Screen: Adult Swim
Ask A Billionaire Playboy/CEO
Quite a get for Careers Week: Xander Crews of Crews Enterprises (as seen in the docuseries Frisky Dingo) answers your work-related questions.
I'm the youngest employee in my office by quite a few years, which has meant that whenever any question arises about a technology that dates from later than the first Reagan administration, everyone automatically turns to me for guidance. This is fine when it's something simple, like showing one of the partners how to attach a photo to an email, but their sketchy understanding of the hardware, software, and platforms that are in common use these days means that they sometimes ask me to do things that are literally not possible. I want to maintain the impression that I'm resourceful and indispensable, and I also don't want to put them off in ways that might shine a spotlight on their ignorance. Do you have any strategies for how to walk this tightrope?
- Fiona
You sound like a real know-it-all. First of all. Maybe you should think about whether the kinds of things your managers are asking you to do seem impossible are just so impossibly awesome and you're just not up to the challenge. I hear stuff like this all the time even though I have the resources to make pretty much all of my dreams come true. Like, when I was a kid I dreamed of having a whole island just for my model trains. Guess where I spent last Memorial Day? Train Island. Boosh. And yet some of the people (Stan) who work for me (Stan) -- and notice that I said "work for me," and if you did, can you tell Stan, because I think sometimes he forgets who's the boss of who here -- treat my perfectly reasonable requests as though they were coming from a brain-damaged gibbon. "You can't make a Facebook page that smells like cookies." "You can't close a customer's bank account just because her name makes her sound ugly." "You can't fax glitter." Well, not with that attitude! Anyway, my advice is figure it out. Your bosses sound like cool dudes with a lot of innovative ideas.
Due to the ongoing treatment of my pet rabbit's uterine cancer, I have already used up all my personal days this year. Unfortunately, both my parents were recently killed in an accident and I will need to be very available to my surviving family members during the funeral. My manager says that the company doesn't recognize bereavement as a separate event and is saying that in order to plan and attend the funeral, I will have to use my vacation days -- but I think the issue is that she doesn't believe the story of my pet's illness, nor that both my parents died at the same time. Should I take this question over her head? I'm planning to go to Ibiza this year and I really don't want to have to shorten my trip.
- Lance
Lance, are you trying to piss me off by reminding me of my murdered parents, who were murdered? Whether or not that was your intention, that's sure as shit what you did! That said, it sounds like your manager's being a real B. If I were you-- I mean, I never would be you, because I'm impossibly rich. I could take a whole year off from my "job" and nothing would happen. You know how many vacation days I've accrued? Like a thousand. And I don't even do any "work," per se; if I'm in my gigantic office, I'm probably hassling Stan or watching porn. Sometimes both at the same time. Thank you, profit cycle! But if I had to pretend to be you for two seconds, leaving aside the fact that it's horrible, what even do you need a job for now? Didn't your dead father leave you a billion-dollar corporation you can just go ahead and take over? Do that.
I know that the question of unpaid internships is being hotly debated at the moment, so I wanted to get your advice about my situation. Straight out of college, I took an unpaid internship with a large corporation that has holdings in a lot of different industries -- media, finance, health insurance, and I think possibly chemical weaponry. Recently, my manager told me that I could earn a small honorarium if I would volunteer to participate in some medical testing that the company was conducting, in kind of a top-secret, non-FDA-approved context. Long story short, I'm now a crab/human hybrid, and no one seems to be that sure if the "human" part of the equation is eventually going to be taken over by the crab part. My question is, should I just keep my eye stalks down and carry on in my position in the hope that the scientists who developed this serum are probably also working on a cure, or should I risk my internship by filing an OSHA claim? - Watley
I wish I could help you, but you are all fucked up.