by Dave Barry
Once you have gathered this information, it’s time to move on to step two of the job-getting process:
2. Prepare Your Resume
Your resume (rhymes with “legume”) is a list of qualifications that you sincerely want your prospective employer to believe you have. Remember that the people who look at your resume will also look at thousands of others, so if you want yours to stand out, it must be brief; it must be compelling; and it must contain a photograph of Angelina Jolie naked. So in preparing your resume, you should follow this format:
STANDARD BUSINESS RESUME FORMAT
Your Name
You can usually obtain this from your driver’s license.
Your Nickname
This should be something that has a positive, businesslike ring to it, such as “The Deal Closer” or “The Profit Maker.” It’s important that you establish a good nickname before you start working at the corporation, to prevent your co-workers from giving you a bad one, such as “The Diarrhea Shooter.”
Photograph of Angelina Jolie Naked
If you don’t already have one, ask any teenage male.
Job Objective
This should be a clear description of your career goal, such as: “To obtain a high-paying executive job with a reserved parking spot in, or at least near, the building.”
Qualifications
This is the heart of the modern business resume. This is where we separate the sheep from the chaff. Because it is here, in the qualifications section, where you prove to a prospective employer that you possess the skill and knowledge necessary to string meaningless hyphenated buzzwords together into a sentence fragment lacking a grammatical subject.
Wrong: “I am a hard worker who gets along well with others.”
Right: “Results-oriented multitasking hands-on team-building problem-solving take-charge self-starter with enterprise-wide cross-functional productivity-enhancement management-specific capabilities including all phases of conceptualization, implementation, integration, augmentation, allocation, irrigation, fermentation, lactation, plantation, and antidisestablishmentarianism served over field greens with a balsamic vinaigrette.”
Don’t worry if your qualifications sentence fragment does not make a ton of sense; after the first dozen or so buzzwords, your readers, satisfied that you are fluent in corporate bullshit, will bail out of this section and resume taking ganders at Angelina Jolie.
Note: If you think the corporation where you’re trying to get a job does some kind of technical thing, your qualifications should include a statement of your technical qualifications:
Wrong: I can answer the telephone and operate a stapler.
Right: Highly proficient in all phases of WURP and FREEMIS hierarchical algorithm cosine protocols, including Version 3.872 of GRIMPL.
Again, you need not worry about whether your technical statement actually means anything. The people reading your resume would never admit that they have no idea what WURP and FREEMIS are; they will simply assume that these are important technical things they should know about, and they will start referring to them in their own reports and memos.
Education
Your goal here is to establish your academic credentials. Be sure to word this very carefully, because you need to make a good impression.
Wrong: Attended Wayne P. Leeperman College of Refrigeration Arts and Sciences
Right: Masters of Doctorate Degree in Business Exploitation, Harvard or Yale University
There is a slight risk that somebody might start to become suspicious about your academic credentials, so this is a good point in your resume to include, as a distraction:
A Second Photograph of Angelina Jolie Naked
When you have completed your resume, send it to every employee at your target corporation above the rank of restroom attendant, along with a brief cover letter stating, in a businesslike and professional manner, that you are sincerely interested in obtaining a job and are willing to provide high-quality oral gratification to whoever will give you one.
Of course, I am jesting.* 7 You just keep sending out your resume, and eventually, if you are persistent, you will receive a call from a top corporate executive—a person in a position to give you the job of your dreams—telling you that he or she will call the police if you don’t stop sending your resume.
But don’t let that stop you! Keep at it, and eventually some executive will want to talk to you, if only to find out if you have any more naked photos of Angelina Jolie. This means it’s time for step three:
3. Prepare for Your Job Interview
Up to this point, you’re just a name on a piece of paper. The interview is your chance to show your prospective employers that you are a real person, with real armpits gushing rivers of real sweat.
You have good reason to be nervous: The impression you make in your interview is absolutely crucial. You must appear confident without being cocky, relaxed without being indifferent, and tall without being short.
Your appearance is extremely important. Avoid common fashion “no-nos” such as showing up for an interview with twigs in your hair or a large albino python around your neck. Cover any visible tattoos with bandages or spray paint. Above all, make sure you are “dressed for success”—which means your clothing must look serious and professional.
Dressing for Success in the Job Interview
SOURCE: Calvin Klein
Photography Credits
But your appearance alone will not get you the job. You must show your interviewers that you will be a “good fit” in the culture of the specific corporation. Look for subtle ways to let your interviewers know that you have things in common with them, such as: “Nice to meet you! I, too, am a white person!” (Note: Depending on the interviewers, you should substitute “African-American,” “Hispanic,” “Native American,” “person of some kind of Asiatic extraction,” or “carbon-based life-form.”)
It’s also very important to demonstrate that you have a good sense of humor, as we see by the following verbatim transcript of an actual interview with a top New York investment banking firm:
INTERVIEWER: I see by your resume that you are proficient in both WURP and FREEMIS. Can you tell us about that?
YOU: Certainly. But first . . . ROO ROO!
INTERVIEWER: Ha ha! I love that joke! You are hired right on the spot.* 8
Be alert during the interview for “trap questions.” These are questions that an interviewer asks to trick you into saying something negative about yourself.
