I'd Like to See You in My Office

Okay – I'd like to start out with a disclaimer. I am not a manager. I don't aspire to be a manager, and I have never been a manager.

It is more because of employee self-preservation than anything else. You see, were I a manager, I think I would be an awful manager because of my faulty logic. You see, I would look at my pool of employees as subjects meant to do my bidding. I would think to myself, "My car needs a fresh coat of wax. Either I could spend my valuable time performing this menial task myself, or I could order one of my employees to wash and wax the car myself. And since I am a manager instead of a serf, the car would be really nice and need waxing. I would not think about how the serfs would take my commands.

"You, 23-year-old hunk of an accountant, take off your shirt and wax my car."

See, I would understand that having the cute blond waxing my car adds to the bottom line of the company because I could be doing my creative thinking for the company. My employees, however, would soon ban together and form a plan to kill me, disposing of my body in a local lake. This would suck because, among other things, I would not be able to drive my freshly waxed car. So I don't want to be a manager.

That being said, the one phrase that makes me almost want to wet myself is when my manager says, "I'd Like to See You in My Office." Now I don't know about you, but when my manager says that phrase, I am seldom thinking, "Oh, crap, my manager is going to shower praise on me again." It is more along the lines of thinking about what evidence still exists and how I can shift blame to my co-worker with the perky breasts. My thought is, "God needs to even things out a bit more around here."

And I don't think most managers understand this. They think to themselves that they are being professional, making sure that the conversation occurs behind closed doors. Do they get the same feeling when their bosses say that? Do they pee in their britches?

And speaking of these behind closed door tongue lashings, what I don't understand is that more women don't, upon exiting the meeting, don't pull their blouses out from their skirts and stagger out, saying, "Mr. Martin attached me in there."

Getting back to my little statement about praise, I find it interesting that managers who have a responsibility for the success of their unit give such little praise. I mean, it is the employee-serfs that are carrying the rocks, breaking their backs. And the manager gets the credit for assembling the team, motivating, whatever. How often do you think you succeed at work in spite of your manager? Your work can be quantified in many instances – and to some extent, your manager's contributions to the company are less critical, less quantitative. I know a lot of managers read these blogs – because they have the time. And there are good managers everywhere. But it seems that the good manager is the exception rather than the rule. Can you imagine a conversation that starts, "I'd Like to See You in My Office," and ends with "Here is your raise, you deserve it." The middle of the conversation containing specific examples of how the employee contributes to the success of the company. And that type of conversation being expected so that an invitation to be seen in an office is not followed by feelings of dread or dirty panties.