How to Look Busy as an Executive

Generally, this will not be a concern until you are promoted to an executive position. But once you've created the illusion that you serve even the slightest purpose at your place of "business," there's no telling how far you'll go. In the real working world, productivity is all a matter of appearances.
Appearance: You are furiously taking notes while conducting an important telephone marketing survey.
Reality: You are pretending to take notes while talking to your friend who has called collect from Bulgaria.
 
Appearance: You are on the phone with a client in New York and you have said, "Yes sirree! That stock is about to shoot through the roof, now's a great time to buy, I tell ya!"
Reality: You are on the phone with a friend in Guam and you have said, "Yeah, this job is terrible, and my boss is such a pushy whining... Yes sirree! That stock is about to shoot through the roof, now's a great time to buy, I tell ya!"
 
Appearance: You are at your computer writing a serious business memorandum to your department supervisior.
Reality: You are at your computer telling dead-baby jokes to your e-mail correspondent in Namibia.
 
Appearance: You are urgently plugging numbers into a complicated spreadsheet.
Reality: You are playing Tetris.
 
Appearance: You are tapping away on calculator keys, helping out the accounting department.
Reality: You are paying your electric bill.
 
Appearance: You are reading the DOS manual.
Reality: You are reading the TV guide you placed in the DOS manual.
 
Appearance: You are staring at an empty computer screen, absorbed in deep thought.
Reality: You have pressed "Escape" just in time, erasing a MacDraw portrait entitled "Supervisor with Pitchfork Wound Clinging to a Cliff" 

A Good Business Line

• A good scapegoat is hard to find.
• A good slogan can stop analysis for fifty years.
• A good solution can be successfully applied to almost any problem.
• A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
• A little ambiguity never hurt anyone.
• A little humility is arrogance.
• A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation.
• A little ignorance can go a long way.
• A man of quality does not fear a woman seeking equality.
• A man should be greater than some of his parts. 

The One - Liner Results

• The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do it in.
• Stability is achieved when you spend all your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you are doing.
• The more trivial your research, the more people will read it and agree. The more vital your research, the less people will understand it.
• The more you run over a cat, the flatter it gets.
• The most important item in an order will no longer be available.
• The most interesting results happen only once.
• The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
• The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
• The number of people watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.
• The obscure a bureaucrat may see eventually; the completely apparent takes forever.