for Building a Fortune and a Satisfying Life by Dwight R. Lee and Richard B. McKenzie. You can read the first two parts of this review by clicking the following links: Getting......
• Men's Room Etiquette Photo by amy_b Ladies, you can skip this post.  Really, this one is not fit for your eyes.  My wife thought the subject matter was disgusting.  It's for the benefit of my brothers out there in the corporate world.  It also has nothing to do with personal finance, but......

• Tennis I wasn’t the greatest tennis player in the world, but I played on a team that was usually in the top 2-3 in our district and the top 10 in the state. Mississippi was a pretty competitive tennis state, so that wasn’t a small achievement. I was on the......
• Eighth Annual FIS Snowboard World Championships With the New Year, we see a new January packed with many events for the snowboarder to prepare for and the fan to keep watch over. Included in the events is the eighth annual FIS snowboard world championships, held in Sungwoo, Gangwon Province from the 17th to the 24th. Also......
• Cable Bills Too High? Disconnect, Renegotiate Better Rate or Watch TV Online? No wonder everyone is wondering why their paycheck disappears so fast.  The cost of everything seems to be doubling lately. Especially when it comes to overpaying for cable TV. Marc Hedlund (from the Wesabe Blog) posted a small, yet highly informative graphic that gave me one of those Aha! moments......

Photo by jronaldlee

…or should I say, sloshing through the snow.  Another Friday, another snowstorm.  Nothing quite like waking up to a morning of snow shoveling before heading off to work.  I must be getting old; I used to live for days like today, when I picked up extra money by shoveling driveways.  Now, I pray for the temperature to stay above freezing.  The first sight of a snowflake sends my back into spasms.  And this morning, my waterproof boots let me down.  Time for another application of Sno Seal.  I’d move south, but I’m way too wired for the slower pace.  I’m sure the feeling would be mutual.

My secret

I’ve taken a few steps to make the morning less miserable.  The night before a storm, I make sure that the ice melt and snow shovels are at the ready.  I also use a little trick that I learned from the Equipped to Survive forum: I place a cheap pair of rubber floor mats over my car’s windshield, and use the wipers to hold them in place.  When I’m ready to leave, I just raise the wiper blades, and pull the snow-laden mats from the now-clean windshield.  Ta-da!  Definitely saves on the ice scraping, and allows for a quicker getaway in the morning.  Maybe I’ll upgrade to an Ed Hardy set:

All present and accounted for

An interesting phenomenon has repeated itself several times at the office: while the parking lot appears to be rather empty, just about everyone from my department has braved the icy streets to man their posts.  The threat of layoffs will do that; nobody wants to be the only one in the group to wuss out.  Their absence will be duly noted, most likely by the Office Snitch.  It’s comforting to know that our company places the safety of its employees above everything, except, of course, profits.  A delayed start would have been welcome.  Schools were closed for the kids.  Snow Day my ass.

I’ve seen this movie

I got a call from an old crony from my last job yesterday.  He left the defense industry and the constant threat of layoffs for the security of a job with the Long Island Rail Road.  The same LIRR which is part of the MTA, which just this week announced that it would eliminate 150 jobs.  So much for job security.  I told him I’d keep my fingers crossed for him (not that I believe in any of that crap).  At least his kids are finished with college.

On second thought, the drive to work wasn’t that bad today.

• 5 Years to Pay Off a $100K Debt Photo by quaziefoto A Wisconsin family won the Professional Achievement and Counseling Excellence (PACE) Award for paying down $106K in debt.  You can read the original article by clicking the following link: The Biggest Losers (of Debt): How a Family Shed $106,000 in Debt While they still have a......
• Helping the New Guy at Work Yesterday, a new person started working in my department.  The person is a recent college grad, and this is probably her first real job.  The manager in charge started giving a rundown of job responsibilities and guidelines that made even my head spin.  I heard at least a dozen acronyms,......
• 8 Things that Will Get You Fired Photo by clementine gallot A recent Yahoo! Shine article discussed the 4 lies that can cost you your job.  I'm sure that we've all experienced some of these first-hand.  You can read the original article by clicking the following link: 4 Lies that Can Cost You Your Job The......

