So don’t loudly announce, “Once, I fucking killed a guy” at a staff meeting. (Even though it might be fun.) But do conspicuously leave court documents around your cube pertaining to a murder case in which you were the defendant . . . who was unexpectedly let off on a technicality (the witnesses’ brains kept getting mysteriously eaten). Souvenirs of weird-looking witch doctor stuff from Haiti? A great idea for workplace decoration. Medieval woodcuts of torture and shit? Super! (Say they’re part of your ethnic heritage if people from HR give you a hard time.) Make your cube a reflection of you . . . a “you” who doesn’t want to be bothered with unnecessary interactions.
Do keep your computer (you probably need it for, you know, work), but make sure you at least find some sort of screen-saver that’s really off-putting. (Something with zombies would be good.) Keep your office chair, too, but see if you can find some way to make it “scary” when you’re not sitting in it. Hanging a jacket or lab coat with a mysterious red stain over the back of it would work. And if you have a scanner, be sure to leave something disturbing in it when you’re not using it. Eighteenth-century manuals of gynecological surgery have a way of sending the “right message” to a neighbor who would otherwise interrupt you to ask if you’d mind scanning a picture of his kid’s soccer team.
Like a zombie, send a clear but nonverbal message that you should not be bothered with petty requests or pleasantries. Doing so will free up your schedule in a way that will allow you to take the first crucial steps toward business success.
It should go without saying that you can also feel free to ignore all of the indirect appeals to your time. Posters in the lunchroom for company softball teams, sexual harassment prevention trainings, and compliance classes that are “required for your recertification” can safely be ignored. If it’s not about your immediate work, then it’s not for you.
Then, take all of this newfound time, and use it to accomplish more than you ever before have.
“But wait,” I hear you asking, “what if I can get all my ‘regular work’ done in two hours? If that’s the case—because, like, I’m so smart and efficient—then what’s wrong with me taking a little time to smoke out with the guys from shipping and receiving, or playing hours of Mario Bros. on an online NES simulator?”
The answer is, nothing . . . unless you want to become a Z.E.O.
“Storming the barricades”
The third quarter will be the most pivotal of all in your quest to become Z.E.O. It will also be the most dangerous and difficult. It will be the quarter in which you and your staff are tested and in which you learn whether all of your careful planning and calculation have paid off.
The third quarter is about installing yourself as Z.E.O.
Now maybe that sounds dangerous or intimidating to you. Perhaps you’re thinking “Gee, I’ve already accomplished so much—I’m Employee of the Quarter and I have all these cool zombie coworkers I made—do I really need to storm the boardroom and attack the current C.E.O.? That sounds so violent. Can’t I just stay here and be happy with what I have so far?”
Not if you want to be a Z.E.O.
Z.E.O.s take power. It’s not something they wait to be given. There’s a big difference between installing yourself and waiting for promotions to go through. Why? Because you want to have things while you’re still young enough to enjoy them.
It is important, here, to say a few words on this idea.
Under the old twentieth-century business model, control of a corporation was handed over to an executive who had “earned it” through many years of service. This executive had “paid his dues,” both inside and outside the boardroom. He and his wife attended all of the right soirees. He volunteered for company charity events and played on the company softball team. He learned to dress and talk the “right way.” And for this self-effacing, personality-destroying regimen, he was rewarded with the reins for maybe five, ten years tops. He was already white-haired when he got control of the company, and at the slightest downturn in business or correction in the market, folks started whispering that maybe it was time for him to retire.
So here he is, this guy who gave his whole life to the company, and he has only a handful of years at the top. And he’s the fortunate one. What about all the other corporate losers who groomed themselves for the corner office but never made it anywhere close? Poor bastards.
But, as I said, this was the old model.
The new model, the twenty-first-century model, is that of the Z.E.O.
Money is connected to time. Inextricably and forever. (Zombies, who can pretty much “live” forever, are experts on time.) An executive who waits until he’s sixty to become the head of a major corporation has only a few years in which he can expect to be the top-salaried employee. In contrast, a Z.E.O. who installs him or herself at, say, thirty will have many, many years of earning at the peak of the pyramid. Forget how much you put in the 401(k) each month. Fuck your 401(k). They’re all worthless now, anyway. Your number of years in the top spot is where the real key to financial success is going to be found.
Look at it another way. Take a guy in his late sixties. He’s worked hard and saved his whole life by living simply, socking away as much as he possibly could. (In many ways, this man is the wet dream of most finance-book authors.) He’s just paid off the mortgage on his house. He owns a small business worth a few hundred thou. He’s bought a few stocks that are maybe doing okay. And say he also owns some land—it was in the family or something—that a developer would like to buy. Now, add up all of this guy’s stuff, plus the cash in his checking account, and his net worth is probably a million dollars. Maybe even a couple million.
Now imagine someone like Paris Hilton. She is twenty-five years old and has at least a million dollars in the form of dollars in a bank account that she can do whatever she feels like with. She doesn’t have to live simply or modestly, but can instead live lavishly—eating at fancy restaurants, wearing designer clothing, and traveling by saffron-powered hovercraft. She has millions of dollars that she can enjoy. See the difference?
Many authors of business and finance books would have you believe that the two people in the above examples are the same thing. Seriously! After all (say most business book authors) they’re both millionaires, aren’t they? And you said you wanted to be a millionaire, didn’t you? (I’ll say it for you: Not like this, I didn’t!)
Obviously, Paris Hilton and a scrimping, saving septuagenarian are not the same thing at all. Don’t agree? If you had to choose one of these existences for yourself, which one would you pick? The person facing the sunset of his life with little to show for it except a bank statement with seven figures, or a freewheeling socialite using money to have fun and be the center of attention? Aside from a few incorrigible hermits, most folks will choose the latter.
This exercise points to a question that most business books fail to ask, and that is: Why do you want to be rich? Is it so you can act like a millionaire (replete with top hat, cigar, mistresses, mansion, and top-shelf liquor), or is it so you can act like a “millionaire” who saves and scrimps his whole life?
Consider it another way.
If asked, “Would you like a million dollars?” Most people would instantly respond in the affirmative. But likewise, if queried: “Would you like a million dollars that you can see on a statement and just ‘know it’s there,’ or would you like a million dollars that you can use to buy things and have fun?” most people are going to say that they want the second kind of million dollars.
Zombie Tip—Using “Temps” is Always to be Discouraged
For the Z.E.O. as for the zombie, the idea of a “temporary worker” is a risible obscenity. It’s like, let me get this straight. . . . You want to come onboard for part of the time, and then just leave after a few months? What? Nobody has ever been a zombie temporarily. (Once you’re a zombie, then dude, you’re a zombie for good.) A Z.E.O. should only select workers with zombielike dedication who want to work with him on a perman
ent basis.
You, my friend, can have either.
If it’s the first kind you want, then you don’t need any special advice from me (or from zombies). You don’t need the secrets in the rest of this book. Just start saving as much as you can, and buy appreciating assets. Even if you don’t make a large salary, if all you do is save, it’s really quite manageable. Don’t bother trying to become a Z.E.O. Just sock away $25,000 a year for forty years, and you’ll have a million dollars . . . right before you fucking die! Maybe you can use it to upgrade to a gold-plated respirator in the nursing home or something.
If that doesn’t sound good to you, then don’t wait for those few, fleeting years at the end of your professional career when you maybe have a chance of becoming a richly compensated executive. Instead, call on the hoary zombie army you have amassed and use it to install yourself as commander in chief of a company. Business is not a democracy, and an occasional military junta is called for.
If you’re brave enough to take this step—and if you want to be rich while you’re still young enough to enjoy it—then you are in the right place.
Day One
At this point, if you have successfully executed the directives prescribed so far, you should have a small army of zombie employees at your command. It needn’t be a majority of employees in the company—or even a majority of your department—but it does need to be large enough to have an impact. At least 10 percent organization-wide is a good rule of thumb. If you’re not there yet, don’t despair. (However, you may want to weigh the benefits of setting aside another quarter for recruiting.)
With zombies, the readiness is all.
Here’s a list of questions to ask yourself about the “army of the undead” you have amassed. (Be honest. These questions are designed to help you know if you’re ready to storm the boardroom.):
Is my army 10 percent or more of the total office population?
Does my army think and act alike? (That is, do they all “get the idea” about this whole “acting like a zombie” thing—or are they still figuring it out?)
Is my army making an impact on the organization? (Have managers noticed the uptick in productivity from these “zombified” employees? Is quality and profitability steadily improving throughout the company? Is the company seeing drooling and moaning at record levels?)
Once employees are “bitten” by zombie business excellence, do they stay bitten? (You’re doing something wrong if they don’t.)
Are other, nonzombie employees reacting appropriately to your converts? (Are they confused, horrified . . . but eventually intrigued? Then you’re spot on.)
That last item could be the most important. Many of the signals that you’re on the right track will come, not from your army of zombies, but from the “normal” employees. You want a zombie army with a “zombieness” that is undeniable.
You want mid-level managers to say: “At first I thought I could just ignore these guys, but this is really getting out of hand with so many zombie employees.”
You want a presence to be felt. Anxiety-about-zombies, for lack of a better phrase, is good. It will help the employees who will not be directly involved in the coming zombie coup (which is to say, the vast majority of them) to accept it when it occurs.
You want a feeling of tension and irritation to pervade the nonzombies. You want them to feel that the tectonic plates of the company are shifting. You want them uncomfortable and looking for some form of resolution.
For your plan to work, the average worker must have the feeling that “something has to happen soon” and that matters are “coming to a head with these zombie employees.” That way, when actual escalation begins, bystanders not involved in the conflict will accept it. “It was inevitable,” they will say. “I just hope it ends soon,” they will say. And it will.
It is this tendency to want things to “be over” (with little regard to how they are actually settled) that you must use to your advantage in this affair.
So, if, on this first day of the new quarter, you have confirmed that your zombie minions do, in fact, meet the salient criteria, and that your corporate organization is ripe for the taking, then go home and sleep well. For tomorrow, great events begin!
Week One—Planning Your Attack/Mustering the Troops
Almost every major corporation has had a top executive who has been “asked to step down” at one point or another. There are too many examples to list. Usually, the reason that he or she is “deposed” is declining profits. It can also arise from declining quality, or unethical behavior. (When the Feds show up and lead him away in handcuffs? Yeah, that counts, too.)
Yet it is a rarer (though not altogether unheard-of) thing when an older executive leaves because a new executive has installed himself.
Typically, when an executive is simply asked to leave, the board of directors arranges for his or her departure well in advance. Media conferences are called. Press releases are sent. The executive in question gets a severance package and sometimes a buyout. Anxious stockholders are mollified with reassurances that an executive search will be swift and effective, and that a new leader (one who was born ready to right this foundering ship) will be located with all speed.
However, when an executive deposes an old C.E.O. and installs himself as leader, these same warm reassurances are not present. It is the new leader himself who must convince employees, board members, stockholders, and shareholders to recognize and accept as legitimate his claim to the leadership of the organization. (A mouthful to say, and a bitch to do. But no worries. You’re already halfway there.)
The key in the first week of machinations is to position your opening moves so that at the conclusion of events (which is still as much as three months away) you will be poised as a legitimate heir to the throne.
Begin by checking alliances and allegiances.
Alliances are important, both internally and externally. Let’s start by looking at external ones.
“Wait a minute,” you might be saying. “External allegiances? But I want to be the Z.E.O. or whatever of this corporation, not any exterior company.”
Hold those horses, kiddo. In any situation where control of power shifts, it is important that that shift be recognized externally to lend authenticity to the new claim to power.
Let’s say there’s a tiny Third World country that has just had its president (and his cronies) run out of the presidential palace by a group of rebels. Both groups are claiming to be the legitimate rulers of the country. The president says: “Even though I’m not in the presidential palace anymore, I’m still the president.” The rebel leader says: “I’m in the presidential palace, so I must be the new president.” The people are probably divided on the issue of who is really in charge, so how does it get decided? Well, in most cases, through recognition by other countries. If the United States or the United Nations says it recognizes the new rebel leader as the legitimate president, then the country can continue doing business with the United States and other countries. (Hint: That’s really fucking important.) Likewise, if the new rebel leader is not recognized globally as the legitimate ruler of the nation, then he will be paralyzed. His throne in the presidential palace will be just another chair. Other nations will refuse to negotiate or trade with him, because his claim to leadership will have no legitimacy. The country will wither and die under his grip (though he is likely to be overthrown by yet other rebels before it ever gets that far).
When you take control of the company where you work, you want the battle to be swift and decisive, but you also want your victory to be legitimate. You want the vendors and distributors and contractors and consultants (who work with you every day and are necessary to your operations) to recognize that you, as the new leader, have the authority to take power and be the new boss.
Create a task force spearheaded by your top zombies to explore this issue. Start with the exterior elements who are most important to the continued operations of your company. For example: the truckers who
take your product to market, the retail locations that sell your product, and the vendors who sell you the raw materials you need in order to manufacture your product. Try to gently find out whether they would continue doing business with you if they learned that someone else was in charge . . . someone a little more like a zombie. If you encounter resistance, find out what you need to do to get them amenable to the idea.
Suggested water-testing talking points include:
“We here at Company X pride ourselves on making top quality products, and are always looking for ways to improve. How would you feel if a change to zombie management resulted in improved products on your shelves?”
“Word is, some new employees with their eyes on management positions have really been ‘taking heads’ and ‘eating brains.’ Look for big things from them this quarter. If some of them were to claw their way to the top, you wouldn’t object to doing business with them, would you?”
“Isn’t it great to work with people who are driven, focused, and don’t make idle chitchat all the time? . . . or, really, say much of anything at all? Because we’re thinking of making that the new, corporation-wide policy for employee comportment.”
Zombie Tip—
Sitting in the boss’s chair doesn’t make you the boss—other people acknowledging you as the boss makes you the boss.
Yeah, it can be tedious to have these conversations, but you’ll be glad you did. You don’t want to take power and then find yourself paralyzed. (Nothing is more pitiful than a paralyzed zombie. Like when a mortician or a scientist has you chained down to a table or something, and is getting all in your face with the whole “Tell me . . . why do you want to eat our brains?” spiel. It’s like, damn, I dunno. They just taste good. Why’ve you got to be such a dick about it?)
Of course, it’s equally as important for you to plumb the depths internally to learn what allegiances exist within your corporation, and what can be done to use them to your advantage.
The Ultimate Book of Zombie Warfare and Survival Page 10