41. Avoid Stepping into a Great Man’s Shoes—Eating him instead is really where you want to go with this.
42. Strike the Shepherd, and the Sheep Will Scatter—Zombies have a way of knowing exactly whom to attack. When an isolated military outpost is under siege from the undead, there’s always one zombie who manages to slink away from the horde, crawl through a heating duct, and pop up inside the base just in time to eat the main-commanding-officer-guy’s brain. This creates a power vacuum that allows the zombies on the outside to attack more efficiently and effectively. The same thing goes for chaperones on field trips, guards on prisoner transport convoys, and supervisors at military warehouses. Zombies have a way of sniffing out the ones who keep order, and chowing down on them first. It makes everything that comes after so much easier.
43. Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others—Especially the minds. Those succulent . . . delicious . . . minds.
44. Disarm and Infuriate—Most conventional weapons don’t work effectively against zombies. Usually, removing (or completely destroying) a zombie’s head is the only way to stop it. And what’s more infuriating to a human who is trying to fight a zombie than learning the zombie has effectively “disarmed” you by virtue of being impervious to your rifle? (The circular saw out in the machine shed, however, is another matter. . . .)
45. Espouse “Change,” but Never Actually Do Anything—The extent to which zombies can espouse opinions or hold positions on topical issues may sometimes be called into question. It shouldn’t be. Zombies create a call to political (and often military) action that few politicians have ever been able to muster. By virtue of their very being-in-the-world, zombies always signal “a call for all citizens” to “stop their sectarian bickering” and instead “unite against a common enemy sent from the bowels of hell.” (Or something like that.) Yet for all the strength of this “call,” it is soon clear that all efforts to follow it will be quite bootless. (Zombies are going to win every time, and you know it. But hey, A-for-effort, right?)
46. Never Appear Too Perfect—No one knows about this temptation more than zombies. After all, for something so completely awesome and entirely kick-ass as a zombie, it can be a challenge to stay grounded and relate to the common man. So if a zombie plays up the staggering a little bit, or loses digits or limbs just for effect, know that it’s doing it so you feel better about yourself in comparison.
47. In Victory, Learn When to Stop—Like when all the brains are eaten. That seems like a pretty good time.
48. Assume Formlessness—While some might like to wax romantic and imagine that this law alludes to becoming a powerful force that mysteriously works behind the scenes, zombies know that these words are completely literal. All zombies eventually wear down, shedding skin, organs, and bones. At the end of a long and successful career of hunting humans, a zombie may be little more than a toothless skull and a few wriggling tendons connected by a naked spinal cord. Before long, the zombie may be worn down into literal nothingness. Which is still cool. It had a good run. The point is not to fear the formless nothingness, but to anticipate it as your inevitable reward.
In conclusion, if you want to remember forty-eight laws because it makes you feel like a big man, then sure, go nuts. Whatever. But if you want to actually be powerful, just remember to act like a zombie. It’s a whole lot less work.
Zombies never worry that they don’t “measure up” as a member of the walking dead. They don’t doubt themselves. They don’t envy other zombies that are taller, stronger, or have more limbs than they do. Nope. Zombies only focus on getting ahead (or “getting a head”). They don’t waste time doubting their own abilities or qualifications. This makes all of them “born” leaders, whom humans could stand to emulate.
You see, getting ahead in the business world can be a matter of self-selection. Every year, some employees elect to enroll in management training courses, while others put it off. When new openings a few rungs up the corporate ladder are posted on the HR message board, some employees apply for all of them, some never for a one. What separates these employees from one another—the ambitious, upwardly mobile ones from the workers doomed to spend eternity in the same desk, at the same pay rate, in the same department? The answer is: the employees themselves.
Thus, the real questions become “What are the factors that keep employees from reaching for more?” and “What makes a worker content with less?” Too frequently, it has nothing to do with the capacity of the employee to become an effective manager or leader. Instead, workers are likely to cite personal failings, such as shortcomings in physical appearance or charisma, as reasons why they should wait to seek a higher position within the organization.
Zombie Tip—It makes no sense to negotiate with zombies.
This is obvious to everybody.
These poor souls defeat themselves before any opponent has the chance to.
The trick to overcoming personal doubts that might make you flinch from reaching (aggressively and directly) for the top of the corporate ladder is to remember our friend the zombie.
At first glance, zombies don’t look much like leaders. They rarely wear designer suits or power ties. (Many male corpses are buried wearing ties, but they tend to be on the conservative side, frequently selected by relatives or morticians.) Their personal hygiene and posture are terrible. They are poor at public speaking, and sometimes lack the eyes necessary to make eye contact with subjects whom they are addressing.
When it comes to “inspiring others,” the most you’re likely to get out of a zombie is a moan or a shuffle in the direction of food.
Everywhere a zombie looks, it sees other people who are more attractive, more articulate, and generally more capable than it is. But does that stop a zombie from pursuing its goals? Does a zombie decide to wait until it acculturates and assimilates into the accepted mold of a “leader”? Does it ever think: “I’m too fat to eat that brain,” or “I’m too old,” or “I’m too inexperienced?”
No way.
