Below the Line

Last week I was required to take a training course based on the best-selling management book "The Oz Principle." Several of us from around the company gathered at our Kansas City location and spent from 8am to 5pm learning how to beat our employees into submission manage more effectively.

Basically, the whole premise is that as an employee, you must take personal accountability for your actions, and that every action falls into one of two categories: Above the Line and Below the Line.

In addition to giving us this insightful book to reference at any time, they also gave us a variety of handy tools to help us remember how to decide what side of the line we're on, including handy flashcards so we can practice. In fact, let's practice now, together. I'll say a sentence and you say whether it's Above or Below the Line:

1. Let me take that back to the office and get back to you as soon as possible.

2. I think it's cool that the company lets me have all these post-it notes.

3. Hey, kiss my ass you BITCH.

4. What else can I do for the company?

5. I'm sorry [Client], I'll fix that for you right now.

6. Well, if Sally hadn't been drinking at work again, we would've met that deadline.

Let me be perfectly clear: I'm a company man. I'm one of the best corporate drones around. But sitting in one spot for eight hours pretending that this crap will help me manage is absolutely tortuous. What's worse--listening to all of the corporate goody-two-shoes sucking up to the trainer by raising their hands and regurgitating all of the carefully scripted rhetoric. Here we are doing that (notice all the white board paper posted on the window--we're such good learners):



In spite of all the corporate B.S. and long, boring sessions, I was able to keep my focus on the important things: