Dave Barry's Money Secrets (4 page)

•                  Result Two:
Younger people pay no attention whatsoever, because, as we have noted, they do not read newspapers.

So, with some older readers canceling their subscriptions, and no young people signing up, the newspaper’s readership, instead of going up, declines still more. This causes great consternation among newspaper executives, who hire more consultants, conduct more surveys, and, above all, hold many lengthy “brainstorming” sessions around large hardwood conference tables.

It is there that the newspaper executives, their brains shriveled to the size of quarks by Furniture Induced Brain Shrinkage, come up with what they sincerely believe to be a radical new plan for saving the newspaper: They’ll appeal to younger readers! Do more stories on youthful topics! Redesign the paper so it has more graphics, shorter stories! Rub mayonnaise in their hair and sing “I Feel Pretty!”

Actually, I made that last one up, although it would probably do less harm to the newspaper industry than the other “fixes.” Anyway, the newspaper executives barge mindlessly ahead with yet
another
Youth-Oriented Makeover. Like the seventeen previous Youth-Oriented Makeovers, it’s a disaster, leaving the executives no choice but to hire more consultants, conduct more surveys, and once again gather ’round the old conference table, where they come up with a
radical new plan. . . .

OK, you get the point (unless you’re sitting next to office furniture, in which case you’re thinking, “I don’t get it! What’s the point??”). And I don’t mean to pick on the newspaper industry; it just happens to be the one I’m most familiar with. I’m sure you can cite plenty of examples of high-level corporate stupidity in your own industry. Virtually
all
modern businesses are run this way, which is why the primary activity of your modern corporation—far more important than actually making anything—is buying other corporations.

Here’s how it works: Your typical corporation, as we have established, is run by a group of morons sitting around a conference table and making bad decisions. Eventually these decisions cause the corporation to suffer declining profits, or even outright losses. So the executives, instead of reaching the obvious conclusion—namely, that they are incompetent—conclude that
there must be something wrong with their entire industry.

So they decide to buy a corporation in some
other
industry, generally one they know absolutely nothing about. Like, if their company makes brassieres, they might decide they want to own a chain of plumbing-supply stores. Or maybe even—why not?—an auto manufacturer. (“Let’s make an offer on General Motors! I really love that Pontiac Aztek!”)

So Company A buys Company B, only to discover that Company B, which of course is also run by functional morons, is not doing so hot either. So the combined managements of both companies gather together—they need a
really
big conference table for this—and decide that what they need to do, as executives making huge salaries, is fire some workers.

This strikes everybody at the conference table as a fine idea, because (a) workers cost money, and (b) none of them are sitting at the conference table. So they fire some workers and outsource their jobs to Asia. They keep doing this until eventually all the actual work is being done by people in some Third World village who are so happy not to be shoveling yak dung that they will work for an entire month in exchange for a roll of Certs.

Am I exaggerating? Of course I am. Many overseas workers receive only
half
a roll of Certs. But my essential point is true: If you want to make money in a modern corporation, you do
not
want to be a worker. You do not want to know
anything
useful or practical, such as how to make an actual brassiere. You want to be an
executive,
so you can sit around the conference table and make important, high-level, far-reaching strategic decisions with the other morons. In the next chapter, we’ll talk about how you can achieve that goal.

5

HOW TO GET A JOB

The Amazing Power of Oral Sex

A
S WE LEARNED IN THE LAST CHAPTER, your goal is to get a high-paying executive job in a big corporation. Unfortunately, this is not easy: For every good job opening you find, chances are there will be hundreds—even thousands—of people competing against you for it. There is simply no practical way you can kill them all.

But that is no reason to give up hope. Oh, sure, you and I both know, deep down inside, that the other job candidates are smarter and more competent than you. But competence and intelligence aren’t everything. Look at the past ten or eleven presidents of the United States.

No, you
can
get the job, if you take certain steps. Step one is to:

1. Research Your Prospective Employer

When you apply for a job at a corporation, it’s good to have some idea of what the corporation does. Sometimes you can tell by the corporation’s name. For example, General Foods makes foods, General Motors makes motors, General Mills makes mills, General Electric makes electricity, General Dynamics makes dynamics, and so on.

