You're Probably Not as Clever as You Think!

Let’s face it, the world is full of nearly 7 billion people.  That’s a lot of anything, but that’s particularly a lot of human beings.  The average IQ is like, what, 90 or 95, maybe 100, and so unless you are Kim Ung-yong with a recorded IQ of 210, you probably aren’t the smartest person in the world.

But hey, I’m not trying to burst your bubble.  So what if you aren’t the smartest person?  Does intelligence really even matter all that much?  Not really, in the grand scheme of life.  Especially if you are a fan of reality TV, like me, because I swear some of those dumb shows make you LESS intelligent.  But there is one important area where intelligence matters: when you are trying to play games or fool someone, especially when it comes to your employer.

I mention this because I’ve been informed of or have noticed a few prominent incidents lately where people have been faking illnesses to get out of work.  Sure, this happens all the time, no shocker there, but what’s particularly amusing about these incidents is that these people are going to great lengths to fool others into thinking they are actually sick when they really aren’t.

In my first case, the person was overheard two days ago saying how she woke up with the worst sore throat in the world.  Nobody gives this lady sympathy, because she is always calling off sick, and she has exhausted all of her Paid Time Off for the year already, so the comment was pretty much ignored.  Then, sure enough yesterday morning, she called off sick.  No surprise there.  And no surprise in the fact that when she came in the door of the office this morning, she was coughing like a stray cat with a two pound hairball stuck in her throat.

It’s hard to act sick.  I used to do this at home when I was a kid, particularly on Sunday mornings when I didn't want to go to Sunday School.  I’d tell my mom I was sick and couldn’t go, and then I’d cough and act all lethargic all day.  Or at least try to.  By 10 AM, when my mom hadn’t heard a cough out of me for an hour because I’d simply forgotten about my ruse, she knew better.  And thus was the case with this lady today.  A half hour or even an hour would go by and she wouldn’t cough.  Oh sure, for the first half hour of the workday she did, especially as people walked by her work area.  But then it stopped—until the company’s president or her supervisor would walk past, and then the coughing spells would begin again.  After lunch-time, she went through another coughing spell, which could have been misconstrued as real, but then it was discovered that someone was meeting in the conference room down the hall from her office, and so she HAD to act convincing.  No more coughing for the rest of the day though.  Surprise, surprise.  And she does this EVERY TIME SHE CALLS OFF.

Lady, you’re not as clever as you think.  People who are sick, especially with a cold as you claim to have, cough ALL DAY.  Or are you just sick of people?  Maybe it’s the people that you work with who are making you cough?  I think you are just sick of your job.

My next case has to do with another lady who has had a recent rash of calling off work (or simply not showing up).  She’s going through some personal issues, and that can happen with anyone from time to time, but this lady’s call-offs have been borderline extreme.  Like 10 to 15 times in the past 3 months.  She sounds depressed, comes to work without makeup, thinks everyone is against her, etc.  Yesterday, for the third time in a month, she just didn’t show up for work.  At around 11 AM, she had a doctor’s note sent over saying she was sick, and she claimed she contracted the same illness that a couple of the other staffer’s had.  It was so bad that her supervisor had to call the doctor to confirm.  Then today she didn’t show up, saying she was coughing up phlegm all night and going to the hospital, despite the doctor having cleared her for work the previous day.

The funny thing about this lady is that, while sick, she has actually checked in at places on Facebook on days that she’s missed work.  Not doctor’s offices, but restaurants and apparel and jewelry stores.  Because, after all, we ALL go shopping while we’re sick, as if retail therapy is better than rest and medicine.  Seriously, lady?  Checking in at the mall on Facebook is worse than being covered with red ink after robbing a bank!  You may not be friends with your coworkers on Facebook (although this lady IS, yeah, you read that right), but you don’t think people will be looking at your daily social media activities while absent from work, especially with your track record?  You may think you are pulling a fast one and getting doctors to sign off on your "sickness" (one time my doctor asked me if I needed a note to take time off after severely spraining my ankle—I politely declined, as I could certainly SIT AT MY DESK with a sprained ankle).  But lady, if you’re going to post your whereabouts on Facebook, you might as well just hand in your two-week notice.  Don’t you think that HR has a file on you?  Don’t you think that your absence has an impact on all of your coworkers who have to cover for you?  For all you know, people may be collecting screen shots of your Facebook posts.  Really, if you don’t want to work, just quit.  There are thousands of others out there who would be thrilled to have your job.

