• Advancement opportunity: Horrible job.
• Entry level: Really horrible job.
• No experience necessary: The mother of all horrible jobs.
• Administrative assistant: Horrible job with a title.
• Ground floor opportunity: horrible job with a company that will file bankruptcy within a year.
• Progressive company: Employees get to wear jeans every other Friday.
• Team player: Must deal with dangerously territorial co-workers with rabid personalities.
• Upbeat personality: Must neither threaten us with any kind of lawsuit nor use the drug & alcohol rehab benefit within the first year.
• Word processing skills essential: There's a crippling case of carpal tunnel syndrome in your future.
• Public relations: Receptionist
• Professional appearance important: $20K/yr job that requires a $100K/yr wardrobe
• Pleasant telephone manner: Be the voice of 1-900-HOT-TIME
• Salary range $24,000 to $32,000: The salary is $24,000
• Jeans job! Minimum wage temp job in concentration camp conditions.
• Will train: Prior conviction of a felony or two no problem.
• B.A. required, master's preferred: Must be an M.A. willing to work on a B.A.'s salary
• Civil service: This job was filled from the inside six months ago.
• Women & minorities encouraged to apply: White males need not waste the stamp.
• Outstanding benefits package: Health insurance.
• Tons of variety! We took all the heinous tasks no other employee would do & rolled them into one job.
• Top-notch communication skills: Telemarketing
• Beautiful offices in attractive location: Brand new ticky-tacky windowless building where the picture frames all match the carpeting.
• Secretary: Woman-only job with the responsibilities of management & wages of a migrant worker.
• Executive secretary: The most powerful position in the company
• Dedicated: You're looking at a minimum of 80 hours a week from now until we force you into early retirement.
• Salary commensurate: We'll pay you whatever the hell we feel like.
• Salary negotiable: We'll take the lowest bidder.
• Competitive salary: We'll pay you up to 10% more than your last job and not one penny more.
• Competitive starting salary: Ten cents above minimum wage.
• Pleasant atmosphere: A staff of pod people.
• Professional atmosphere: Zombie pod people.
• Fun, creative atmosphere: Pod people from hell.
• Dynamic atmosphere: Zombie pod people from hell.
• Gal Friday: Anyone who actually applies for this job deserves it.
• Self-starter: Open to very broad interpretation since no one really knows what this means.

Ask among your coworkers. "Hi," you should say. "I'm a new employee. What is the name of my job?"

If they answer "long-range planner" or "lieutenant governor," you are pretty much free to lounge around and do crossword puzzles until retirement. Most jobs, however, will require some work.

There are two major kinds of work in modern organizations:

1. Taking phone messages for people who are in meetings, and,

2. Going to meetings.

Your ultimate career strategy will be to get a job involving primarily No. 2, going to meetings, as soon as possible, because that's where the real prestige is. It is all very well and good to be able to take phone messages, but you are never going to get a position of power, a position where you can cost thousands of people their jobs with a single bonehead decision, unless you learn how to attend meetings.

The first meeting ever was held back in the Mezzanine Era. In those days, Man's job was to slay his prey and bring it home for Woman, who had to figure out how to cook it. The problem was, Man was slow and basically naked, whereas the prey had warm fur and could run like an antelope. (In fact it was an antelope, only nobody knew this).

At last someone said, "Maybe if we just sat down and did some brainstorming, we could come up with a better way to hunt our prey!" It went extremely well, plus it was much warmer sitting in a circle, so they agreed to meet again the next day, and the next.

But the women pointed out that, prey-wise, the men had not produced anything, and the human race was pretty much starving. The men agreed that was serious and said they would put it right near the top of their "agenda". At this point, the women, who were primitive but not stupid, started eating plants, and thus modern agriculture was born. It never would have happened without meetings.

The modern business meeting, however, might better be compared with a funeral, in the sense that you have a gathering of people who are wearing uncomfortable clothing and would rather be somewhere else. The major difference is that most funerals have a definite purpose. Also, nothing is really ever buried in a meeting. An idea may look dead, but it will always reappear at another meeting later on.

If you have ever seen the movie, "Night of the Living Dead," you have a rough idea of how modern meetings operate, with projects and proposals that everyone thought were killed rising up constantly from their graves to stagger back into meetings and eat the brains of the living.