Note:
If the corporation has a mutant name like “Amerisource” or “Accenture,” chances are nobody knows what it does, including the people who work there.

There are other important things you should find out about a corporation you are thinking of working for, such as:

•                  Where, exactly, will you, as an executive, park?

•                  Will you get to use the corporation’s skybox seats? For which games?

•                  What about the play-offs?

•                  Will you have Internet access? This is
very
important: You’ll be spending a lot of time at work, and you will need something to do.

•                  When you call in sick because you need to do something else that day, can you just
say
you’re sick, or do you have to really
sound
sick and provide explicit details of your pretend illness, such as, “I have never seen diarrhea spurt that far.”

•                  How is the corporate cafeteria? Does it have a variety of entrées and a well-maintained salad bar, with the ingredients carefully separated? Or are there always some rogue chickpeas in the low-fat ranch dressing?

•                  What about eating out? Is the corporation located near decent restaurants? Or is it in some rural hellhole where the only off-site cuisine option is a Big Boy?

•                  Are there chickpeas in the Big Boy’s low-fat ranch?

•                  What the hell
are
chickpeas, anyway?

Once you have gathered this information, it’s time to move on to step two of the job-getting process:

2. Prepare Your Resume

Your resume (rhymes with “legume”) is a list of qualifications that you sincerely want your prospective employer to believe you have. Remember that the people who look at your resume will also look at thousands of others, so if you want yours to stand out, it must be brief; it must be compelling; and it must contain a photograph of Angelina Jolie naked. So in preparing your resume, you should follow this format:

STANDARD BUSINESS RESUME FORMAT

Your Name

You can usually obtain this from your driver’s license.

Your Nickname

This should be something that has a positive, businesslike ring to it, such as “The Deal Closer” or “The Profit Maker.” It’s important that you establish a good nickname
before
you start working at the corporation, to prevent your co-workers from giving you a bad one, such as “The Diarrhea Shooter.”

Photograph of Angelina Jolie Naked

If you don’t already have one, ask any teenage male.

Job Objective

This should be a clear description of your career goal, such as: “To obtain a high-paying executive job with a reserved parking spot in, or at least near, the building.”

Qualifications

This is the heart of the modern business resume. This is where we separate the sheep from the chaff. Because it is here, in the qualifications section, where you prove to a prospective employer that you possess the skill and knowledge necessary to string meaningless hyphenated buzzwords together into a sentence fragment lacking a grammatical subject.

Wrong:
“I am a hard worker who gets along well with others.”

Right:
“Results-oriented multitasking hands-on team-building problem-solving take-charge self-starter with enterprise-wide cross-functional productivity-enhancement management-specific capabilities including all phases of conceptualization, implementation, integration, augmentation, allocation, irrigation, fermentation, lactation, plantation, and antidisestablishmentarianism served over field greens with a balsamic vinaigrette.”

Don’t worry if your qualifications sentence fragment does not make a ton of sense; after the first dozen or so buzzwords, your readers, satisfied that you are fluent in corporate bullshit, will bail out of this section and resume taking ganders at Angelina Jolie.

Note: If you think the corporation where you’re trying to get a job does some kind of technical thing, your qualifications should include a statement of your technical qualifications:

Wrong:
I can answer the telephone and operate a stapler.

Right:
Highly proficient in all phases of WURP and FREEMIS hierarchical algorithm cosine protocols, including Version 3.872 of GRIMPL.

Again, you need not worry about whether your technical statement actually means anything. The people reading your resume would never admit that they have no idea what WURP and FREEMIS are; they will simply assume that these are important technical things they should know about, and they will start referring to them in their own reports and memos.

Education

Your goal here is to establish your academic credentials. Be sure to word this very carefully, because you need to make a good impression.

