Forbes’ 10 Things To Never Do At Work Are 10 Things You Definitely Should Do At Work

======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====

I’d like to think I know my way around an office pretty well. At times I feel like I’m the most valuable guy out there, because I keep morale boosted at all times, even when the team is in the shit; kind of like the Revolutionary War drummer boys who would drop sick drum beats a la Nick Cannon in Drumline to keep spirits up.

But value aside, I just know what’s right and wrong at the office. I’m already almost three years into post-college office life, so, yeah, basically I’m the world’s leading expert in this field. So when I saw this crackpot Forbes article about the ten things to never do in the office, I felt like I couldn’t let it go by in good conscience without sharing it with the PGP fam (we need a name for y’all) and setting the record straight.

Buy And Sell Products
You might sell cosmetics as a part-time business or you may have a motorcycle for sale. Some companies provide internal discussion communities where employees can buy and sell things, but the actual negotiations should take place when you’re not at your desk. Direct solicitation of your coworkers is an intrusion on their personal space (and their wallet).

The best way to show the boss that you’re applying yourself is to just do business. Always be closing. Rub those elbows. See your opportunity and take it. Sell! Sell! Sell! It’s easy to ignore salesmen and telemarketers, but you can’t avoid your coworkers. You have so much leverage. Just back your colleagues into a corner and overcharge them for the shit you don’t want anymore. I just sold Kenny in BD a radar detector that doesn’t detect radar. Sucker.

Conduct Committee Or Volunteer Business
Conducting volunteer work — writing a press release or creating a marketing plan, for instance — or conducting homeowner’s association business at your workplace is unprofessional. These are great projects to tackle at home, instead.

You know the worst place to conduct a homeowner’s association meeting (whatever that is)? In your home. You can’t show anyone else the squalor you’ve turned your home into. That’s a one way ticket out of the homeowner’s association. You have to bring all those meetings to the office. What else are you supposed to use the conference rooms for? PTA meetings, book clubs, any other volunteer groups that meet regularly. Use those conference rooms in the office; it’s what they’re there for.

Manage Your Side Business
I suggest that everybody get a consulting business card and launch a side business. It’s a wonderful way to grow muscles and to keep one foot in the entrepreneurial world. That being said, don’t bring your side business into work with you. It’s a distraction to your teammates and sends them the message that your attention is divided between your team’s priorities and your personal business objectives. Conduct your business from your home, or your car or the supermarket parking lot, instead!

The advice lady says everybody should get a side business. That’s fine. No issues with that. The more business you crush the better. Not sure why everyone’s side business requires a consulting business card though. Is everyone’s side business a consulting gig? My consulting biz would be teaching people how to be obnoxiously loud assholes, but I digress. Your side business won’t be credible if you’re running it nights and weekends. You have to devote some company time to your side piece. If you don’t you’ll be like the other 69% of businesses that fail.

Try To Convert Your Coworkers
Don’t push any religious or spiritual viewpoint on your coworkers, no matter how fervently you believe that your chosen path is the road to happiness.

I’m not trying to say your religion sucks – it certainly might – but I’m not in the habit of trashing someone’s beliefs (unless it’s shitty advice you find on the Internet). But just think about how much better work would be if everyone believed the same cockamamie scripture. Step 1: convert everyone to the religion with the most amount of holidays. Step 2: Everyone gets all of these holidays off. Step 3: Profit. The Google machine tells me Hinduism, by far, has the most holidays. Something like 37-38, so get the whole office to become Hindu and you may never end up in the office ever again.

Date Your Boss Or Someone Who Reports To You
You can date your co-worker, but you can’t date your boss or anybody who reports to you. If you do, you’ll subject your company to the risk of sexual harassment claims.

Look, it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock n’ roll. Getting to the top is hard. Look around you. There’s exponentially more underlings than there are top dogs. It’s like the game Candyland. The only way to really get ahead is to hit the Gumdrop Pass and boost yourself over the competition. If you want to climb the ranks, you have to schtup your boss. It’s either that or be stuck in the cubes forever and watch as the people who bed the boss move to the corner offices. As for someone who reports to you? Well, you’ve clearly fucked your way to the top, midas whale. Take advantage of your power. Plus, boss/reportee porn is pure heat, and that Hundo P translates to real life.

Turn Your Workplace Into A Gym
Your colleagues don’t want to smell your sweaty socks or gym gear. If your workplace doesn’t have a shower and lockers, you have to tone down your physical activity at lunchtime. It’s not fair to subject your coworkers to locker-room aromas against their will.

What am I supposed to do? Leave my sweaty gym clothes in my car and stink up my whip? For sure not. Keep it with you at your desk, because it’s better to stink up your cube than stink up your car. Everyone will leave you alone. We’ve got this intern who doesn’t small so good and I can’t physically walk to his desk to ask him to do something. It’s brilliant, tbh.

Hit On A Coworker
You can date a coworker, but you have to be sensitive to the fact that if you ask someone out and they say, “No,” you don’t get another shot just because you have access to that person every workday.

Shooters shoot. You gotta pay to play. You absolutely get another shot. Sometimes you have to be like Costanza. You might be a little irritating at first, like a commercial jingle, but soon they’re humming it in the shower. The worst part about rejection at a bar is that there is no second chance. One and done. But if you’re around them every day, you can keep taking your shot.

Work On Your Job Search
It doesn’t matter how much you hate your job or how oblivious your boss is — it’s still not cool to work on your job search from your workplace. The people you work for are paying you, and they deserve to have your full focus on their issues.

If you’re job hunting, you have to have multiple tabs open: LinkedIn, Indeed, YouPorn, Monster, company websites. Your at home Wi-Fi can’t take on the load. You have to move the job hunt onto your home court of the cube. It’s the only way to swiftly navigate the wild world of job hunting. Besides, how are you supposed to stay focused at work knowing someone else is out there, right now, beating you to the application?

Discuss Legal Or Financial Matters
It’s brutal to your coworkers to subject them to hearing the details of your divorce proceedings or the lawsuit you’re pursuing against the developer who built your shoddy condo. Make phone calls like these at lunchtime, outside the office.

Here’s the thing about doing personal calls at lunch: chances are the person you’re calling will also be at lunch. How are you supposed to handle your divorce if you can’t call during normal business hours? I’ll tell you how: you can’t. You’ll honestly be doing your cubemates a service; everybody loves a good eavesdrop session trying to listen in on all your legal battles.

Engage In A Telephone Shouting Match
Never, ever get into a shouting match on the phone from your workplace. No one wants to hear you bluster and threaten whoever you’re upset with. The quickest way to trash your professional reputation is to lose your temper, and it’s no easier on your teammates’ ears when you’re arguing with somebody outside the building than it is when you lose your temper with someone you work with.

If you’re not getting into screaming matches at work, you’re not asserting your dominance, and that’s how you let people walk all over you. You have to be like a manager all up in the umpires face after a blow call. You need the veins in your neck to bulge like you’re a goddamn cartoon. That’s how you become the colossus of clout of the cubes. Best thing I ever did for my career was lay into some poor Comcast rep within earshot of the whole office. I believe it was my boyhood idol Caligula who said it best: let them hate so long as they fear.

Now go out there, crush business, become king of crash of the cubes, and say hi to your cute receptionist for me..

Image via Shutterstock

10

Respond

Email this to a friend

Hey, I saw this on Post Grad Problems. Check it out.

Boston Max

Spending my retirement fund at Trader Joe's and trying to remember to check my mailbox semi-regularly

• @BostonMaxG
• @boston_maxg