• Summer Jobs for Teens are Hard to Find When I was a teenager I worked a diverse set of part time and summer jobs. My first job was at a pizza place taking orders and making pies. From there I moved on to various retail jobs including a couple stores in the mall, a GNC, a golf driving......
• Preparing For A Layoff Matt asks the following question about preparing for a layoff: My girlfriend is working the Dave Ramsey baby steps.  She has the $1,000 emergency fund and is now working on knocking down the credit cards.  Her job has laid off about 25% of the workforce and things are not looking......
• Understanding Why You Should Want File Encryption Protection If you are on your computer daily, or even weekly, then you most likely have some essential information stored in files on it. Though you may lean toward thinking you are the only person able to read the information on the computer, unfortunately that may not be the case unless......

I was in a meeting, along with a number of my coworkers (including the Comedian), with my boss’ boss, Fearless Leader, the VP of Finance for my division.  After his assurance that we, as a company, were on the right track, he went around the room, asking what projects we were working on.  When it was my turn, a gave a rundown of the activities of a team that I’d been selected for, and almost immediately regretted my decision.

As the words were leaving my mouth…

As the words were leaving my mouth, I could imagine what would be waiting for me after the meeting.  I could already see the Comedian making smooching sounds and telling me to wipe the shit off my nose.  He was kind, though, and basically said that you have to kiss ass in times like these.

Now, wait a minute…

WHOA! Kiss ass?  Me?  It goes against everything that I stand for.  All I did was state that I’d been picked for the team, and that we were trying to formulate a cross-division policy on the topic.  That we’d made some strides, and were soliciting the opinions of some additional subject-matter experts.

And you’ll know him by his flailing legs…

Now, I know a kiss-ass when I see one.  In fact, I’ve written about the Office Snitch, ass-kisser bar none.  You can always tell where he is;  just look for my boss.  He’s attached to the pair of legs that stick out of my boss’ rear end.  You can’t see the rest of him, he’s so far up there.  He must have read this book:

So, don’t be an ass-kisser.  It will just alienate you from the rest of your colleagues.  Let your accomplishments speak for themselves.  Ass-kissing is a short-term strategy at best.

• Sun-Tzu Sunday, July 26, 2009 ** Maurice ** I decided to start a new feature for the summer on the Corporate Barbarian Blog: Sun-Tzu Sunday (can a Machiavelli Monday be far behind?).  Sun-Tzu was a military strategist of ancient China.   Each week, I'll present an excerpt from his treatise The Art of War. ......
• Beware of Debit Card Overdraft Fees Photo by Medmoiselle T A recent Yahoo! Finance article highlighted the new tricks that banks are using to increase their profit margins.  Here's the link: Overspending on Debit Cards is a Boon to  Banks People who use debit cards for purchases are making the banks smile.  The reason is......
• The Conspiracy Guy Photo by Marko MiloÅ¡eviÄ� One of my coworkers is a little paranoid.  Well, maybe more than a little.  He's always looking for hidden meanings in the most pedestrian announcements that are issued by our company.  To him, black is white, up is down, right is left, etc.  He thinks......

• Increasing kid's financial responsibilities I've been thinking about increasing my son's financial responsibilities. He is 15, and he's been doing well with the financial responsibilities that he does have already. Currently I give him lunch money at the beginning of each week, and he is responsible for making it last the week. He also......
• Hell on Earth The spiritual insights of the Norse religion can be summarized as a collection of intuitive metaphors called "kennings", and we still use the word. They governed community meetings, called "things". This is how their communities were governed, and skalds kept the remembrance of the kennings as well as the decisions......
• My Compliments to Two Companies It's not often that I have praise to give companies. In fact I had to create a whole new category for this post. You may note that I already have a Rants category. The first company I'd like to call out is The Men's Warehouse. I chose them for my......