Zombies get what they want (when they want it) because they never convince themselves that they are somehow “unsuited” or “unworthy” to be leaders. To the contrary, zombies are filled with confidence. (Okay, confidence and maggots, if you want to get all technical about it.)
Zombies don’t only win military engagements through force of numbers and combat awesomeness. Zombies win because their enemies have been reduced to quivering masses of terrified fruit preserves. No one is immune from the terror inspired by zombies. Properly trained and attuned, a zombie army can instill a creeping dread in even the most stalwart of foes.
Fear is important. Fear helps you win. Great generals have always understood the role that fear plays on the battlefield.
As is well documented, the great Genghis Khan liked to send Tibetan throat-singers into battle alongside his troops. Though they provided no additional killing power, the eerie noise they made struck fear into Khan’s opponents who often decided that they were demons. Something as seemingly innocuous as singers helped Khan drive his opponents from the battlefield all the more quickly.
Sometimes military commanders do everything right but still come up short. They play each card correctly, yet (one must say it) fail to achieve their ultimate objectives. History records them as having been middling or ineffective leaders, when, in truth, they could not have possibly done anything more to ensure victory.
It is into this category that one must place American Civil War General Ambrose Burnside. He was a soldier, a leader, a facial-hair pioneer . . . and quite possibly the only Zombie Commander in the Grand Army of the Republic.
Burnside understood the value of attacking the enemy like a horde of zombies and exhibited this in battle after battle. A student of military history will find no finer example of his battlefield acumen on display than Burnside’s operation to take the bridge over Antietam Creek—the so-called Burnside’s Bridge—at the Battle of Antietam.
On September 17, 1862, Burnside, under General G
eorge B. McClellan, engaged Confederate troops at Sharpsburg, Maryland. Antietam Creek ran through tactically important portions of the battlefield, and Burnside was ordered to secure it. To do this, he knew he needed to cross it and secure both sides. Like any good Zombie Commander, Burnside thought to himself: How can I do this in a way that involves my troops just charging straight at the enemy all goddamn day?
Military historians are quick to criticize Burnside for neglecting to deduce that Antietam Creek was only fifty feet across at the widest point and only waist-deep. Further, they note, the Confederate forces did not monitor many sections of the creek. (The inference put forward seems to be that Burnside should have had his soldiers wade across and flank the enemy, or something boring and stupid like that.) These so-called historians fail to notice, however, Burnside’s having been a zombie (which casts any positive estimation of their skill as historians into serious doubt).
No, when looking to take Antietam Creek, Burnside resolved to do it like a zombie. His keen zombie eyes surveyed the battlefield and lit upon the one piece of geography that would make this possible: the single, well-defended, narrow bridge that forded the creek. Here, Burnside understood, was an opportunity to use the terrain to make his soldiers fight like members of the walking dead.
All day, Burnside sent wave after wave of troops over the bridge in conspicuous, zombielike fashion. Yet, as the battle drew on (with what appeared—to the untrained, nonzombie eye—to be a lack of progress on Burnside’s part) General McClellan began sending dispatches to Burnside. (e.g., “Why haven’t you taken the creek?” “Why are you just marching men, three-abreast, across the bridge again and again, effectively negating your advantage of superior numbers?” “What’s this rumor I hear about you directing our troops to eat the Confederates’ brains?”) Eventually, McClellan lost patience and ordered other brigades to “help” Burnside take the creek by “not just attacking over one tiny goddamn bridge.”
War is too important to be left to the generals: Seriously. Things always go better when they’re handled by a bunch of rotting reanimated corpses who are out to eat some brains. It’s like: Okay Mr. General-guy, you’ve had your say at the press conference. Now let the experts take it from here.
Today, we can only imagine the resounding zombie victory Burnside would have won had his efforts not been curtailed by senior commanders who insisted in meddling with his obviously awesome battle tactics.
While, on the face of it, this support appears to have allowed Burnside to be successful in completing his assigned military objective, it also failed to end the engagement in a decisive, undead fashion. To wit: Though defeated, the Confederates defending the bridge lived to fight another day (as opposed to all being eaten).
The opposing army left the engagement with a lesson running something like: “If the Union troops are being mowed down in wave after wave, they will eventually try something else (as opposed to “The Union troops will just keep coming and coming and coming until we run out of ammo and have to use our bayonets, and even then they will keep coming.” [It’s like: “I don’t know about you, Zeke, but I’m starting to think we should just let these guys free those slaves. They seem to really want it.”])
Burnside was censured and accused of attacking like a complete jackass (as opposed to being given a medal for zombie awesomeness).
If McClellan and others had simply given Burnside’s approach the time it needed to work, then the enemy would have eventually been overtaken by Burnside’s shambling, hoary army of zombielike fighters. The Confederates would have soon exhausted their ammunition, succumbed to physical exhaustion, and been completely demoralized by the knowledge that they faced a foe that would continue to attack in the lockstep manner of the undead.
SECTION 2
Inside the (Empty) Skull: How They Think
Fortune favors the bold, and nobody is bolder than a zombie. Period.
