By F&S

Sometimes Monday means confronting the office. And the office is the modern man’s arena. It is where legends are made, where fame is sought and where fortunes abide. Sometimes there is tension in the office, sometimes you are the tension. Sometimes tempers flare. Sometimes daggers are drawn. Sometimes blood flows and livelihoods are lost. Dreams that took twenty years to build are crushed in the lift in two minutes. Aspirations get dashed at boardroom meetings in a flash. For the office is no place for the weak or the merciful.

Here is an unofficial guide to how a man should handle the challenging and difficult situations that the office spews forth…

When you are asked to perform tasks that are not part of your job description

Don’t do it. Because you will do it badly, otherwise, it would have formed part of your job description. And really, why would you want to increase your work load yet you will not be paid for it? Politely but firmly refuse to accept. Defy the urge to kiss ass, say NO.

Approaching Deadline

Deadlines are the torture chambers of the work place. It is the Nyayo House basement rooms or Siberia of the corporate world. That place that you know exists but you’d do anything not to be taken there. There is deadline that looms above you like a dark cloud. The one that was once weeks away but is currently due in days yet you have done three eighths of the work. Then there is deadline that pounds the floor around you. The kind that make you sweat. The kind that makes you want to switch off your cell and disconnect the landline and pull off your internet cable because the boss or the client won’t stop calling or emailing.

To keep yourself away from such pressures, you better finish your work and then wait for the deadline, instead of waiting for the deadline so that you can finish your work. Chunk up your project and do it bit by bit as you wait for the weeks to roll on.

Don’t go mute on your boss or your team mates or your clients. It really pissess them off. Plus, you will look like a coward. Pick their calls, explain the delay and put a rush on the assignment.

If the workload is too much, recruit two or three knowledgeable people from your field (within the office or from outside), let them do the legwork so you can simply fine-tune their output. Just get it done.

When you are invited to a function, event or lunch but you don’t feel like going

Never skip lunch with the boss. Never skip lunch with the partners. Never skip lunch with the client. Always accept invitations to any event that promises to have great conversations, great company, beautiful ladies and some good whiskey. If you are invited to an event that promises to be boring and tedious, show up, be a tiny bit notorious, and then leave.

Eleventh-hour Workload (last minute)

There is a client waiting. You had done your part and finished. Out of nowhere, your supervisor issues new instructions, leaving you with this new pile of work at the last minute. First off, find out if that new work load is actually crucial to the project. Sometimes supervisors panic or they want to please the client too much (not a bad thing really, except when the pain of it falls on you). So confirm if it has to be done, then do it.

If it was supposed to be done by someone else in the team and they failed to deliver or they did a bad job that you have to re-do, find out who they are. After you’ve done the work, go cause them grief. Tell them to pull their weight or create room for someone else.

Don’t bitch about last minute assignments. Unless it becomes a routine. If this becomes the case, smile at the supervisor or boss and tell him/her that you’d like that manner of operation to stop.

Dealing with the irrational and impossible co-worker

Blank this guy. Or lady. Blanking is when you completely and deliberately refuse to acknowledge the presence or existence of someone. Eventually they’ll get the message and stop being difficult and stupid. That’s one route. Works when you don’t have to work on assignments with this person daily. The other route is being the bigger man. Rise above the fray or rather above his or her nonsense.

When the promotion or pay rise is not happening

Wait to be promoted organically. This normally works for those who don’t want to be promoted. Because they get promoted after 7 years. You, no way. Ask for a promotion. The best kind of intelligence is one that targets and predicts the future. Be certain about where the company is heading, take yourself there before everyone else. Assess your value to the company and to your supervisor or team leader, possibly they don’t give a hoot about you. Know your worth in very realistic terms- your deliverables and value.

Once you are sure, ask. Go for the corner office, or the office with a secretary or if it is the pay rise, quote a number that captures their attention.

The argument with a colleague

You go to the office to work. Just do that, will you? Men don’t argue. You disagree on things, talk them through and get on with work. Acknowledge when you are wrong. Make your case when you are right. When you are dealing with a petty/ silly co-worker or the boss, apologize when you are right and have a drink with them after work.

You are in a romantic relationship with a colleague (and it ends)

The office is no place for romantic relationships. To deliberately start one shows poor judgment. However, should you find yourself in one, be a man and quit- go work for a different company. If you are still reading, it means you have decided not to quit. Well then, keep your affair at sub-zero temperatures until after office hours then you can warm it up. Be ready to walk through water cooler gossip.

If the relationship ends, take civility classes.

When a co-worker or superior makes an inappropriate sexual advance

If she is not your kind of beautiful, buy her a nice sweater, then privately and politely tell her NO thank you. Or if she is your kind of beautiful, take her up on it, go get laid and shut up about it like it never happened. If she is your boss, don’t do it if your sex game is weak- she will disrespect you (and ladies don’t know how to hide this kind of disrespect, add power to it and you are doomed). But if you are confident about your game, get laid discreetly and shut up about it. She won’t talk about it, too much to lose.

When a saboteur is working against you in the office

If there is no one trying to undermine your work in the office then there is probably nothing that you are doing in there. Resign and find something better to do. If you are doing a good job, there will always be some hyper competitive co-worker, or some people higher up or down below trying to undermine your work, or inching in on your turf or deliberately derailing your progress. Lobbyists, cops, account executives, lawyers, journalists and salespeople are you here… Think Luis Litt in the TV series Suits.

Now that we’ve ascertained that you are good at your job, keep being good at it, let your results/ output do the fighting. It is safe to say your saboteur is a jealous wannabe. They will tire when they see that you keep winning. If they don’t stop, give them something to do; seriously, fight back. Wreck their accounts, cause trouble with their clients and if possible, slam them against the wall in the office washroom. There is no taking of the high road when dealing with an office saboteur. Do all these while ensuring that your job is secure.

Should you or should you not take part in that office protest?

When you read about industrial strikes, most people think that it is only doctors, Kenya Airways workers, nurses, teachers and South African coal miners who engage strikes. That’s one way to look at it. The way F&S sees it is that all men must protest against their employer at one time or the other. It does not matter which field you work in. There will be a day, a week, or a month when you will be forced to take a stand against the company you work for.

It could be the silent go-slow of police officers jamming the radio frequencies of police radios, or the running battles with the police at the loading bays when sailors decide to dump cargo into the ocean or the refusal to take the piecemeal medical cover on offer from the HR department or a rejection of a new system introduced by some hired blue suit consultant-a system whose implementation will destabilize the office work rhythm and sometimes, it is about whether you should or should not work Saturdays… But mostly, it is about bad working conditions and a certain bonus or blanket pay increase that was promised two years before. There will be a time when you have to make a stand, in the office.

A good man takes a stand. A great man takes a stand and loudly lets his stand be known. Understand the grievance objectively, then make your decision based on what is good for you as an individual and as part of a team. Participate objectively-verbally and physically. Malicious protesters destroy property and reputations-like slandering your boss on Twitter. Don’t be that man.