Doormats and other such species...

              Now we all know someone or the other of this disposition, this breed of spineless yellow idiots, desperate to please anyone who cares enough to glance their way, this hopeless breed of what now passes as people are characterised by foot-prints stamped all over from being stepped on all-day(not to be confused with pushovers). Their eyes have that glassy, helpless stare popularized by the last American president George W. Bush jr . This breed which has always been in excess has become even more common since the advent of management as a topic for education.
               For years I’ve tried to pick up a management book and read from cover to cover, I’ve set challenges for myself, bribed myself, but to no avail. I’m usually reduced to helpless rolling fits of laughter by page 10. See , these books tell you that to be in anyway successful in today’s world you have to become a doormat, you have to let you boss wipe their feet on you, that you have to submit to their every whim. To succeed in any way you must check in your intellect, common sense, self respect and anything else that differentiates you from a machine at the entrance to your office in the morning when you enter, better yet leave it at home or in your car.
              We’ve all heard the common saying ’you can fool some people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time’, yet this doesn’t hold good in the case of management, they’ve convinced almost everyone, leave a few cynics that being stepped on is a good thing and it’s just the thing that god put us on his fair green earth for, how they did this was at first a mystery. I succeeded in clearing this mystery up by reading the backs of ten or so books and I can tell you its absolutely ingenious.
             This is the general method that’s used to convince the dumb hoards, the author picks up some culture  who’s people were renowned for their valour, honour, nobility or some other desirable quality, or some general, a war hero, Indian king, African tribal chief and recounts their tales which obviously tweaks your interests because to be honest we’ve all had those moments when we look in the mirror and imagine ourselves to be one of those larger than life heroes, the author then dresses you up as the corner office samurai which is indeed desirable and rather hot, and then they draw connections that make being stepped on a good thing, for example a samurai’s vow of obedience is taken as your vow to listen to your bosses every dim-witted  command no matter whether he’s a manic psychopath with an IQ comparable to the current room temperature.
              Now for the usual sceptics this usually isn’t sufficient and so they hit right at the heart of the matter,”MONEY”. The author then proceeds to pick a rich old guy like the CEO of GM, or Bill gates or the owner of Hughes, etc and then go on to say that these people got where they are by getting stepped on, slobbering  and puckering up every time their boss dropped their pants. No mentions to the fact that these people were indeed brilliant, sharp and great at what they did, that these rich old men got where they are by the sweat of their brows.
              This is usually enough for the weaker sceptics, for levels of scepticism above this you can get compared to anything from a bonsai tree small and power packed to apples and everything in between. Rather insulting wouldn’t you say???
              The contents of these books are of course things that any kid who’s passed in moral studies can tell you. A huge hue and cry is made about obedience, honesty, patience, etc. Things that we do need refreshers about every now and then, but to read a thousand page book that tells you the same things as your kids moral study book is beyond my comprehension. I am of course impressed by the multitude of methods by which this crap is sold despite my roaring laughter.
              For every few doormats there is a foot stool. A footstool is a promoted doormat, put in charge of the other doormats; promotions are given on the basis of many years of dedicated foot cleaning services. Foot stools are supervised by a step ladder, the wall ladder and all other manners of garage items. They are of course under the control of the corner office samurai’s. You may have figured out that as you move along this progression your vicinity to the floor decreases and you’re allowed to bring in a bit of your self-respect instead of leaving it all at the door. Of course a footstool has the added benefit of multiple puckered up doormats to stoke his ego.
             ‘What smart people do when dumb things happen at work’ is one of the titles I ran across, the author of course is a genius, he gets to charge people Rs 665 while getting to insinuate their stupidity and destroying the remaining shreds of dignity. Take my advice, you have a better chance at a promotion if you saved up that money and bought a gun, and asked your boss for a raise while showing off your new holster.