A zombie never has to be prompted or cajoled to do what it ought to be doing. A zombie never needed a “motivational speech” or “incentive structure” to get off its duff and try to eat somebody’s brain. A zombie takes it upon itself, without prompting from others, to always be “on.” Zombies are completely self-motivated.
Zombie Tip—There are No Small Roles, Only Small Actors: Some people would rather not be involved in a project unless they get to play a central role in it. This contemptible egotism is no way to get ahead (or, in the case of zombies, to get a head). Zombies know that all the zombies in a horde are playing an important role. Sure, the ones at the front of the pack who are breaking windows, tearing the bar-lights off the tops of cop cars, and ripping people’s brains out might get more “attention” at first. But c’mon. The zombies waiting in reserve were important too. No task is “beneath” a zombie, and neither should it be beneath a Z.E.O.
Giving a zombie a pep talk about how it should go out and eat people is like telling water it should be wet, or telling the sun it should be bright and hot. Zombies aren’t things that sometimes eat your brains, when they feel like it or when “market conditions make it appropriate.” Zombies are constantly driven to eat people. They go after what they want without regard for how their coworkers feel about it, for “family time,” or even for their own physical safety.
When considering a course of action (crossing a minefield, burrowing under a wall, charging a nest of howitzers), a zombie never considers that his action might be perceived as “too bold” or “inappropriately brash.” A zombie flatly does not care about such things. A zombie’s only question is “Does this course of action take me closer to my goal (brains) as directly as possible?” If the answer is yes, the zombie proceeds.
If you want to take your business career to its zenith and become a Z.E.O., you will need to cultivate a zombielike boldness. This doesn’t mean that you need to charge into every board meeting, merger arbitration, or salary negotiation like a gibbering, teeth-gnashing zombie (though it couldn’t hurt). But it does mean that you need to learn to take initiative, be self-motivated, and interact with other people.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. Not life. Not movement. Definitely not business success. No matter what you’ve got going for you, you will not succeed if you only keep to yourself.
Don’t worry if you’re an introvert, or you’ve never been good at making conversation at cocktail parties, or if professional “networking” functions make you want to stab someone in the eye with your fountain pen (this is, in fact, the healthiest reaction possible to networking events). Zombies aren’t gregarious, either. Zombies aren’t good at telling funny stories or making those around them feel at ease. Zombies have trouble with business casual (or dressing themselves at all, for that matter), and don’t exactly “fit in” at most corporate events.
Zombie Tip—Stay on the lookout: Think enlightenment will just smack you upside the head one day when you least expect it? Not likely. That’s how you get hit by a truck. Whatever you’re looking for (spiritual zen, true romantic love, a brain to eat) you’ve got to be looking for it if you expect to find it. Otherwise . . . bam! A truck. I’m not even kidding.
So if you’re a little shy around the edges, or you’re awkward and poorly spoken compared to those around you, don’t worry. Zombies are, too. But if you’re going to be a Z.E.O., you’ve got to learn from a zombie and let your temerity override your impulse to be shy.
A zombie finds a new way to take initiative and do something bold several times a day.
Most of us know a few poor souls who, for whatever reason, have difficulty dealing with reality. Their “solution” for this, nine times out of ten, is to construct a world of their own that they find more palatable than the real, actual one. This kind of self-delusion could not be farther from the earnest, reality-loving temperament of a zombie.
Don’t think zombies aren’t tempted to delude themselves from time to time. Believe me, there are plenty of aspects to a zombie’s reality that aren’t the easiest to cope with. He’s an animated corpse w
ith poor motor control and little to no speech driven onward by a desire that is never satisfied. Those who encounter him either flee or attack with all their might. He is “discriminated” against in virtually every way possible.
What’s worse, when a zombie’s hungry, he can’t just go to the grocery store or corner market like you and me. It would be nice for him if he could, but it’s just not the case. A zombie has to track down living humans and eat their brains.
Zombie Tip—Believe in yourself: Well, maybe not your living, complete and total self . . . but you know that “self” that’s left when the soul has exited the body and then that leftover corpse has been stashed to rot for a few years before being supernaturally or scientifically reanimated to walk the earth and eat people’s brains? That self. Believe in that.
Despite all of these middling-to-large inconveniences, no zombie has ever chosen to “escape” from his reality into, say, a world of pills or drugs or booze. No zombies have joined religions that promise a better “next life” in the hereafter. You never see zombies joining the SCA or playing role-playing games in which they pretend to be someone else. It might be momentarily tempting, but zombies realize that they have to be where they are. They have to live in the now, regardless of how difficult it might be.
A zombie realizes that the only thing worse than having to grow up and live in the real world is what happens to you if you “decide” not to. You’ll have to face reality someday. We all have to. Running from who you are and where you are will only make it worse when the time comes.
Some humans have living situations that are more or less tolerable, but are haunted by things and occurrences from their pasts. These people may look fine and dandy from all outward appearances, but are tortured inside by things that they did (or things that were done to them). They let these things from the past bring them down and make their lives miserable. This behavior is also unacceptable to a zombie. Zombies have difficult pasts too, but it doesn’t stop them from getting on with “life.”
The Ultimate Book of Zombie Warfare and Survival Page 3