Dead man walking

Office anthropology™ →Go uptown This one’s on me. The JC puts on his pith-helmet, grabs his butterfly net and a rucksack full of marmalade sandwiches, and heads into the concrete jungleIndex: Click ᐅ to expand: Work anthropology Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

“Greater love hath no legal eagle than this, than by leaving she may lay down her reputation for her colleagues.”

—St. John of the Survivors

A departing colleague presents a wealth of advancement opportunities to remaining inmates, but none more valuable than the stuffed mannikin she represents. This enables her colleagues to step around open manholes and drop her lifeless reputation down them instead of falling down them themselves.

There is a window of at least six months, but enterprising survivors can stretch it to eighteen, in which any misfortune, any delay, screw-up or dissatisfaction can be laid at the door of the “chaos” left behind by the “defector”.

Thus, the periodic departure is the kindest gift you can give. Paradoxically, the more indolent the employee and therefore the better shot of them you are, the less scope is there for such dead-horse floggery, since every one knows, that useless parasite wasn’t energetic enough to properly screw anything up.