It’s an Ask Bing day today. I admit it’s been a little while since I stepped up to the bar and answered some of the many questions that pour into my digital mailbox every day. There are several reasons for this, I think.

First, a lot is happening every day that needs scrutiny, and Second, most of what’s going on makes me feel somewhat ill equipped to give advice. I don’t think anybody really knows what’s going on half the time anymore. What kind of directional guidance is worth anything in a sandstorm?

That was how I was feeling anyway. Then I dipped into that trove of trouble, anger, humor and resentment that is my e-mail. There I found peace and solace, because you know what? Some things are eternal. GE (GE) may disappoint. Sharper Image may close. But some stuff never ever changes.

There will always be violent, abusive, insulting and infantile people who rise to be our bosses, and people to ask Why?… There will always be young folks trying to break into the life of challenge, misery, sleeplessness and glee that is the full-blown business career, each of them with questions on how to kill their elders and move into their ergonomic chairs… There will always be those who allow their jobs to invade their hearts and souls, Prometheans chained to the rock of their employment, condemned to eat their own entrails (or drown them in vodka) for eternity.

Thank God for such people! They show us an underlying truth of all human life, one that actually makes me feel good in times of raucous change and confusion like these. And here it is: The more things change, the more they remain the same. To which I say: Viva consistency!

Take a look at some other people’s trouble today. You’ll be glad you did.

Word comes from Megan in Chicago, one of our most valued and assiduous correspondents, that this humble blog has been blocked by the IT police of her company. Megan writes:

I can tell you one thing that is going the wrong way. Bing’s Blog page has been officially blocked at work with a code of “Social Networking”… Stanley baby - can you pull a few strings and help the numb nuts in IT understand that I need this site in my daily work life? How can I possibly put in a full 10 hours without a spoonful of delicious irony! I’ve explained that this is a very useful site which quite often covers business related topics. I’ve stated my case that while the site is not essential to doing my job, it does help me do my job better. They’ve claimed that they will review and let me know - *sigh*. I’ll miss you sweetheart…

I’ll miss you, too, Megan! It’s all so unfair! A social network? Us? Could that be? Every day we have as serious a discussion of current business-related events as the facts warrant! Sure, a lot of the time we focus on the ridiculous and outrageous, but that’s a direct effect of the times in which we live, right? Just look at the following issues we’ve dealt with in recent months:

• Guys who play golf and bridge while their city-states are flailing, and are then super-compensated upon their departure;
• The collapse of huge banking institutions that stupidly gave loans to people who couldn’t repay them when belts tightened even one teeny notch;
• The most aggressive Fed in living memory, moving dynamically to do who knows what?;
• Utter confusion on the part of experts and pundits of all stripes, and a general sense of incapacity and weirdness from all over;
• The usual insanity pertaining to mergers, acqusitions, divestitures and other organizational hooey in organizations from Apple and AOL to Yahoo and whatever companies that start with the letter Z you can think of;
• Intense activity in the digital arena, including the geometric growth of online retail while brick and mortar stumbled;
• The worst performance by the airlines industry since Howard Hughes attempted to commercialize the Spruce Goose;
• Other (your peeve here).

We’ve covered these terrific business trends and stories just like a responsible information source should, with aplomb, sagacity and no little amount of sang froid. We’ve also looked extensively at your bulls**t jobs and crazy bosses, and even occasionally offered some advice in our Ask Bing sector. And if, in so doing, we have also attracted a witty, savvy, saucy, snazzy, slightly snarky group that get together with some regularity to comment on the general situation? Does that make us a social network worthy of blockage? Well! All I can say is…

Thanks for the promotion, IT dudes! Now come on! Free the blog! Lift the blockade! Let freedom ring!

Some poor goofy fellow writes me to ask about whether, in the current economic environment, I prefer an investment in stocks or in bonds. This raises several interesting questions. First, what kind of reader, after spending any time on this site, would ask this kind of information from me? And second, how can I live up to his expectations. I believe, after an appropriate amount of thought, I offer a cogent piece of advice for this individual. See if you agree.

