The Happiness Thread

That was meant to be in good spirit. Just yanking your chain is all. Maybe I'll add more smileys in the future? Merry Christmas!

 

Please do, they'll remind me to smile and not take myself too seriously lol.

Cheers,

-Kyle

 

Forgive the gosh awful presentation, but I basically made nabeyaki udon all by myself.

Sure, the market was out of enoki mushrooms. And I didn't have the time nor the skills to make ebi tenpura. And yeah, I totally forgot to add the tofu & egg. And sure, I realised too late I don't have any togarashi to spice it up with.

But it was pretty good.

I'm proud of myself.

 

Close enough; looks good to me. I assume that must be really good when you're sick too. Hope you feel better. And next time around maybe you'll have those extra ingredients to make it perfectly authentic.

Gordon Ramsay would be proud.

 

I have just received a statement from Mr Ramsey's lawyers who'd like to make it clear that he is contractually obliged to call you a wanker, regardless of his personal feelings on the matter.

 

WARNING: spicy memes and vulgar language ahead. If you're easily offended, Mr. Ramsay would like to tell you to "GET OUT!"

 

Man I remember working in kitchens Happy days

 

I'm still pretty stoked that I managed to get As in both classes last semester. Considering I really find geoarchaeology boring, I'm surprised.

I'm also happy that I got two $50 gift cards to Barnes and Noble. Now to figure out what to buy after I buy my Krampus book (not the one by Brom; the one by Michael Doughtery).

 

Congrats on doing well in your classes!

---

Also, I was just mugged by deja vu. Woah. Felt like I entered an alternate timeline.

 

All you gotta' do is come up with some witty ways of putting things that will become memes around the office.

Something like, "RUBBAH, RUBBAH, RUBBAH!"

Or, "You're just running around like a toilet brush."

But yeah, I can imagine that managing people is difficult. My friend's dad said it's like managing adult 5-year-olds. All I know is that if you try to put things nicely and positively, people will try to walk all over you and abuse any leniency. If you say things in a relatively normal tone of voice, they'll call you an asshole.

 

I've found the key is to make people want to impress you. Set high standards, reward those who meet them, reward those who exceed them even more. Encourage competition. Encourage backstabbing and cheating. Encourage heavy drinking after work to cope with the stress. Tell anyone who challenges you that you will kill them with this keyboard the next time they speak to you without invitation. Ask them if they believe you will. Make them answer. Leave their corpse on display as a warning to others.

 

Read Niccolo Machiavelli's "The Prince" and Vlad the Impaler's "The Impaler" and you will also come to these conclusions. I found in my experience with coaching soccer for a U6 team that these management strategies worked very well.

 

That's the best thing about Machiavelli man; they are universally applicable lessons

Just remember; if you must do something bad do it quickly and as savagely as is necessary but make sure it is done for good.

And, perhaps more relevant to management style; it's better to be loved than to be feared, but failing being loved, be feared

 

My old chef just used to burn people with a hot palette knife, but you could also consider administering punishment beatings in the freezer. Tell them you're locking the door and they're going to die in there. See how they react. The one's who escape are the kind of winners you want on your team. The ones who don't, well, at least you'll have something for tomorrow's special. Make the new recruits eat them, then tell them what happened to the last kitchen porter who dropped a fucking lasagne. Laugh.

 

There's a recently declassified OSS manual that taught people in Nazi-occupied Europe techniques to sabotage their workplace without doing anything that was obviously wrong or punishable. Tips include:

1. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible - never less than five.
2. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
3. Misunderstand orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.
4. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
5. Be unreasonable and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
6. Don't order new working' materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.
7. To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.
8. Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.
9. Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.

from The Independent

 

Man I would fucking love to have the job of writing manuals on how to destroy an organisations ability to be effective. That is by far and away my greatest talent. I mean, I'm good at getting the best out of people. I'm way better at getting the worst out of them

 

I've known so many people who do those things that you'd think this was something we all learn in school.

I must've skipped that day.

 

So what you're saying is that we all know one nazi in our workplace?

(Possibly/probably more than one)

 

Nope, these were anti-Nazi tricks.

 

Oh.

That's better.

"Well, yeah, they're inefficient and slow and lack initiative or forethought or the ability to think critically, but we at least know they're not Nazi."

 

^I mean, it's quite a stereotype, but there's a reason why the Germans were known for their efficiency, punctuality, and orderliness.

It was also wartime. So if you wanted to see the Nazis fall, you could do your small part by "accidentally" screwing up at the level of production. But if they realized you were doing it on purpose, you probably wouldn't live to tell about it.

Many of those in concentration camps deliberately created dud artillery shells and the like, so that they could sleep easy at night knowing that a German mortar crew were going to be launching rubber bullets, for all intents and purposes.

Of course, if the war materials ever failed to pass inspection, or if the sabotaging was discovered or traced back to the camp, you can guarantee there'd be Hell to pay.

 

10. Drop bombs on their factories, bridges, rail yards, cities, etc.

Which is what my dad did during the war.

 

It took me long enough but I just bought Oathbringer, book three of The Stormlight Archive.