George Costanza’s 10 Commandments For ‘Working Hard’

1 – Never walk without a document in your hands.
People with documents in their hands look like hardworking employees heading for important meetings. People with nothing in their hands look like they’re heading for the cafeteria. People with a newspaper in their hand look like they’re heading for the toilet. Above all, make sure you carry loads of stuff home with you at night, thus generating the false impression that you work longer hours than you do.

2 – Use computers to look busy.
Any time you use a computer, it looks like “work” to the casual observer. You can send and receive personal e-mail, chat, and generally have a blast without doing anything remotely related to work. These aren’t exactly the societal benefits that the proponents of the computer revolution would like to talk about but they’re not bad either. When you get caught by your boss — and you will get caught — your best defense is to claim you’re teaching yourself to use new software, thus saving valuable training dollars.

3 – Keep a messy desk.
Top management can get away with a clean desk. For the rest of us, it looks like we’re not working hard enough. Build huge piles of documents around your workspace. To the observer, last year’s work looks the same as today’s work; it’s volume that counts. Pile them high and wide. If you know somebody is coming to your cubicle, bury the document you’ll need halfway down in an existing stack and rummage for it when he/she arrives.

4 – Use voice mail.
Never answer your phone if you have voice mail. People don’t call you just because they want to give you something for nothing — they call because they want you to do work for them. That’s no way to live. Screen all your calls through voice mail. If somebody leaves a voice-mail message for you and it sounds like impending work, respond during lunch hour when you know they’re not there — it looks like you’re hardworking and conscientious even though you’re being a devious weasel.

5 – Look impatient & annoyed.
One should also always try to look impatient and annoyed to give your bosses the impression that you are always busy.

6 – Leave the office late.
Always leave the office late, especially when the boss is still around. You could read magazines and story books that you always wanted to read but have no time until late before leaving. Make sure you walk past the boss’ room on your way out. Send important e-mail at unearthly hours (e.g. 9:35 p.m., 7:05 a.m., etc.) and during public holidays.

7 – Use sighing for effect.
Sigh loudly when there are many people around, giving the impression that you are under extreme pressure.

8 – Opt for the stacking strategy.
It is not enough to pile lots of documents on the table. Put lots of books on the floor etc. (thick computer manuals are the best).

9 – Build your vocabulary.
Read up on some computer magazines and pick out all the jargon and new products. Use the phrases freely when in conversation with bosses. Remember; they don’t have to understand what you say, but you sure sound impressive.

10 – Don’t get caught.
MOST IMPORTANT: Don’t forward this page’s URL to your boss by mistake!

OTHER HELPFUL HINTS:

Never smile when I’m on phone talking with someone at work and it isn’t about business. If you smile, then people won’t think that it is work-related.

Hold a pen in your hand at all times in between keyboarding tasks… keep it in your hand even while on the phone… have your writing pad there as well and occasionally jot something down… you’ll look as if at all times contemplating something really intelligent and ready to write it down.

Keep a really complex spreadsheet or lengthy document file (or both) open on your desktop.

Use an extended monitor with your laptop.Run a regression suite or that long  build on your monitor and continue to do whatever you are doing on your laptop.

Keep your office communicator/jabber connected even when you are home.Gives a notion to your colleagues that you are really working Do it even the weekends.

Send one email a day to the team.if you don’t have anything just make up.

File bugs in your own name and keep solving them.

Go into a technical discussion and just listen even if you are not  remotely interested in it.

Keep your white board messed up. Change the text everyday.

Add your manager on Facebook and show no activity when you are working.
Updating any open ticket that is being monitored by a manager on an irregular but time bound basis. Ie they love updates so give them updates. The more the better.

Narrate facts at meetings that the manager can use with his own manager. Depending on the stupidity of your manager, you’ll have to coat these nuggets with  verbal affordances – ie., you’ll have to spell out exactly what you mean and then obtusely mention that your manager’s manager might find that interesting.

Sick days – well everyone knows that.

Really understanding how your boss thinks.
If you can really figure out how your boss thinks, you can focus on those activities except at deadline time. Even if you don’t hit the deadline your boss is usually confused enough between what he sees and your results to give you 1 more chance till the next review. so this method gives you 2 review cycles worth of time to phone it in.

Use the Outlook email scheduler to send out emails at 4 am. Note: for important emails only, don’t send out “FYI”-type emails about interesting work articles you’ve come across, no one believes you’re browsing Bloomberg for work at 4 am.

And the most popular time strangler, go to a meeting.  It’s a place where idea’s get stranded in a cul-de-sac.