Wrong:
Attended Wayne P. Leeperman College of Refrigeration Arts and Sciences

Right:
Masters of Doctorate Degree in Business Exploitation, Harvard or Yale University

There is a slight risk that somebody might start to become suspicious about your academic credentials, so this is a good point in your resume to include, as a distraction:

A Second Photograph of Angelina Jolie Naked

When you have completed your resume, send it to every employee at your target corporation above the rank of restroom attendant, along with a brief cover letter stating, in a businesslike and professional manner, that you are sincerely interested in obtaining a job and are willing to provide high-quality oral gratification to whoever will give you one.

Of course, I am jesting.*
 
⁷
You just keep sending out your resume, and eventually, if you are persistent, you will receive a call from a top corporate executive—a person in a position to give you the job of your dreams—telling you that he or she will call the police if you don’t stop sending your resume.

But don’t let that stop you! Keep at it, and eventually some executive will want to talk to you, if only to find out if you have any more naked photos of Angelina Jolie. This means it’s time for step three:

3. Prepare for Your Job Interview

Up to this point, you’re just a name on a piece of paper. The interview is your chance to show your prospective employers that you are a real person, with real armpits gushing rivers of real sweat.

You have good reason to be nervous: The impression you make in your interview is absolutely crucial. You must appear confident without being cocky, relaxed without being indifferent, and tall without being short.

Your appearance is extremely important. Avoid common fashion “no-nos” such as showing up for an interview with twigs in your hair or a large albino python around your neck. Cover any visible tattoos with bandages or spray paint. Above all, make sure you are “dressed for success”—which means your clothing must look serious and professional.

Dressing for Success in the Job Interview

SOURCE: Calvin Klein

Photography Credits

But your appearance alone will not get you the job. You must show your interviewers that you will be a “good fit” in the culture of the specific corporation. Look for subtle ways to let your interviewers know that you have things in common with them, such as: “Nice to meet you! I, too, am a white person!” (Note: Depending on the interviewers, you should substitute “African-American,” “Hispanic,” “Native American,” “person of some kind of Asiatic extraction,” or “carbon-based life-form.”)

It’s also very important to demonstrate that you have a good sense of humor, as we see by the following verbatim transcript of an actual interview with a top New York investment banking firm:

INTERVIEWER:
I see by your resume that you are proficient in both WURP and FREEMIS. Can you tell us about that?

YOU:
Certainly. But first . . . ROO ROO!

INTERVIEWER:
Ha ha! I love that joke! You are hired right on the spot.*
 
⁸

Be alert during the interview for “trap questions.” These are questions that an interviewer asks to trick you into saying something negative about yourself.

Examples of “Trap Questions”

WHY DID YOU LEAVE YOUR LAST JOB?

Good Answer: I felt that I had accomplished all I could and was looking for a more challenging environment where I could make an effective contribution.

Bad Answer: The arson investigation was getting too close.

HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO CRITICISM FROM SUPERIORS?

Good Answer: I view it as a chance to improve myself by learning from those with more wisdom and experience.

Bad Answer: If they’re so superior, how come they can’t figure out who killed their dog?

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS YOUR BIGGEST WEAKNESS?

Good Answer: Sometimes I get so involved in my job that I tend to neglect my personal life.

Bad Answer: Heroin.

DESCRIBE A JOB-RELATED SITUATION THAT, IN
RETRO-SPECT, YOU WISH YOU HAD HANDLED DIFFERENTLY.

Good Answer: Late one Friday night, in an effort to make sure I had reviewed every possible detail on a project that was important to my superiors, I fell asleep at my desk, which was unprofessional. I should have simply taken the project home and worked on it over the weekend.

Bad Answer: There was really no need to shoot that second bank guard.

Make sure to get the names of all the people you talk to, so that after your interview you can keep yourself fresh in their minds by writing them follow-up letters, phoning them, e-mailing them, and visiting them at home on weekends to remark on what a nice dog they have. Don’t give up! Remember: In any large organization, the person who gets ahead is not necessarily the person who works the hardest or does the best job; it’s the person who consistently displays the perseverance, assertiveness, and aggressiveness of the true leader.*
 
⁹
You
can
be that leader.