Progress, of a sort...

These are not original, but finding them posted over the copy machine in the office in Baikonur is, um, refreshing.

From our secretarial staff:

1. Never give me work in the morning. Always wait until 4 pm and then bring it to me. The challenge of a deadline is refreshing.

2. If it's really a rush job, run in and interrupt me every 10 minutes to inquire how it's going. That helps. Or even better, hover behind me, advising me at every keystroke.

3. Always leave without telling anyone where you're going. It gives me a chance to be creative when someone asks were you are.

4. If my arms are full of papers, boxes, books, or supplies, don't open the door for me. Opening doors with no arms is good training in case I should ever be injured and lost all use of my limbs.

5. If you give me more than one job to do, don't tell me which has the highest priority. I am psychic.

6. Do your best to keep me late. I adore this office and really have nowhere to go or anything to do. I have no life beyond work.

7. If a job I do pleases you, keep it a secret. If that gets out, it could mean a promotion.

8. If you don't like my work, tell everyone. I like my name to be popular in conversations.

9. If you have special instructions for a job, don't write them down. In fact, save them until the job is almost done. No use confusing me with useful information.

10. Never introduce me to people you're with. I have no right to know anything. In the corporate food chain, I am plankton. When you refer to them later, my shrewd deductions will identify them.

11. Be nice to me only when the job I'm doing for you could really change your life.

12. Tell me all your little problems. No one else has any and it's nice to know someone is less fortunate. I especially like the story about having to pay so much taxes on the bonus check you received for being such a good manager.

13. Wait until my yearly review and THEN tell me what my goals SHOULD have been. Give me a mediocre performance rating with a cost of living increase. I'm not here for the money, anyway.

Some of these have an eerie similarity to a list of rules for interpretation clients I revise from time to time, BTW.

Cheers...