Seven deadly workplace sins

BY GIL SCHWARTZ

Truth is beauty, wrote John Keats. Oh, really? No wonder Keats was a poet and not a corporate executive. The truth about truth is that – in the business world, anyway – it can be very ugly indeed. Particularly the truths that emerge about ourselves when we’re stressed or angry or tipsy.

Bottom line: you must ration out personal revelations with care and thought. The self you present at work should be carefully constructed. Not unreal. Just a selective collection of your greatest hits. It’s made up of several components: the way you dress, the way you wear your hair, the way you conduct yourself in meetings, the way you use email, the way you blow off steam with colleagues. All of these constructions, added together, create a self that can help you succeed and make more money. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

But let me be clear. You don’t want to construct a personality that’s phony. Your goal is to display a version of yourself that helps you win people’s esteem but that doesn’t stifle the real you under a layer of other people’s expectations.

It’s not hard. You just need to avoid revealing the sides of yourself that only your mum, girlfriend or drinking mates should see. To that end, here’s your Book of No Revelation.

Who you sleep with, and how often

This is a no-win situation: you’ll be seen as either a man-slut or a liar. And nobody wants to work with a liar. Alternatively, if your conquests are with your soul mate or your wife (who, if you’re lucky, is the same person) then you’re seen as an outlandish boor for kissing and telling. Also bad. Jabbering about how you boned that super-hot barmaid also forces your colleagues to imagine you naked. Unless you are indeed very beautiful, this will do you no good.

How sick you are of the job

A little bitching isn’t always out of line. We all like to share our pipedreams over a beer after work. But select your audience well. The business world is filled with stooges and moles (as well as really great guys you’re going to love). A misplaced word to the wrong person could end up as a quiet comment to somebody who thought you were loyal – or who already had your number and was looking for a reason to pull the trigger.

A friend of mine once dropped by his boss’s office and told him that the place was badly run, that it was overstaffed with dimwits, that their processes and procedures were 10 years out of date, and blah, blah, blah. He thought he was earning his keep by telling the boss what he really thought. The boss said: “Thanks, but if you hate it around here so much, you can leave, okay?” It wasn’t really a question, either.

How you ripped off the system on your last business trip

You would be amazed at the number of individuals who brag about this kind of stuff. I suppose it makes sense. Only morons cheat on their expense accounts, so moronic follow-up behaviour is consistent.

I won’t go into this too much – I shouldn’t have to. But there are dark corners of everybody’s business career. Nights on the road that are hazy. Activities with peers that wouldn’t stand up to personal or professional scrutiny. The problem is that people deal with darkness in different ways. Some keep it to themselves. Others need to exorcise the beast by taking it for a walk around the park.

My point is this: not all colleagues can deal with subversive information in a discreet way. There are those who happen to take their role as friends of the court very seriously. And they’ll teach you a lesson if they feel it’s necessary and proper to do so. A word to the unwise should be sufficient, huh?

How much you had to drink last night

Or any night, for that matter. It’s good to have a reputation as a fun-loving dude, for sure. But watch out for the dreaded non-stop party-boy tag. Here’s the difference: a fun-loving dude is always the life of the party. A non-stop party boy thinks life’s a party.

I know a guy at the office who everybody loves. He’s a total monster. Goes out at dinnertime, comes back at breakfast. He is a model for us all. The other day, I’m with a couple of senior suits planning an off-site strategic-mission soiree. “Should we invite Lenny?” I ask. “Nah,” says the executive vice-president in charge of executive vice-presidents. “He’s an overgrown kid in a man’s body.”

How much you despise the boss

The world is filled with crazy people who actually articulate negative opinions for all to hear about the person who runs the place. I’m not talking about the garden-variety “I hate dad or mum” complaining that is the right of every worker. I’m referring to loud, bitter, specific complaints about the lord and master, or lady and mistress, or ugly chump with six chins in the corner office.

A former boss of mine became demented in his job, growing to despise his own boss so much that he could no longer keep his animus to himself. He’d talk about her at lunch. Or drop snippets of loathing into emails to me and others. Then one day, instead of typing a colleague’s name into the “To” field, he typed his boss’s. That’s right. He sent his supernova of hate to the object of his hatred. He was fired later that day.

I don’t even know what to say about that except, you know, don’t do it.

How much your shoes cost

. . . or how much your stock portfolio is worth, or how big your last raise was, or how much the new deck on your beachfront holiday house is going to cost you.

Ugh. Is there anything more odious than somebody who constantly tells you how rich he is, or how fantastic his new mid-engined Porsche is? I know this executive who, apropos of nothing, breaks into a description of his various wise investments. I want to stick pins in the guy.

At the same time, nobody wants to hear how poor you are. There’s no single human being more pathetic than the man who bitches all day about the cost of his kid’s school tuition. Everybody has financial burdens. A little straight talk between friends – preferably over lunch or an end-of-day beer – is permissible. But crying poor isn’t. It makes people see you as a loser. And people who are seen to be losers, are losers. Business is funny that way.

How excited you are about all the things God told you

Finally, I must say this. You may believe that the Lord is coming to bring fire and ruin to the Earth. That alien DNA is driving all humanity crazy. That the Bush administration was responsible for 9/11. Keep it to yourself. There’s a place for politics and religion, and it’s not at work.

If you really want to freak people out, tell them what’s really rattling around in your skull on those fronts. If, on the other hand, you want to be perceived as a businessman, walk the walk, talk the talk, and keep it on planet Earth.