There’s also another guy who works for a boss who acts like he’s running a mob instead of a corporate function. Anything he can do about it? What do you think?

Today at Ask Bing, I answer a letter from one of my pals. Actually, I don’t know the guy. But he could certainly be one of my scotch-swilling, cigar-chomping, joke telling buddies around the table at my now all-too-infrequent poker games. He wants to know if he should take a raise and accept a new job, the caveat being that he would have to work for a woman, and be surrounded by a female version of the Ole Boy’s Club. This is not an easy question. Can a person in mid-career profoundly change his act? Take a peek and see.

Beyond that, it only remains to say have a nice weekend… and to get that started, don’t read the business news today. What you don’t know can’t bum you out.

I am particularly amused this morning by a question from a reader who works for a large financial institution. It seems that on payday the company had a small glitch and a bunch of people not on the direct-deposit program didn’t get their checks… for five days. One supervisor, approached by an employee who needed the money to live, gave an interesting piece of advice: Go to the guy responsible for Payroll and ask him to lend you the money. The guy in charge of Payroll is our correspondent. Of course, he’s ticked off. I think he has every right to be, for sure. Unless…

Several other matters of import are discussed. Check it out.

On another front, keep an eye on the debate now ongoing in my prior post on silver linings. You may want to weigh in. What’s better for the world? Gigantic multinational corporations whose brands define consumer activity worldwide? Or local businesses which are are a lot less efficient but do have a certain charm and utility?

Global? Local? Price or service? We may not have any choice, ultimately, in the way that story goes down. But we might as well talk about it while it’s happening, huh?

Sometimes my gut absolutely mirrors the Market. Yesterday I was all freaked out. By the end of the day, I felt better. Now I actually smell a little bit of hope in the air. Things are marginally back to normal. The sky did not fall. The sun will come up tomorrow. If every cloud does not yet have a silver lining quite yet, there are patches of blue among the gray. So I think I’ll get back to business and usual and do what I said I was going to do last Friday and offer 10 things you can do if you’re too busy.

1. You can cancel all meetings with aggravating people right now unless they are your boss. It’s amazing how many meetings we create with people we’d rather not see for reasons that, once we are at them, are unclear. I believe many of us whip up activity to prove to ourselves and others how non-fungible we are. A little fungibility never hurt anybody, particularly the terminally busy who are already essential in quite enough areas, thank you. Be less fungible. Share your funge.

2. Never write a long e-mail if a gnomic BlackBerry message will do. It’s incredible how many chunks of work can be tossed over the side with a short electronic piffle like, “OK, let’s do that. Can you handle?” If you’re a big player, that’s called delegation. If you’re not, it’s called passing the buck. Either way, it results in less bussitude.

3. Close your door and tell your assistant that you will only be disturbed by a) your boss or b) somebody who is bringing you a hot pastrami sandwich, and nobody else. Your door has to have meaning if you are not to lose your sanity.

4. Take lunch. You won’t be less busy, but you will FEEL less busy. Let me ask you a question. When you eat lunch at your desk, do you end up with less to do after lunch? I’m betting the answer is no. So if you’re going to be screwed up anyhow, why not enjoy a nice, peaceful hour away from the office? Have somebody join you that presents a legitimate opportunity to use your expense account, if you have one.

5. Don’t go on conference calls unless your boss is on it. Isn’t there somebody junior to you in your area? Somebody ambitious, who still believes they get some kind of juice from being on a big ratpack event? Put them on the call. They can be the ones who sit there and twiddle their thumbs while you’re out generating non-fungibility.

6. Schedule an occasional offsite for yourself. Every city has conventions, gatherings, symposia about new technology and other BS you can glom onto. “Where’s Ambruster?” people will say. “Oh, he’s at the global streaming thing at the Hilton,” will come the answer. Smart Ambruster! To be interested in such an arcane issue!