There are two major kinds of meetings: 1. Meetings that are held for basically the same reason that Arbor Day is observed - namely, tradition. For example, a lot of managerial people like to meet on Monday, because it's Monday. You'll get used to it. You'd better, because this kind account for 83% of all meetings (based on a study in which I wrote down numbers until one of them looked about right). This type of meeting operates the way "Show and Tell" does in nursery school, with everyone getting to say something, the difference being that in nursery school, the kids actually have something to say.

When it's your turn, you should say that you're still working on whatever it is you're supposed to be working on. This may seem pretty dumb, since obviously you'd be working on whatever you're supposed to be working on, and even if you weren't, you'd claim you were, but that's the traditional thing for everyone to say.

It would be a lot faster if the person running the meeting would just say, "Everyone who is still working on what he or she is supposed to be working on, raise your hand." You'd be out of there in five minutes, even allowing for jokes. But this is not how we do it in America. My guess is, it's how they do it in Japan.

2. Meetings where there is some alleged purpose. These are trickier, because what you do depends on what the purpose is. Sometimes the purpose is harmless, like someone wants to show slides of pie charts and give everyone a big, fat report. All you have to do in this kind of meeting is sit there and have elaborate fantasies, then take the report back to your office and throw it away, unless, of course, you're a vice president, in which case you write the name of a subordinate in the upper right hand corner, followed be a question mark, like this: "Norm?" Then you send it to Norm and forget all about it (although it will plague Norm for the rest of his career).

But sometimes you go to meetings where the purpose is to get your "input" on something. This is very serious because what it means is, they want to make sure that in case whatever it is turns out to be stupid or fatal, you'll get some of the blame, so you have to escape from the meeting before they get around to asking you anything.

One way is to set fire to your tie. Another is to have an accomplice interrupt the meeting and announce that you have a phone call from someone very important, such as the president of the company or the Pope. It should be one or the other. It would a sound fishy if the accomplice said, "You have a call from the president of the company, or the Pope."

You should know how to take notes at a meeting. Use a yellow legal pad. At the top, write the date and underline it twice. Now wait until an important person, such as your boss, starts talking; when he does, look at him with an expression of enraptured interest, as though he is revealing the secrets of life itself. Then write interlocking rectangles like this: (picture of doodled rectangles).

If it is an especially lengthy meeting, you can try something like this (Picture of more elaborate doodles and a caricature of the boss). If somebody falls asleep in a meeting, have everyone else leave the room. Then collect a group of total strangers, right off the street, and have them sit around the sleeping person until he wakes up. Then have one of them say to him, "Bob, your plan is very, very risky. However, you've given us no choice but to try it. I only hope, for your sake, that you know what you're getting yourself into." Then they should file quietly out of the room.

• I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.
• How about never? Is never good for you?
• I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
• I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to worship me.
• I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.
• I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.
• I don't work here. I'm a consultant
• It sounds like English, but I can't understand a word you're saying.
• I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.
• You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
• I have plenty of talent and vision, I just don't give a damn.
• I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
• I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.
• Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
• The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
• Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental
• I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant.
• And your cry-baby whiny-butt opinion would be....?
• Do I look like a people person?
• This isn't an office, It's hell with fluorescent lighting.
• I started out with nothing and still have most of it left.
• Sarcasm is just one more service we offer.
• If I throw a stick, will you leave?
• Errors have been made; others will be blamed.
• Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.
• I'm trying to imagine you with a personality.
• A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.
• Can I trade this job for what's behind door #1?
• Too many freaks, not enough circuses.
• Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?
• CHAOS, PANIC, AND DISORDER -- my work here is done.
• How do I set a laser printer to stun?
• I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks

• Momentum Investing - The fine art of buying high and selling low.
• Value Investing - The art of buying low and selling lower.
• Broker - Poorer than you were in 1999.
• P/E ratio - The percentage of investors wetting their pants as this market keeps crashing.
• Standard & Poor - Your life in a nut shell.
• Stock Analyst - Idiot who just downgraded your stock.
• Bull Market - A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.
• Bear Market - A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry and the husband gets no sex.
• Stock split - When your ex-wife and her lawyer split all your assets equally between themselves.
• Financial Planner - A guy who actually remembers his wallet when he runs to the 7-11 for toilet paper and cigarettes.
• Market Correction - The day after you buy stocks.
• Cash Flow - The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.
• Call Option - Something people used to do with a telephone in ancient times before e-mail.
• Cisco - Side kick of Poncho.
• Yahoo - What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $540 per share.
• Windows 2000 - What you jump out of when you're the sucker that bought Yahoo for $540 per share.
• Institutional Investor - Past year investor who's now locked up in a nut house.