Finally I’ve noticed a growing trend of people working from home to make up for lost time due to illnesses.  They’ll remote into their computers in the evening, logging hours and “making up the time.”  It seems to be a growing trend happening at companies all over.  And this just cracks me up more than anything, and here’s why: any good computer guy worth even half of his degree or certification could tell you that your network activity, particularly the sessions and files you have open, are easily viewed and or logged on the server.  It’s not Big Brother (at least not yet), because these are simple tools that allow network admins to troubleshoot issues and create user rights and access permissions and things.  But my point is that when you call off sick and are trying to make up time, or even if you are just trying to get in “extra hours” to make yourself seem busy to your supervisor, it’s probably a smart idea to actually WORK.  Merely signing in won’t do it, especially if you sign in and leave your computer for an hour while you are watching Grey’s Anatomy.  I admire the fact that you are trying to "seem" busy, but you're not as clever as you think.

I dealt with a guy once several years ago that worked from home more often than not.  He had productivity issues even on the days he actually worked in the office, so naturally his supervisor asked me to keep an eye on him.  And sure enough, when he’d “work from home”, he’d sign in at 8:30 AM, then not touch his computer for three and a half hours, sign out to lunch, sign back in an hour later (I could picture him with like a timer on his phone or home computer or whatever to alert him when to sign in and out).  I swear I caught him doing this twice a week, fake working, before he was eventually let go (for a whole slew of reasons, not just that--although shouldn't that be grounds enough?!?).  But really, buddy, you aren’t as clever as you think.

And as a side note from a veteran IT guy’s viewpoint, it’s pretty much impossible to do something on a computer nowadays without having someone else know what you are doing.  Firewalls and web filters capture all of your web surfing.  And if it’s not some IT guy at your office, your Internet Service Provider sure as heck knows what you are doing.  Clearing your history and cookies in your browser isn’t going to cut it.  You know, I once worked for a company where, every other day or so, my coworker and I would come in and find that the history was cleared on the main production computer.  We suspected the owner of using it to look up questionable (objectionable?) web sites, but boy were we ALL surprised when the office manager asked us to come in and work on a Saturday, and as we were punching in on the clock in the break room, we heard all this commotion over in the computer room and rushed over to see who was in there.  When we opened the door, the owner was in there, he was MAD, and he repeatedly asked us why we were there.  We told him the office manager had asked us to come in to do some work (it was the busiest part of the year), but the owner was on the phone arguing with her for a good ten minutes before storming off.  We knew what he was doing in there, as he didn’t have time to clear his adult-website-filled history.  AND we found his wallet and belt on the floor under the desk.  How gross is that?!?  Of course, he NEVER mentioned this encounter to us again.  I don’t blame him—I would have walked away or even quit had he brought it up again.  And I ended up leaving that place only a month or two later.  Ewww.

But anyway, I really think a lot of people give themselves way too much credit for scheming out little ruses and things.  Really, I can’t say this enough: YOU ARE PROBABLY NOT AS CLEVER AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.  And it doesn’t take even a person smarter than you to flesh out your schemes.  Sometimes you make yourself completely obvious in what you do.  So bottom line, don't even try it.  You just make yourself look foolish.

People Who Know Drama Better Than TNT

On behalf of my beautiful wife, Lisa Salaymal-Strohman, I’m writing a post based on an observation she has made in relation to some of her social networking friends.  She has many, so if you are reading this, it’s probably NOT about you.  But if you are the paranoid, everything-is-always-about-me type, maybe you’ll learn something.

So my wife is constantly updating me on the drama she reads in the social media updates.  One case in particular is a little frightening.  The ex-wife of a friend of a family member (isn’t social media great in the way we have “friends” who aren’t really friends) has been in the midst of a broiling dispute with an ex-boyfriend for quite some time.  This guy is a real bozo—a convicted criminal and troublemaker extraordinaire—and they were apparently jawing back and forth and basically letting the whole world view their strife.  It was great entertainment for a little while, but then things got ugly when the guy started getting her very young son involved, posting pictures of him and making not-so-well-disguised threats.  She continued to provoke him, questioning his manhood and detailing his criminal background, and apparently it escalated to the point where he tried to break into her house and was arrested.

This woman is good-looking, I’ll give her that, but she’s a drama queen, sitting on her throne with this air of haughtiness, as if she can do no wrong in anything she does, whether it be her appearance or personality.  Yet she repeatedly prodded this guy, and instead of stopping when her son became involved, she increased her foolishness even more.  A line was crossed, and either she was too caught up in it to not realize, or else she’s just not that bright.  Either way, this girl seems to live on drama.