When I was in PR, it was cat fight supreme with territorial ism and turf wars. Most of the announcements I did with these companies when in Analyst Relations didn’t have that element. For the most part, the announcements were about standards, not products. So that went a long way towards working together. Still, if you include IBM, the companies I’ve named here aren’t known for being best buddies.

As and aside, I can say that the executives (who can be the source of most problems) all worked towards the cause of the best briefing possible.

Some things are given, like in a certain area (we just did SOA) the analysts know the exec’s by company and the exec’s know each other so I’m happy to report they acted like grown ups.

TURF WARS

With the typical name calling (from the CEO’s)and because of t the belief in your own products, the first issue to overcome is that the announcement is usually about a jointly create product or standard, not us vs. them.  That rule has to be set down first and if you don’t overcome that, you have no chance at building trust, the basis for working together.

DIVIDE THE DUTIES

One company can’t dominate the duties or or it is not a joint announcement.   This also forces the companies to work together to approve what the others have created as their part of the announcement.   There are analyst lists, invitations, charts, follow up issues and any number of duties that need to be attended to and dived up.  Once that is done, you must rely on each other and the level of trust inherently rises.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT

It’s important that the analyst see this as equal amongst the companies.  One company presenting more than another is a dead give away.  You can’t help Q and A as the analysts will direct the question directly to a company.

LESSONS LEARNED

You either put your differences aside and work together, or you’ll never get anything done.  It’s tough to do when your day job is to hammer the company that you are working with other than on the announcement.  These are the days of co-opetition though.  You learn to get along or you’ll never make it to announcement day.

The French teacher wasn’t sure which gender it was, so she divided the  class into two groups and asked them to decide if a computer should be  masculine or feminine. One group consisted of the women in the  class, and the other of men. Both groups were asked to give four reasons  for their recommendation.
The  group of women concluded that computers should be referred to in  masculine gender because: 1. In order to get their attention, you have  to turn them on. 2. They have a lot of data but are still clueless. 3.  They are supposed to help you solve your problems, but half the time  they ARE the problem. 4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that,  if you had waited a little longer, you could have had a better model.
The men, on the other hand, decided that computers should definitely be  referred to in the feminine gender because: 1. No one but their creator  understands their internal logic. 2. The native language they use to  communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.  3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later  retrieval. 4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself  spending half your pay check on accessories.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on my list.

3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.

5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit.. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

9. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

10. In filling out an application, where it says, ‘In case of emergency, Notify:’ I put ’911′

11. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

12. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

13. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure..

14. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

15. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.

16. I’m supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

While it is not known for sure what is happening, this is how current models of memory recall would explain it:

Memory recall in the brain is not like retrieving a file from disk on a computer. In the brain, memories are reconstructed rather than retrieved. The brain is constantly augmenting what is in “working memory” with related information from the past. This is why stream of consciousness and memory recall often work by free association: The information association process is already there and we just make use of it.

When attempting to recall something specific, like a name, we “trick” the name into appearing in working memory by thinking about concepts related to it: the person’s identity, when we saw them last, what they look like. Normally this process automatically brings the information into working memory as a side-effect of filling in related facts.

When a word is missing but you “think you know it,” what is probably happening is that a lot of information about that word has been reconstructed in working memory, but not enough to trigger the production of the word itself. The presence of related information signals that you’ve “almost recalled it,” but the failure to produce the word shows that the recall is incomplete.

Often when people can’t recall a word, someone else can fill it in for them. But sometimes the “tip of the tongue” word does not actually exist. Related words may come to mind and it may seem like there “should be a word” for whatever it is. Thus the tip of the tongue feeling is not infallible.

Or: you can use this one….

A Neural Network (computer software) is just a simple model of the brain – not sure if the brain has something to do with it, but NN is composed of interconnected neurons with synapses (software model artifacts.)

Each neuron is an adder with a threshold, and each synapse has a weight. Both the threshold and the weight holds a small unit of information (could be digital or analog.) The entire NN has a certain information capacity, and used wisely (as in VOT (voice to text) or OCR (optical character recognition)) they do quite a job!

However, NN theory (and practice) shows (if I recall well) that when this capacity has been used/filled more than 11% (or something like that) while ‘learning‘,  the network starts ‘ forgetting!’

I want to stress again that I’m not aware of any evidence that the real brain works like a computer neural network – even more a computer NN would be to a brain like a dog house to New York city – but here there is something to think about…

For more information, go here.

1. Human psychology. It’s a young field, and no one has all the answers yet. But you can get a better understanding of why other people do what they do — and how to thread your way through life’s complexities — by studying at least a little of this field.

