How many of you are involved in Annual Meetings of your corporation? I invite you to describe them to me. Personally, I’ve been involved in a few. I wonder what the rationale is for them. There may be one. I might have missed it. Please reply via comments. I will consider your tales and your take on the situation.

I was talking to my friend Stu the other day, which you’d think would be an everyday thing because we work in the same shop, but it’s not. Stu is mostly virtual and whatever there is of him that is real doesn’t converse much. Which doesn’t mean to say he’s silent, because he’s anything but. He’ll talk your ear off a mile a minute, only dipping into the world of listening for odd moments before taking off into the ether again. Which is not a bad thing. Stu has more ideas in a nanosecond the you or I do in a nanoyear. So I always listen.

Anyhow, he’s in between a few other things on the line and we’re talking about stuff I can’t even remember what it is because it’s all going by so fast, too fast, in fact, for the Boomer Brain, when out of the great mosh pit of his mind I hear him say something like, “Hey, I gotta go, but I had this idea it’s just a crazy phrase that came into my mind but how about this…” Then he pauses for an imaginary drum roll and says: “A social network for dead people.”

That’s what he said. A social network for dead people. Then he hung up.

Now, you know, at first I just thought this was a funny idea, which it is, of course, completely ridiculous, but if you just give it a minute to sink in…

… a social network for dead people…

Let’s look at it for a minute. As a marketing concept.

First of all, is there any real difference between a virtual person and a dead one? A virtual person does not really exist, even though it can do a bunch of things from buying virtual real estate to engaging in virtual conversations and exchanging virtual fluids. It can, in short, do only virtual things. READ MORE

Let’s all send out a massive wave of goodwill to Bodhisattva Richard Gere, who is now under indictment in India for kissing a Bollywood movie star in public. For students of corporate life, the thought percolates up that it is important, in any setting, to understand the culture in which one is operating. A friendly buss on the cheek between two associates may be fine in one arena and a criminally obscene act in another. In any event, our thoughts go out to Mr. Gere and his friend the Dalai Lama for this unexpected and somewhat inexplicable piece of bad publicity. A celebrity can never tell how anything is going to play these days, but if bad taste was suddenly declared a punishable crime there would hardly be room in any of our penal institutions.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal had a story that typifies why that paper continues to hold our interest on a lot of days when nothing’s going on of any note in the world of business. On the front page of the Personal Journal was a story headlined, “How Much Is Your Dog’s Life Worth?”  It seems that in the wake of the pet-food problem now bedeviling pet owners nationwide, lawyers have entered the ring and are attempting to quantify the value of a poisoned dog to its owner, and then to monetize that value.

I am fortunate enough not to have fed my dog anything that contributed to its demise. But I came close very recently. And I can tell you exactly what a dog’s life is worth: Whatever it takes.

Our story begins in  the bucolic Marin County town where I live when I am not in Manhattan. It’s really beautiful out there. I highly recommend it. People talk about different things and eat locally grown organic food without smirking. Perhaps they drink too much coffee and indulge in too many team sports for children, but that’s another story.

About a month ago, I ate some chicken. What kind of chicken is not really important. Suffice it to say that when I was done with the chicken, not being a total barbarian, I threw away the bones.  There they sat for a few hours in an open garbage can. Neither my wife nor I noticed that Julie, our usually vocal and somewhat omnipresent Cavalier King Charles spaniel, had grown preternaturally quiet, and had positioned herself in a subtle but inoffensive manner near the garbage can. She did nothing while we were in the house. It was only later that she struck.

After a quiet afternoon, it was time for us to go to a birthday party for our friend Bruce, who does body work in Fairfax. We were looking forward to it. A Marin party often involves very good food and outrageously tasty wine in demented quantities and this gathering proved to be no exception. There was noise and healthy comestibles of all sorts, and even some unhealthy stuff, too, which is always nice, and organic vodka from the region that tasted somewhat weird but did the job. When we could wassail no more, we returned home at about 10 PM to find the garbage can upended and nothing but a grease spot on the floor where a mound of chicken bones should have been.