But it’s not just her.  My sister had a friend who repeatedly dated the “wrong guys.”  She was living with a guy for well over a year, and despite the fact that he threw an air conditioner through a window of their RENTED apartment (of course SHE was the only one on the lease), she stayed with him.  Then he ended up in jail for one crime or another, and she finally dumped him—and moved on to a guy with similar issues.

I know a lady who is like this in her workplace.  She is constantly gossiping, pushing people’s buttons, asking inappropriate questions, writing long and ranting emails.  She has a little group of women that she shares her inappropriateness with, and they just go along with it and laugh and enable her.  This lady has family issues, financial issues, you name it (and everyone knows because she details every second of her existence), and yet she’s completely clueless as to how she’s perceived by her superiors.  She’s always questioning why she didn’t get a bigger raise or bonus, and she can’t fathom that it has anything to do with her personality.

Funny, I just re-read that last paragraph, and it actually describes a number of people I know either directly or indirectly.

And back to my wife.  She sees this phenomenon called “perpetrating the fraud” happening all over social media sites.  People will put up posts saying they are going to “take a stand” or “confront” so and so or such and such, but it never seems to happen.  Even more to the point, people will try to instigate fights with close friends or coworkers, then see them in person the next day and act as if nothing happened.  I remember doing this decades ago with my cousin using the online service Prodigy (yeah, before the Internet).  We got into a little spat over an online game we were playing, and it progressed into sending each other 2-4 page messages calling each other names and pointing out each other’s flaws.  Then we’d see each other in school the next day and act like nothing happened.  But in my defense, we were like 12 years old.

I know we all need a little action in our lives, but, at least for me, that’s what movies and television and books are for.  That’s why reality television is so popular.  People watch Jersey Shore because it’s funny, yeah, but the incessant fighting is what draws people in.  It’s the same with soap operas.  People just LOVE drama.

But for those people that welcome it—no, NEED it—in their personal lives, I just don’t get it.  Does airing your grievances on social media for the entire world to see satisfy some deep urge inside of you?  Does dating the wrong type of person make you feel like you’ve accomplished something?  Does putting your personal and professional life in danger give you a thrill?  It all just seems so silly to me.

Of course, I’m probably not the best one to judge.  The highlight of my week happened earlier today when I had three cavities filled.  I’m in bed every night at 9:30 PM.  I sold my motorcycle a month before my son was born because I felt riding it was unsafe (not because I was reckless on it, but because other drivers don’t pay attention to motorcycles—a fact I learned the hard way when twice I had someone pull out right in front of me, both times causing me to brake hard and maneuver quickly into another lane).  But you get my point.

Maybe there’d be a lot less crime if we weren’t so hell-bent on experiencing drama in our lives.  My wife and I were watching The First 48 the other night, and there were two rival gangs in Miami—kids in their teens—who lived two blocks away from each other.  They were all friends when they were young, but as they grew into middle school, they began having a beef with each other over something as silly as reputation.  You know, my block is better than yours.  Then one of them was shot and killed, and the young man who pulled the trigger put together a rap song and uploaded it to YouTube, basically bragging about killing the other kid.  And then one of the victim’s cohorts shot and killed the first killer’s uncle.  Mayhem in the streets, all because of reputation built off the need for drama.

I’m not a pessimist.  People reading my blog would probably argue that point, but I really don’t enjoy going around observing and pointing out what’s wrong with society.  I relish in what is right though, and I just wish everyone could do the same.  It’s one thing to observe the negative.  It’s something else entirely to live it.

Is Reality Television Real?

I love reality television.  I can’t get enough of Gordon Ramsey, the Amazing Race, and even Jersey Shore (I know, I know—most are probably thankful it’s ending).  Of all the shows though, my two favorites have to be Survivor and Big Brother.  What interests me the most about those two shows is the social interaction and aspect of each game.

You can’t go into them thinking you’ll just be ruthless, seize all the power, win all the challenges, etc.  The mean, aggressive players are some of the first to be voted out.  Just look at the Hantz clan and all of their follies.  I can’t even imagine some of the holding down jobs with their anger issues let alone winning a social game.  You may win every challenge or be conniving and deceitful, but in the end, when the people that have voted you out now have to pick a winner, you're out of luck.

You also can’t be weird or annoying.  Look at all of the odd castaways on Survivor that have gone home: “federal agent” Phillip, Coach, Tarzan from last season.  One of my favorite weirdos was the Hispanic dude from Cook Islands, Billy Garcia, who was a tad lazy around camp, never seemed to quite fit in, and who awkwardly thought he shared a love connection with Candice, even though she simply replied “we love you” to his charge of not being well-liked by the rest of the castaways.  He just seemed so out-of-place socially in the game, and his perceived, one-way romance was the icing on the cake.

Last night’s Big Brother gave me new-found respect for Dan.  If you don’t follow the show, skip on to the next paragraph, but basically Dan, knowing he was going home, devised a plan to stage his “Big Brother funeral”, rat out all of his former alliance members, join the Head of Household, Frank, in a new alliance, and get Jenn with her Power of Veto to pull him off the block.  And it worked.  He even accused his closest ally, Danielle, of heinous misdeeds, sending her into a bawling emotional fit, only then to tell her that it was all his master plan to get sympathy votes for her.  Jenn pulled Dan off the block, put up Brittany (who I had been rooting for the entire season), and Dan pretty much guaranteed himself a spot in the final two.  From going home this week to potentially winning, THAT was impressive.

I realize that most of the crap on reality television isn’t real.  Most of it is scripted.  Most of it is filmed in a way to make it seem real.  For example, the last episode of Hotel Hell saw an executive chef fainting when being eviscerated by Gordon Ramsey.  The entire episode was rather blasé, and I just pictured the production gang all sitting around thinking of some way to liven it up.  Well, a fainting executive chef would work.  Yeah, let’s do that!

But if Dan’s deviance, Danielle’s horror and subsequent crying fit, and even the Hantz’s aggression is all acting, those people deserve some Emmys.  I don’t believe any of that stuff is made up.  And that’s what I love about reality TV.  Real, solid, social interaction that is shocking in the displays of intelligence and emotion.  You can’t win those games by being a nice guy all the way through.  You can’t be shy.  You can’t be overly outgoing.  You can’t be a floater, sitting around hoping the target isn’t on your back.  You can’t be naïve.  Yet you can’t be paranoid.

Now read those last six sentences over.  They apply to real life, don’t they?  Think about it.  You’ll never succeed in the real world being the nice guy all the time.  After all, nice guys finish last, don’t they?  Someone will always stab you in the back, steal your work, discredit you, etc.  Sad, but true.  And shy people are considered introverts, socially awkward, and naturally the people that make all the money and have all the fame and/or power are not like that.  No politician has a fear of public speaking, you know?

Yet people that are the opposite, overly outgoing, tend to be annoying.  Like people who stomp their feet when they walk.  Pay attention to the people who annoy you and watch if they stomp their feet.  A friend a while back once inferred that people who stomp their feet as they walk do so because they are trying to attract the attention of others and/or are very insecure, loud, obnoxious people.  I hadn’t really given it much thought until I began witnessing the phenomenon myself.  Two annoyingly in-your-face coworkers, sure enough, stomped their feet everywhere they went, and the one was a 90 lb woman!

And if you sit around and do nothing all your life, it is going to pass you right on by.  Even if you have no desire whatsoever to leave a mark in the world, at least have fun while you are here.  I mean, that’s half the reason America has an obesity epidemic—because too many people are sitting around doing nothing.  Sometimes it's OK to shine.  It shows people that you are still trying hard to do whatever it is you are tasked to do.

As for those who are naïve, this relates a little to my last post.  Naivety is great if you are a Shaolin monk.  It’s not if you live in a place like America.  If you try live in a little box or cave, sheltered from the world, choosing to ignore the news and everything happening around you, you may find yourself in trouble someday.  Like when the zombie Apocalypse occurs, and you have no idea that your neighbors are walking corpses.  But likewise, you can’t go through life being paranoid.  Like my late grandmother who wouldn’t step foot onto her front porch without doing her hair for fear of her neighbors seeing her that way.  Not a healthy way to live your life at all.

We can learn a lot from reality television.  We can learn a lot from plenty of other things as well.  All we have to do is just open our eyes and observe.  Put ourselves in the shoes of others, go for a walk, and then look again.  The world is a beautiful place when you open your eyes and actually see it.

And as for reality TV or even real-life social strategies, I’m not the one to judge or tell you how to live your life.  But if you find yourself in one of those categories I mentioned above, and if you’re unhappy with yourself, maybe a good dose of reality TV will show you how to fix it.