Examples of “Trap Questions”
WHY DID YOU LEAVE YOUR LAST JOB?
Good Answer: I felt that I had accomplished all I could and was looking for a more challenging environment where I could make an effective contribution.
Bad Answer: The arson investigation was getting too close.
HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO CRITICISM FROM SUPERIORS?
Good Answer: I view it as a chance to improve myself by learning from those with more wisdom and experience.
Bad Answer: If they’re so superior, how come they can’t figure out who killed their dog?
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS YOUR BIGGEST WEAKNESS?
Good Answer: Sometimes I get so involved in my job that I tend to neglect my personal life.
Bad Answer: Heroin.
DESCRIBE A JOB-RELATED SITUATION THAT, IN RETRO-SPECT, YOU WISH YOU HAD HANDLED DIFFERENTLY.
Good Answer: Late one Friday night, in an effort to make sure I had reviewed every possible detail on a project that was important to my superiors, I fell asleep at my desk, which was unprofessional. I should have simply taken the project home and worked on it over the weekend.
Bad Answer: There was really no need to shoot that second bank guard.
Make sure to get the names of all the people you talk to, so that after your interview you can keep yourself fresh in their minds by writing them follow-up letters, phoning them, e-mailing them, and visiting them at home on weekends to remark on what a nice dog they have. Don’
t give up! Remember: In any large organization, the person who gets ahead is not necessarily the person who works the hardest or does the best job; it’s the person who consistently displays the perseverance, assertiveness, and aggressiveness of the true leader.* 9 You can be that leader.
6
ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR CORPORATE CEOS
Beware the Penis That Squirts Vodka
WHEN YOU’RE THE CEO of a major corporation, you get a lot of perks—a huge salary, generous stock options, a big office, a corporate jet ready to whisk you to exclusive golf resorts, and a staff of lackeys to take your shirts to the laundry, wash your luxury car, clip your nasal hairs, and do all the other things that you, as a busy CEO, do not have time to do.
But with these benefits come the responsibilities of being a leader. Which specific exclusive golf resort should the corporate jet whisk you to? Do you want starch in your shirts? How much starch? Only you, as CEO, can make these decisions.
Also from time to time you might have to become involved in the running of the corporation per se. You must be very cautious here, because in recent years the authorities have become quite picky about enforcing rules that prohibit corporate executives from lying and stealing vast quantities of money. In a few cases, corporate executives have actually been convicted and sent to federal prisons, some of which have only the most rudimentary tennis courts.
You don’t want anything that horrible to happen to you. So, if you become CEO, make sure you follow these ethical guidelines:
GUIDELINE NUMBER ONE: Keep your salary within reasonable limits.
More and more, the salaries of corporate CEOs are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as being out of line with the salaries of the, whaddyacallem, workers. So you want to make sure that, as CEO, your salary falls within reasonable limits. What do I mean by “within reasonable limits”? I mean “roughly 3,000 times as much as you pay a janitor.”
If you don’t know how much a janitor makes at your corporation, go to an employee bathroom and ask one. (If you don’t know where the employee bathrooms are, ask one of your staff people.) Let’s say the janitor tells you he makes $11,500 a year. Now, using a calculator (if you don’t know how to operate a calculator, ask one of your staff people), simply multiply 11,500 times 3,000 to obtain your target salary, which in this case would be $34,500,000, or, rounding upward for bookkeeping convenience, $40 million.
Of course you may find that this is not enough. You may have a financial emergency, such as you’re playing golf at an exclusive resort with another CEO and you find out that he makes more than $40 million a year. In this case, you have no choice but to increase your salary. But in order to do that and still remain within the ethical guidelines, you will need to increase the average salary of your janitors by one 3,000th of the amount of the raise you need (ask one of your staff people to figure out the exact numbers). Be advised that raising all these salaries might hurt your corporation’s “bottom line.” If so, you may have to compensate by firing some janitors. That won’t be an easy decision to make, but that’s why you, as CEO, make the big bucks.
GUIDELINE NUMBER TWO: If you use your corporation’s money to pay for half of a lavish $2 million birthday party for your wife on the island of Sardinia, featuring, among many other lavish things, an ice statue of Michelangelo’s David with vodka squirting out of its penis, for God’s sake do not make a video of it.
This was the mistake made by Dennis Kozlowski, who threw just such a party when he was CEO of Tyco. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Dennis also allegedly used company money to buy a shower curtain that cost $6,000 and a dog-shaped designer umbrella stand that cost $15,000. Dennis wound up getting into trouble, and a jury was shown a videotape of the party he threw for his wife. The defense claimed that the party was a legitimate business expense, which I am sure it was, based on this image from the video:
I mean, if those people are not conducting legitimate business, I would like to know exactly what the hell they are doing.
Unfortunately, if you wind up going to trial, you will be judged by a jury of ordinary lowlife non-CEO people who do not understand sophisticated business matters and, in many cases, have never spent so much as $1,000 for an umbrella stand. Yes, it is unfair. But that is the price we pay for living in a democracy.
