If you’re not thinking about how to manipulate your children

every single moment, you’re not really parenting.

If you do something and you feel guilty about it,

next time tell your children not to do it.

A Middle Manager Is Inspired after Watching the Film Version of 300

I will hold out. I will stand my ground. No matter the forces arrayed against me…. It’s will and courage. That’s what it takes. I have will. I have courage. I am a man. I will stay at my desk. No matter the urgency, no matter the pain, I will not retreat to the urinal. […]

A Life Examined

A Middle Manager Describes How He Likes to Cut Loose

If you don’t have a problem with dizziness, you can spin around in your chair. I get dizzy, though.

A Life Examined

A Middle Manager on the Art of Getting Ahead

When the CEO calls an all-staff meeting, the most important thing to remember is to get a seat on the aisle. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself trapped in the midst of all those people, all those bodies, all those intestines slowly digesting sausage, egg, and biscuit breakfasts. Before you know it, you’re being buffeted in a […]

A Life Examined

A Middle Manager on His Craft

There’s great power in apology, if you know how to do it right, and I am a master apologizer. The trick is to make the other person feel so powerful, so vindicated, so right in every way that they no longer care about whatever you did. Say your boss is mad because you lost a […]

A Life Examined

True Things I Shouldn’t Have Said Anyway

KID: Mommy, it smells. WIFE: Shh, sweetie. ME: Why should she shush? It was her cousin who pulled Uncle Mike’s finger.

A Life Examined

True Things I Shouldn’t Have Said Anyway

KID: I’m so sad. Tracey didn’t invite me to her party. I can’t go on. WIFE: I know it feels bad. When you get older, sweetie, you’ll see that these things pass. You’ll feel better. ME: Or you’ll get depressed like Daddy and just not care about anything.

A Life Examined

True Things I Shouldn’t Have Said Anyway

KID: I’m scared. I think there’s a monster in my room. WIFE: Oh, sweetie. You know it’s just your imagination. You can go back to sleep. ME: That’s right. There are no monsters. When people use the word monster for murderers, rapists, people who steal or break into your house, or just people who really […]

A Life Examined