7. Don’t be so friggin’ reachable. A few years ago, I noticed that everybody in LA starts calling New York at exactly the time when we all want to go to lunch. For a long time, I answered their calls and upset my circadean rhythms. Then I thought, “The heck with them,” although perhaps not precisely in those words. “I’ll return their calls tomorrow morning while they’re in the shower.” The bottom line is, just because your phone rings doesn’t mean you have to answer it. CONTROL, guys. It’s the sense of losing it that makes you lose it.

8. At about 4:15, take a look at your To Do list. Anything on it that can be put off until tomorrow? Hold on! Can’t, like 80% of it be put off until tomorrow? Or even the day after tomorrow? That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. It’s called procrastination. It’s divided into three parts: PRE-crastination is all the things you do before you start your serious PRO-crastination which comes right before a good session of POST-crastination. Then you can do whatever it is. Or not.

9. Schedule a meeting with your boss to “go over things.” Anything you do with your boss supercedes in importance anything else you could be doing. If your boss is going out to play golf, accompanying him or her is actually “working” smarter and harder than constructing that spreadsheet you’re supposed to be showing to the Controller next Tuesday.

10. Work faster. Concentrate harder. Clear your platter aggressively. Then rest. Rest is work, too, particularly for those who take it seriously.

By the way, the picture you see at the top of this posting is of Mike the Headless Chicken, who lived for eighteen months with his head cut off between 1945 and 1947. Proving, I guess that our kind of lifestyle can go on for a while, but in the end does take its toll.

Today is Thursday. It is also Ask Bing Day. Take a look. The first question is a really juicy one that afflicts just about anybody who works for a living. An ad guy writes in and complains that he has an idiot for a client (see graphic, right). What to do? Listen to the fool who pays the bills and do the wrong thing? Refuse to be a co-numbskull and maybe lose the account?

There are stupid people everywhere mingled in with the intelligent ones. A lot of the time we have to work for the former, report to them, keep their business, make them happy. If you can’t manage a client who has cheese for brains, how are you to keep your bosses in line, let alone your children and spouses?

I’m not in advertising, but I’ve had my share of people who I thought should listen to me instead of marching off a cliff into the ocean. Some of them did and some of them didn’t. Only members of the first group are still around to tell the tale. For while mean people flourish in this world, it’s harder for the operationally dumb. They need our help. And when they don’t take it, well, that’s just a crying shame.

How about you? Seen any stupid clients lately? I’m sure some of you are in banking. You might have a few stories to tell.

Hi there. Today we answer a few of your questions you’ve been kind enough to Ask Bing. Today’s batch includes a question that is without doubt the most disgustingly amusing I have seen during my time here on this digital planet. You may want to check it out. It’s the kind of thing that makes you see your problems in a whole new perspective.

Oh and by the way. We’re working on getting the technology in place so that you can comment on these Ask Bings in situ, but until then, why not use this space? Operators are standing by.

A few really interesting questions today, one in particular that takes me off my usual turf and into a more emotional subject for most people, a crucial, transformative business issue often confused with a personal matter: divorce. There’s an old saying that a person who represents him or herself in court has a fool for a client. In this situation, that goes double, I think. See if you agree.

Tomorrow I will discuss the feeling of being stalked by a large financial institution. By then, I should have received at least one and perhaps two additional solicitations in the mail. It’s an interesting feeling, like being held in the grip of a fate that you cannot change or avoid. I don’t like it. But I will enjoy telling you about it.

See you then.

I say “dudes,” dudes, because I have noticed that, far from fading away, the use of surfer lingo in middle-aged business executives is flourishing. You haven’t really lived until you’ve seen a guy in a $2000 pinstripe, $500 wing tips and one hair artfully arranged on his shiny head say, “Dude, awesome weekend.”