10. Being told to 'Think outside the Box' when you're in a @#$%?*! box all day long.
9. Not being able to check e-mail attachments without turning around to see who's behind you.
8. Fabric cubicle walls do not offer much protection from any kind of gunfire.
7. That nagging feeling that if you press the right button, you'll get a piece of cheese!
6. Lack of roof rafters for the noose.
5. The walls are too close together for the hammock to work right.
4. 23 power cords, 1 outlet.
3. Prison cells are not only bigger, they also have beds.
2. When tours come through, you get lots of peanuts thrown at you.

.... And the Number 1 Drawback to Working in a Cubicle:

1. You can't slam the door when you quit and walk out.

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers? Mechanical Engineers build weapons; Civil Engineers build targets.

Comprehending Engineers -Take Two

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints." Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections." The last said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

Comprehending Engineers -Take Three

"Normal people ... believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet."

Comprehending Engineers -Take Four

An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there. The engineer said, "I like both." "Both?" Engineer: "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and get some work done."

Comprehending Engineers: Take Five

An engineer was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess". He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.

The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want." Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The engineer said, "Look I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a TALKING frog, now that's cool."

• Choosing between buying flowers for your wife and upgrading your RAM is a problem.
• You take a cruise so you can go on a personal tour of the engine room and communications facility.
• In college, you learned Spring Break was metal fatigue failure in a corrosive environment.
• The salespeople at the local computer store don't understand any of your questions.
• At an air show, you know how fast the skydivers are falling.
• For your wife's birthday you gave her a new CD-ROM drive or a Palm Pilot.
• You can type 70 words per minute but you can't read your own handwriting.
• You comment to your wife that her straight hair is nice and parallel.
• You sit backwards on Disney rides so you can see how they do the special effects.
• You have saved every power cord from all your broken appliances.
• You have more friends on the Internet than in real life.
• You know what http <http:/// :// <http:/// stands for.
• You look forward to Christmas so you can put together the kids toys.
• You see a good design, and have to change it.
• You spent more on your calculator than you did on your wedding ring.
• You still own a slide rule and know how to use it.
• You think that people yawning around you are sleep deprived.
• You window shop at Radio Shack.
• Your laptop computer cost more than your car.
• Your wife hasn't the foggiest idea of what you do at work.
• You've already calculated how much you make per second.
• You've tried to repair a $5 radio.

Q: When does a person decide to become an engineer?
A: When he realizes he doesn't have the charisma to be an undertaker.

Q: What do engineers use for birth control?
A: Their personalities.

Q: How can you tell an extroverted engineer?
A: When he talks to you, he looks at your shoes instead of his own.

Q: Why did the engineers cross the road?
A: Because they looked in the file, and that's what they did last year.

Q: How do you drive an engineer completely insane?
A: Tie him to a chair, stand in front of him, and fold up a drawing the wrong way.

I should be in charge, said the brain, because I run all the body's systems, so without me nothing would happen.

I should be in charge; said the blood, because I circulate oxygen all over, so without me you'd all waste away.

I should be in charge, said the stomach, because I process food and give all of you energy.

I should be in charge; said the legs, because I carry the body wherever it needs to go.

I should be in charge; said the eyes, because I allow the body to see where it goes.

I should be in charge, said the rectum, because I'm responsible for waste removal. All the other body parts laughed at the rectum and insulted him, so in a huff, he shut down tight. Within a few days, the brain had a terrible headache, the stomach was bloated, the legs got wobbly, the eyes got watery and the blood was toxic.

They all decided that the rectum should be the boss.

The Moral of the story?

You don't have to be important to be in charge ... just an ass . . ..