GUIDELINE NUMBER THREE: Whatever else you do as Chief Executive Officer of the corporation, do not—repeat, do NOT—allow yourself to come into the possession of any information regarding specifically how the corporation works.
This is very, very important. Because if the authorities decide that your corporation is doing bad things, they are going to try to hold somebody responsible, and often—unfair as it seems—they go after the person running the corporation. A chilling example is the case of Bernard “Bernie” Ebbers, who was CEO of WorldCom, a large corporation that got into a legal kerfuffle over some accounting hanky-panky involving, give or take, $11 billion. When Bernie went to trial, his defense, basically, was that he did not know what was going on inside the corporation. Oh, sure, he was the CEO and everything, and he was being paid many millions of dollars plus stock options, but as far as what WorldCom was actually doing, accounting-wise, Bernie was not in the loop. The defense did not come right out and use the phrase “total moron,” but that was the gist of it.
Unfortunately for Bernie, the jury did not buy this defense. The jury apparently believed that somehow, in the course of being in charge of WorldCom, Bernie must have picked up some whiff of what was going on there. This is why it is so vitally important that, as CEO, you never, ever allow yourself to learn any details about your corporation. If you go to a meeting, and some corporate executives start talking about corporate business, put your hands over your ears and go, “LA LA LA LA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”* 10
7
PROVIDING FOR MEDICAL CARE
You’ll Need Some Leeches
IF YOU’RE LIKE MOST AMERICANS, your biggest single fear is that you’ll become injured or seriously ill and have to be admitted to a hospital, where a psychopath posing as a nurse will sneak into your room one night, inject you with a paralyzing drug, and, while you’re still fully conscious, remove both your eyeballs with a shrimp fork.* 11 But coming in a close second is the fear of being unable to pay the medical bills.
Yes, medical care has become hideously expensive in this country. Go to any American hospital today to have even minor surgery such as removal of your tonsils, and you’re looking at a minimum cost of $13,000. And that’s just for parking.* 12 The actual procedure will cost you way more.
Why is medical care so expensive? There is no one simple answer to this question, by which I mean: lawyers.
I’m not talking about all lawyers, of course. There are plenty of good ones, such as . . . OK, Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer, right? He was pretty good. Also Raymond Burr. But the rest of them are scum.
This is especially true of the lawyers who make daytime-television commercials like this:
(WE SEE A LAWYER, WEARING A SUIT AND TIE, LEANING AGAINST A DESK IN AN OFFICE. BEHIND HIM IS A SHELF FILLED WITH BOOKS.)
LAWYER: I’m Bernard Tortmonger of Tortmonger Legal Associates Legally Practicing Law. Are you in pain? Of course you are. Why else would you be watching daytime television? You’re in pain, and that means somebody is responsible, and that means you need to SUE THEIR ASS.
(“1-800-SUE-THEIR-ASS” IS SUPERIMPOSED ON THE SCREEN.)
LAWYER: Every day, we at Tortmonger Associates help people just like you get the money they have coming to them.
(WE SEE A VIDEO CLIP OF A MAN WEARING A NECK BRACE.)
MAN: I had no idea I had money coming to me. I was actually trying to call a phone-sex number and by mistake dialed Tortmonger Associates. They explained to me that I was in pain and helped me file a lawsuit. I won $600,000! Of course the Tortmonger Associates fee, plus standard legal expenses such as stapling, came to a total of $598,500. But I did get to keep this neck brace. Thanks, Tortmonger Associa
tes!
LAWYER: You, too, have money coming, and Tortmonger Associates will fight to get it for you. We will kill for you if necessary, using our extensive knowledge of the law.
(HE GESTURES TO THE BOOKS BEHIND HIM, WHICH ARE ACTUALLY A COMPLETE SET OF THE 1953 ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA.)
LAWYER: Although legal ethics prohibit me from making any promises about the outcome of your particular case, you will definitely win a huge amount of money. So call 1-800-SUE-THEIR-ASS now and let the experts at Tortmonger Associates help you decide exactly how much pain you are in. Remember: If you don’t call, giant bats will suck out your blood. This must be true because it’s on TV. Thank you.
Of course, the actual lawyer ads shown on television are not as subtle as this, but you get the idea. These ads are on all the time, the result being that Americans today are quick to sue their doctors for pretty much every bad medical thing that happens to them, including having to read an outdated issue of Redbook in the waiting room.
This has caused doctors to practice “defensive medicine,” which means that to avoid getting sued, they often prescribe tests and procedures that are not clearly called for:
DOCTOR: OK, I want this patient to have an X-ray, sonogram, electrocardiogram, CAT scan, complete blood workup, lung biopsy, endoscopy, bronchoscopy, and extreme Roto-Rooter colonoscopy.
NURSE: He’s not a patient. He’s here to fix the phones.
DOCTOR: Then we’ll also do a spinal tap.
So even a routine doctor visit can become very expensive. This is why you need medical insurance. The way it works is, every month, you or your employer sends money to an insurance company. Then, when you need expensive medical treatment, you notify the insurance company, which in turn notifies you that your treatment is not covered, or is only partially covered, as we see on this chart: