Back in the old days, it’s rumored that management sent real paper memos for every single thing they wanted their peeps to know.  I say “rumored” because I’m just a Millennial kid, and as far as I know, they got rid of that practice long before I even step foot at my first Big Kid Job.  Maybe they stopped memos because email was more widespread and they wanted to save paper and the planet & stuff. Who knows.

What I do know is that sometimes management fails to inform their employees about certain things and then get all grumpy when their employees don’t later know what the hell is going on.

My answer to that is “Sorry,  I didn’t get that memo”.  I don’t say it ugly, I’m always sure to add a sweet smile.

I wouldn’t, however, under any circumstance say that over email.  Email lasts FOREVER, and emotions – like jest and maybe a smidgen of sarcasm – are sometimes hard for people to read over the internets.

When you’re a female and you have a really awkward male boss, there’s nothing more fun than to watch him become even more awkward and uncomfortable.

I’m completely guilty of this one more occasions than I can count on all my fingers and toes.  I don’t do it to be mean, I just find it REALLY amusing and I’m not really hurting anyone, right?

Besides the fact that my boss is pretty lame, he isn’t really big on dealing with people and is even more awkward with women.  Call it “revenge” if you want, I just call it “pretty damn hilarious.”

One day at around 1 in the afternoon, let’s just say I got some really bad news.  It wasn’t a family emergency, my dog Coco was fine, it was just bad news.. bad enough to make me want to call it a day without sucking up one of my vacation days, so I did what any mischievous Gen-Y gal would do – I called my boss and told him I suddenly got “a monster case of the cramps”.

I explained to him that I went out to lunch and thought perhaps I got food poisoning and suddenly I got sharp pains in my abdomen.  I said I was going to the doctor and would be out the rest of the day.

Ladies, your male boss will NEVER, EVER, argue with you about ladies troubles.  They just won’t. :)

If you live within a 5-mile radius of the office & do not need to get on a highway of any sort to get to work, “bad traffic” is never a good excuse for strollin’ in past 9:30.  It’s better to make up a doctor’s appointment that you “forgot” to tell your boss about.

As long as you aren’t “going to the doctor” all the time, you’ll be golden.  If you are consistently late, you might want to consider going to bed earlier.  You boss won’t believe you unless you have a chronic illness.

We all get anywhere between 50-200 emails a day (or even more than that if you happen to be someone of greater importance).  Some of them are informative, and others require a response.

Sometimes when it’s one of those days when I just don’t feel like dealing with something or someone, I conveniently forget about that email.  I don’t do it all the time, or with really mission critical issues… just random ding dong crap that isn’t the best use of my time.  Most of the time it will just go away.  Other times, people will be persistent and go back to their Sent folder and reply-all asking for an update.

Usually when this happens I just say “My apologies – I’m sorry I didn’t reply sooner… the original got lost in InboxLand.”

It’s so argument-proof.  Since everyone gets 2342908420 emails a day they can’t reply back and try to call you out on just saying that because you didn’t want to respond to the email in the first place. 

They don’t know I color-code my inbox and have 50 different folders to obsessively file my messages in.

Works.

Every.

Time.

Nothing screams “I’M ABOUT TO LIE TO YOU -” more than the phrase “what happened was”.

When someone (i.e. Mr. Bossman) asks you why you didn’t get into the office until 10 am, or why that super mega report hasn’t been updated, do not – I repeat – DO NOT, preface your answer with “What happened was” (WHW).

Look Mr. BossMan in the eyes and calmly say what you want to say whether it is fictitious or not.  Most modern-day middle managers have caught on to WHW.  They KNOW when they hear those 4 syllables they are about to hear something that will make them laugh for a long time to come.  They might even tell this WHW story at their retirement party when they fondly recall their glory days.

Not only will they automatically think you are lying to them, they will think you’re trying to place the blame on someone else… and nothing in business is more unattractive than a person who is not going to own up to something.

So do yourself a favor and tuck the phrase “what happened was” into that little box of words you’re not allowed to every say.