2. The basics of accounting. This will greatly reduce your chances of being swindled in life. It also will make it much easier for you to do some systematic planning, while keeping track of how you’re doing vis a vis your plans.

3. Music. It will calm you. It will inspire you. It will build bridges to a more interesting set of friends.

4. Your own family’s story. Where did your parents grow up, and how did that shape who they are? What are the formal or informal communities that help define your identity? (“We are athletes … we are Irish … we are restless spirits who move from city to city.”) Having an enduring sense of identity that goes beyond the ups and downs of your own life will be a source of comfort and motivation all your life.

5. The way your government really works. Find out why some laws are tightly enforced and others aren’t. Learn the best ways of influencing your government — whether it’s on matters of national significance or something as personal as winning a zoning variance for the cafe you run. Finally, gain some non-bitter insights about why society doesn’t always work the way you’d like.

6. Good nutrition and how to incorporate it into your life. Mike Leary is right.  In a poor society, this is the difference between life and death. In a rich society, it’s — surprise! — the difference between a long, robust future and chronic illness that can turn deadly far too soon.

7. Different cultural values. If you’re going to be effective outside a small cluster of people like you, you’ll need to understand and appreciate how other tribes work, too.

8. How to communicate your ideas to the wider world. Justin Freeman is right. Learn how to speak clearly and persuasively. Or to write well. Or to create useful and appealing computer code, video, music, etc. Pick the medium that works best for you, and make sure you don’t go through life being mute.

9. Effective parenting. Just because your parents didn’t quite get it right (no one ever does!) doesn’t mean that you can’t do better. Find your own style, stick with what works … but keep refining your approach as you learn from others. You owe it to the species.

10. Quora. It’s one-stop shopping! Be aware of what’s on Quora, and you’ll be a big step closer to mastering everything else..

Here’s another:

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton)

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie

Robert Frost – “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

arrêtez de ramer, tu attaques la falaise. (You can stop rowing now, you’re on the beach)

It is easy to lose one’s perspective in a mass of details. – Bible Study Fellowship

Failure is but a paragraph in the book of each human life. It is the pages that follow that ultimately define us

Laurence J. Peter – “An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.”

“Racing is Life.  Everything before and after is just waiting.” Steve McQueen from the movie LeMans

Albert Einstein open original article “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former

Joseph Heller -”The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on.”

Sidney J. Harris – “A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.”

Abba Eban-”History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”

When you win, say nothing, when you lose, say less. -Paul Brown

You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them. -Michael Jordan

Every game is an opportunity to measure yourself against your own potential. -Bud Wilkinson

Excellence is not a singular act but a habit. You are what you do repeatedly. -Shaquille O’Neal

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Winston Churchill, as quoted in The New American Newspeak Dictionary (2005) by Adrian Krieg, p. 96

 Rudeness is a weak person’s imitation of strength

Oscar Wilde

“What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Losers quit when they’re tired. Winners quit when they’ve won

370H-SSV-0773H  – read upside down

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race [is] not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so [are] the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.– Ecclesiastes 9:11,12 –

“Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.”  – John Kenneth Galbraith

If guns kill people, then pens misspell words, cars make people drive drunk, forks make you fat, and TVs make you watch porn.

Listen to people.  If they are worth talking to, they are worth listening to first.

You can’t change what happens to you in life.  All you can change is how you deal with it.

I think I’m emotionally constipated because I haven’t given a Rats Rump in days.

Liberalism: Moochers electing looters to steal from producers

Political Correctness -  A term used by whiny wussies that need stuff sugar coated

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” -Albert Einstein

“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.” Abraham Lincoln

• “This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.” Elmer Davis
• “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.”  John F. Kennedy
• “Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I’m not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be.”  John Wayne
• “We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.” Richard Nixon
• “There is no limit to the greatness of America!” George W. Bush
• “Liberals become indignant when you question their patriotism, but simultaneously work overtime to give terrorists a cushion for the next attack and laugh at dumb Americans who love their country and hate the enemy.” Ann Coulter
• “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” Nathan Hale
• “Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.” Adlai E. Stevenson
• “One, if you attack my integrity, I will defend myself. If you attack my patriotism, I will defend myself. If you come after my family, I will counter-attack viciously, I will destroy you.” Scott Ritter
• “The American patriots of today continue the tradition of the long line of patriots before them, by helping to promote liberty and freedom around the world.” John Linder
• “Patriotism is easy to understand in America. It means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.” Calvin Coolidge
• “This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.” Theodore Roosevelt
• “You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world…. We are not a nation, so much as a world.” Herman Melville

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within – Ariel Durant

“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.”  – George Eliot

“Never judge a book by its movie.”

“Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side.”