Every group of workers has a comic amongst them.  He lightens the mood, pointing out the absurdities of rules and procedures.  In my office, our own funny man, much like the Comedian from the Watchmen comics, tends to be a little darker in his approach to humor.

Our Comedian is a true original.  Nobody is safe from his satiric barbs.  He’s quick with a comeback, downplaying his frequent jabs with, “you put that one on a tee for me.”  His appearance is deceiving, too, as he approaches everything with an air of annoyed nonchalance.  It would appear to an outsider that he doesn’t care about his job, his responsibilities, or his coworkers.  That outsider couldn’t be more off base.

The Comedian, you see, is a disguise.  Underneath the facade dwells an intelligent man who cares deeply about his responsibilities.  Those responsibilities include not only his job, but the well-being of his colleagues.  While he might try to convince everyone that he doesn’t give a hoot about anything,  subtle clues emerge about his true intentions.  After some harmless needling, he’ll jump in and help with a problem.  He meets all of his deadlines, and produces quality work.  But there is one thing that he does that’s a dead giveaway to his true self.

His biggest benefit: his honesty.  He ’s the only one who isn’t afraid to say what he truly thinks.  He’s the King Solomon of the office.  If you want the straight dope, you ask the Comedian.  He pulls no punches, and suffers no fools.  Take it or leave it.

He’ll also ask the questions that nobody else has the balls to ask.  During a recent gathering with upper management, he asked the VP what everyone else had on their mind: “So, when do the layoffs start?”  After a stunned silence, the VP gave the standard, non-answer answer.  The Comedian, our champion, rolled his eyes and sat down.  A brave question to ask, but not without its perils.  I’m sure that he now has a bullseye on his back.  No VP likes to be showed up.

The Comedian is our pressure-release valve.  When tensions rise in the office due to unrealistic deadlines, and everyone’s hackles are up, a well-timed one-liner from the Comedian diffuses the tightness in the office.

So I’ll enjoy the Comedian for as long as he shares our foxhole, which may not be long.  Even he acknowledged that possibility, as he asked me after the meeting with the VP, “Where do they keep the cardboard boxes?”  I’ll miss his willingness to take one for the team.

• A First Time for Everything? I was in a meeting, along with a number of my coworkers (including the Comedian), with my boss' boss, Fearless Leader, the VP of Finance for my division.  After his assurance that we, as a company, were on the right track, he went around the room, asking what projects......
• How My OCD Keeps Me Grounded at Work Photo by Roadside Guitars I have a mild case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).  It started in my teens, innocently enough, while watching Yankees games on TV.  I'd settle into a "lucky" spot, listening to Frank Messer call the play-by-play, and wouldn't dare move, lest the Bombers' fortunes would change......
• 5 Things to Know About Social Security Photo by alan(ator) Yahoo! Finance recently published a guide to the five most common questions about Social Security benefits.  You can read the original article by clicking on the following link: What You Need to Know About Social Security Given all of the doubt that the entitlement program will......

• Manage your finances together Photo by: Björn Söderqvist Mrs. Micah started a collective post that asked readers to share their best personal finance practices of the year. Here's mine and it applies to those of you that are married: Do your finances together! Money problems and disagreements are the number one cause of......
• Kids Say the Darndest Things v2 [/caption] From the Humor Files: Kids Say the Darndest Thing A kindergarten student told his teacher he'd found a cat, but it was dead. "How do you know that the cat was dead?" she asked her student. "Because I pissed in its ear and it didn't move," answered the child......
• Democrat Response to State of the Union Speech. I am so glad that Senator Webb was elected. I gave money to his campaign and hope that it helped him win. This response is dead on perfect in response to Bush's State of the Union speech tonight. Nice try George; slogans and rhetoric repeated over and over do not......

