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 […]

Correctives

Better Misinformation Proposal #135

The Problem: Politics is ugly. It is ugly in spirit and in tone. The endless lying and grasping self-interest is ugly. But it is also, far too often, just plain ugly ugly. Think of those flyers stuck into your doorjamb each evening, like a calling card from the ugly fairy. This ugliness turns people off […]

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.

The Cynic's Notebook

I jerk off

and I vote.

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 […]

Correctives

Down with the Evil, Evil Scientists!

You may have heard about the recent conviction of scientists for not warning the public about an upcoming earthquake. We have discovered other groups of scientists who should be charged with crimes for failing to warn government, citizens, or both, of disaster.

Frontiers of Knowledge

New Way of Calculating GDP Shows Economy Taking Off

A team of researchers from Wye Sprite University has developed a new way to measure economic productivity, which they claim is more “inclusive,” and their measure shows that the economy is growing at a 10% clip, a remarkably fast rate. The research team, composed of two sociologists and a statistician, used what they call “measures […]

A Life Examined