My favorite comment of the day comes from M. Smith of Colber, Georgia (unless she’s M. Smith Colber, of Georgia), who reminds us that, behind all the headlines, all the business manuals, all the economic analyses of this supposedly rational sub-strata of society, organizational life continues in its eternal dance of madness and complaint.  She writes:

Wow, are you sure you’re not in Georgia? My boss takes the cake on bullying. I have gone home crying so many times that it is pityful. My boss can take you into her office and make you feel like dirt and then come out smiling and telling everyone that you are the best thing ever. She is insane. She picks on people for stupid little things that don’t even matter. She is a principal and she has 3 spies or like I call them (pawns) that run around and get all the dirt they can on people and run back and tell her just to get things started. There noses are so brown they look chocolate covered. She would never believe anyone over them, even people who have worked there for 30 years. She has a new lil spy now who she is treating like gold for this year. Just wait till next year and she will be in the same boat as everyone else. I’m just glad I found the articles on corporate psychopaths and now I know how to deal with her.

I’d be interested to know how M. plans to “deal with her.” And I’m hoping that our ongoing discussion of Crazy Bosses, and the requisite purchase of my book on the subject, helps smooth her way.

Beyond that, I’ll just say so long for now. I’ve got a lot on tap today. A subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of ours has a product coming out of China that may have a few wrinkles to iron out. I can’t be more revealing than that, except to say that I have every confidence that our Chinese suppliers have operated with nothing but the most rigorous integrity in the matter.

Have a good day, dudes!

Visitors to the Fortune website today will be treated to the brand-spanking new look and feel of the premier business destination on the planet. It’s clean. It’s sharp. It’s as fast as approval on a low-cost ARM.

No, wait a minute. At this point, it’s faster. A lot of people worked long and hard behind the scenes to make this elegance and simplicity a reality. Think one of those James Bond movies where a huge team of people swarms an underground complex, each with a white jumpsuit and digital clipboard. It was sort of like that.

To kick off the launch of this beautiful new baby, I’ve answered a passel of questions from you guys which will be featured in the Ask Bing section for the next couple of days. Keep those queries coming, by the way. I love to hear about your problems. They perk me up when I’m low.

Finally for this rainy, crispy autumn day in New York, I’ll just say Welcome Back to whatever it is you do after the enforced four-day retreat into family life. It’s interesting how much worse Sunday night is than Monday morning. Right now, I’m at my desk, the mail is done. It’s halfway to lunchtime. What was I up at 3 AM about, chewing on the inside of my cheek?

Don’t you have that Sunday anxiety meltdown thing? And if not, tell me… why not? Like, how do you keep your mellow from being harshed on a daily/weekly basis? Without booze, I mean.

You’re just a click away from another batch of answers to questions you’ve tossed over my transom in the last weeks (and to tell you the truth, months). I’ve got hundreds of pages of your questions and darn it, I intend to answer them all before I dematerialize from the form I now occupy and reformulate in a different time/space dimension sometime in late 2011. Today’s are a good sampling. I hope you enjoy them.

Me, I’m headed off on another insane, frenetic, inhuman whirlwind tour of one of our business locations. Get this. Tonight at 9, I head off for London. I’ve got my passport this time. We land around 9 AM, Greenwich mean time. Why they’re always on mean time there I have no idea. Usually we’re not like that except on Mondays and the occasional earnings day.

Anyhow, myself and young McTavish will then repair to our hotel, where we will freshen up and await our first meeting. In this case, “freshen up” means to collapse into a pulsating ball of hair and gristle while our bodies attempt to ascertain in which time zone they are attempting to exist.

At 2 PM local time, we have our meeting somewhere. At 5 or 6 PM, which is around noon in our regular universe, we will have a bunch of drinks and go to dinner with some other dudes, or in this case blokes, at about 8 PM. Dinner should be over by 11 PM local time, at which point we will go back to our respective hotel rooms and faint. We’ll be up at 2:00 in the morning New York tim