I have had Lab/German Shepherd mixes who have eaten entire pastramis and lived to tell the tale, having suffered nothing but a Biblical thirst for a week and a month of bloat afterwards. My great dog of the 1980s, Blanche, a samoyed/collie mix, once ingested an entire chicken and the aluminum foil surrounding it and suffered no ill effects that I could see, although she was a bit thoughtful for a week or so afterwards. But Julie is a small thing, only 18 pounds. By midnight, she was lying on the floor panting. By 3 AM, we were up with her because she was circling the house impatiently, whining, asking to be taken out. Once out, she attempted to attend to her duties but was unsuccessful. At about 5 AM, my wife read about a home remedy online, one where you soak cotton balls in cold cream, a concoction that, eaten by the dog, ostensibly smooths the way for the bones to exit into the outer world again. So we were up before dawn at the Safeway, with Julie in the passenger seat of a shopping cart, purchasing nostrums for her.

At dawn, it was clear that nothing was helping our little friend. She was in trouble. Her enormous brown eyes stared up at us with liquid intensity. Couldn’t we do something? Anything?

By the time we took her to the animal hospital, she had begun to throw up and show all the signs of, well, having a problem that would require surgery. And this where I believe the question that is posed in the Journal may be answered. Not for one moment did either human being in control of this situation think to him or herself: “I wonder how much this is going to cost?”

Okay, we have some disposable income, but we’re no Buffetts. It didn’t matter. As Lear said when presented with a future that was grossly unacceptable to him, “Oh question not the need!” We did not. Julie must be fixed. The world needed to be put back into proper operating condition.

In the end, our greedy little canis moronis did not need to be opened up and 1/2 of a poultry extracted. She merely needed three days in the hospital and a lot of recuperation to be set right. I’ll spare you the details, which were truly disgusting, but it could have been worse. The tab came to $2000. We were planning on a trip to Disneyland this spring. Maybe next year.

Of course we’re crazy. Of course such an expenditure in a world full of needy human beings is reprehensible, thoroughly. But I’ll tell you something. When I get back to California at the end of the week and put down my bag in the entryway, and Julie comes out to greet me with her plump end wagging, and she flips over for a tummy rub… let me tell you: there’s nothing in business like it. And what’s that worth?

That’s right. The colloquy has begun in earnest. Thousands and thousands of you (however many it takes to assemble millions and millions of page views) have gathered to begin a crucial discourse on what just might be the most important question of our time.

Okay, maybe it’s not. But there is something about the entire question that engages, delights and torments people in all walks of life. That’s pretty clear. Many of you have already written in about your jobs, and we’re getting ready to publish a nice selection in the days to come. I will also be thinking out loud on the subject and answering any questions that you might have. I’ve been a bulls**tter all my life, and I think I have a lot to bring to the table on this issue. I know there are many of you out there who are equally practiced and seasoned, not to say steeped, in the subject.

I thought, before I move on to other things today, that I would just make a salient point that is in no way bulls**t at all, and that is this: Just because you’ve read the 50 BS Jobs on this site, and thought about your own, and even written in about the material in question, DOES NOT REPLACE THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCE OF PURCHASING THE BOOK ITSELF. That’s right. Even if you choose not to use the link I’ve just provided, the button is conveniently close to you right now, right on this very site, and you could get the job done with just a click of your mouse. Why not do that right this very minute?

The book is chock-a-block with great info, extended discussion, a plethora of examples, and a welter of strategies on how you too can acheive the pinnacle of success in our culture and get a high-paying, high-prestige, low-activity BS job of your very own.

Go ahead! Make my day!

Today is Administrative Professionals Day. It used to be called Secretaries Day, but that job designation has gone the way of Fireman, Waiter, Policeman and Stewardess. In a world with essential services provided by Fire Fighters, Wait Staff, Police Officers and Flight Attendants, the Administrative or Executive Assistant is perhaps the most essential (unless, you know, your house is burning down). Here then, is a 21-flower bouquet to all you guys who make life possible for we who become increasingly incapacitated by our stature every day, we who cannot book a flight, secure a table, pay a bill, or manage our daily call log without you. You deserve more than our thanks! You deserve something nice in your mailbox.

So thanks, Beverly. Thanks for the muffins in the morning and the way you get me a good table at lunch every time and reservations for dinner that are appropriate to my self-image, and book all my travel right, no matter how confusing it is, and put up with my moods and occasional infantile yelling, and tell me when I have an appointment I have forgotten, and advise me when I’m overbooked, and even answer the phone on the weekends when some antic impulse moves me. I couldn’t do it without you, Bev. Happy Administrative Professionals Day!