Photo by Theresa Thompson

I can’t believe that the Corporate Barbarian Blog is a year old today!  Boy, I’ve sure learned a lot in the past year.  Last February, I was a blogging noob, and now, while I can’t say that I’m a seasoned veteran, at least I’m less of a noob.  Here’s a selection of my favorite posts from my first year.  I hope that you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

February 2009

A Foolproof File Naming System - My OCD-tinged attempt at restoring order to my computer’s hard drive.

March 2009

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants - Where I give props to Ed, the macro master.

April 2009

Low Budget - Check out the attached Excel file and master your budget!

May 2009

How to Avoid Getting Laid Off - Having worked in the defense industry and seeing my share of layoffs, I share my survival tips.

June 2009

Toughness is a Virtue - A sentimental visit with tough guys like Concrete Charlie and my old man.

July 2009

Good Enough, or The Duct Tape Chronicles - More on my father, a duct tape virtuoso.

August 2009

Self-Reliance Series 1 - A Personal Survival Kit (PSK) - This is Part 1 of my self-reliance series.  Be sure to check out the other parts, especially if you never heard of a PSK before.

September 2009

How Ugly are Your Coworkers? - I dare you to take a look around at your fellow corporate creatures.

October 2009

Seek Discomfort - No pain, no gain is the message.  Always try something new (and difficult).  It’ll help you grow.

November 2009

Take the Fork in the Road - If you have the time, take this novel approach - do it both ways!  I never said that I was conventional.

December 2009

How My OCD Keeps Me Grounded at Work

- Just like the title says.  Read on about my little rituals.

January 2010

Are You on “Lombardi Time”? - You had to be doing something right to get the Super Bowl trophy named in your honor.  It’s all about preparation and respect for others.

I’m especially excited that now I can have features like “A Year Ago on The Corporate Barbarian”, and act like I’ve been doing this for a long time.  A big Thank You to everyone who’s taken the time to read my posts, especially those who’ve subscribed via email or an RSS reader.  Stay tuned for more of my belligerent ramblings.

• Self-Reliance Series #4: My Every Day Carry (EDC) This is Part 4 of my self-reliance series.  I hope that you've enjoyed the first 3 parts.  If you haven't read them, you can do so by clicking on the following links: Self-Reliance Series #1: A Personal Survival Kit (PSK) Self-Reliance Series #2: An Office Survival Kit Self-Reliance Series #3:......
• Self-Reliance Series #2: An Office Survival Kit Photo by  96dpi This is Part 2 of my self-reliance series.  I talked about my Personal Survival Kit in Part 1.  This post will not address the best anti-virus software, how to overclock your computer, or how to climb the corporate ladder.  I like to be able to take......
• Corporate Barbarian Links: Chainsaw Massacre Edition Photo by lancefisher No, that's not me in the picture.  But I did take the chainsaw out this week, and cleaned up the look of the website a bit.  I got rid of the big, ugly ad in the sidebar, and reduced the amount of categories.  Hopefully this will......

• Roddick Selects Stefanki as 2009 Season Coach The former world no. 1 tennis player, Andy Roddick, recently announced that he would be working with a renowned coach by the name of Larry Stefanki beginning next season. The announcement was initially delivered on Andy Roddick's personal website, which is viewable from http://www.andyroddick.com. On his website, Andy Roddick, a......
• California To Delay Tax Refunds Due To Budget Crunch. Although I don't live in California or ever get a refund anymore, I would not be too thrilled with this: California's budget meltdown is about to hit home for millions of taxpayers awaiting their refunds and people who depend on the social safety net to survive, a top state finance......
• Budget for 2010: 4 Moves to Achieve your Financial Goals I think it is important to review your personal finances at least once a year. At the beginning of each year, I sit down at my kitchen table and talk about finance with my wife. We update our balance sheet to determine our net worth, we look at our......