Now where’s my sandwich?!

Well, to start out with, there are those two asterisks. They pretty much embody the thing itself.

Beyond that, for purposes of our future work together, let us ask: What is it?

It’s like the weather. Everybody talks about it; nobody can do anything about it.

It’s like pornography. You know it when you see it.

It’s like potato chips. You can’t eat just one.

Today, we begin an ongoing discussion of bulls**t. So…

Tell me your bulls**t jobs tell me your bulls**t duties tell me all that happens to you that you would consider to be bulls**t. I will post it to the world! Together, we will begin perhaps the greatest discussion of the subject in the history of the planet!

And if you believe that, you’re perfect for this exercise.

Now let’s get going!

I’ve been involved in controversies, in fact there is rarely a day that goes by when somebody isn’t honking my beazer. But I really stepped in it when I answered you guys, perhaps somewhat glibly, about the Stinky C0-Worker. The question and answer were posted last week and generated what I could only call a storm of outrage.  If you don’t believe I’m repressing the desire to field a lot of smelly jokes on the subject right this very minute, you’re wrong. But this turns out to be a serious issue, and one where I’m afraid I might have, as Hamlet said, shot the arrow over the house and hurt my brother. In my answer, I implied that a smelly person at the workplace might be avoided or chided for his or her malodorousness. I posited two types of stinkers. Type A was careless. Type B was mean. I offered a brief strategy for both. It turns out that they is, in fact, a Type C out there, and they are not shy about voicing their outrage at the way the world treats them. They also have spokespeople, it turns out. I figure that having maligned this group of suffering business people, it’s the least I can do to acquaint you, as I have myself by made aware, of their situation.

The first whiff that something was wrong came from a guy I’ll call Chet, because that’s not his name. “I’m the stinky worker,” he writes.

I had stomach bypass surgery and have lost 70 pounds and kept it off. It has been a life changing event. It has also created a problem with gas since the surgery. What am I to do? Run to the men’s room every 5 minutes trying to hold it in while in route? I realize the depth of the problem and am not unsympathetic but this just does not seem to be the solution. Forget about products like Beano, they haven’t helped. I would love to have a private office with exhaust fans but haven’t found that opportunity yet. 

Okay, I thought. That’s sad. I’m sorry I offended Chet. He seems to have enough problems without people making fun of him. But Chet was just the first to aerate the issue. READ MORE

This blog has been up in what they call a “soft launch” for about a week, and a gratifying number of you have been poking around here, reading stuff, looking for things I’m doing wrong, making me feel both good and bad about myself. Sounds like life at any office, doesn’t it? Sure, this one is virtual, but then so many of them are, you know?

A couple of you have posed questions and posted comments for me to think about, and I thought I would pass along just two, for now, because, well, it’s Monday morning and right now the sound inside my brain is that of the wind blowing through an imaginary tree. 

An interesting correction comes from EGM of Norton, Massachusetts, a very nice community I had a drink in once, which I guess could be said of a lot of towns between here and Petaluma, only as I recall, Norton has a lot more class. I could be wrong, though. It was night.  

Anyhow, EGM took small issue with a point I made in my column on Hot Nuts, which has garnered the most attention of any of my postings so far. “One technical error,” he or she writes. “The nuts are not nuked. Aircraft galleys do not have microwave ovens. They’re heated in something much like a conventional toaster oven.”

Thanks, E.  I’m glad you wrote. Over the weekend, by the way, my upgrade didn’t come through and I had to fly in coach. I was lucky enough to get a bulkhead, however, and one of the flight attendants from Business recognized me and brought me a cookie one hour out from Kennedy. The warm chocolate chips tasted even sweeter, knowing I wasn’t really entitled to them. There was a moment, however, staring into the cabin up ahead, that did cause me pain. You know when. The hot nuts were rolled out, and I couldn’t have any, which was bad enough, and knowing they were not, in fact, nuked at all, but baked lovingly by hand in a toaster oven made things even worse. I got over it though. Life is long. I’ll be back.

Of more head-scratching profundity comes a jab from Joe in New York City, who might for all I know be in the workspace down the hallway from me, not simply down the street. Here’s what Joe writes: