HAZOP Blues III: The Final Insult

Introduction

In two recent from-the-archives posts (here and here) I described my old job, decades ago, scribing HAZOPs for a consulting firm. While discussing those posts with an avid albertnet reader, I happened to tell the rest of the story: how I came to my senses and bailed on that job, going out in a blaze of … well, if not glory, at least a fireball.

As I recounted all this I realized the story of my departure made a pretty good yarn. Thus, I’m providing here the world premier of the rest of the story. (What follows is as true as memory permits.)

HAZOP Blues III: The Final Insult –December 1995

Eventually it dawned on me that my job wasn’t going to get any better. I was never going to finish a workday at a reasonable hour; our reports, comprising reams of paper in giant binders, were always going to be FedEx’d at the last minute, and I was always going to be sprinting down the sidewalk to the FedEx office mere minutes before they closed. We were always going to be facing a workforce shortage, and the entire staff would always be disgruntled. The cush local contracts were always going to be snapped up by a competitor or done in-house (in fact, we’d just bid on a job in Korea that, if we won it, would have me living in a hotel for several months). And perhaps worst of all, none of this would ever end, no matter how dicey things got, because petroleum companies have deep pockets, lots of things to HAZOP, and seemingly infinite patience for flaky consulting firms that overrun their budgets. It was time for me to look for a new job.

Actually, I’d already started looking, months before; the recruitment process (at the firm that still employs me) took over six months. This was awkward because my employer had switched to a business casual dress code but I needed to continually slip out at lunch for interviews, in a shirt and tie of course. I solved the problem by simply continuing to wear a suit, every day, while the rest of the staff wore khakis and polo shirts. When questioned by my incredulous colleagues, I replied, “I just think a suit is more professional.” To my great surprise, one of the engineers followed suit (no pun intended). This all worked out fine until I had an interview on a Friday, as I’d always observed my company’s “casual Friday” policy. I solved that one by packing casual clothes in my bag, changing into them in the bathroom after the interview, and dropping the suit off at the dry cleaners on my way back to the office. BAM!

Finally, the recruitment process (which included, bizarrely enough, a Computer Programming Aptitude Battery Test), finally completed and I was offered the new job, at an up-and-coming company that all the cool kids wanted to work for. Oddly enough, the very same day I received the offer letter, a colleague of mine (the receptionist) walked into my office, asked if I had a minute, closed the door behind her, and asked, “Do you have low self-esteem or something?!”

Bemused, I stammered, “Why would you think that?” She replied, “Because you’re still here! What the hell! You appear to have a pulse … why would you continue to put up with all the bullshit they pile on you?” I grinned and said, “Well, believe it or not, I have just received an offer at another company, after months of interviewing, and I’m outta here!”

“Thank God,” she said, clearly relieved. Now the only chore remaining for me (besides my regular workload, of course) was giving notice to the boss.

This would be difficult. For one thing, my boss was always on the road and barely ever had time to talk, so this would happen over the phone at his earliest convenience. Plus, he was the kind of guy who views everything that ever happens in the entire world as a series of win/lose propositions, and he couldn’t stand losing. Thus, I know he’d try to talk me out of leaving, even though I’d already accepted the new position. Fortunately, this would be our last real dialogue. History had shown that once an employee gave notice, the boss would basically never talk to that traitor again. The grudge was swiftly formed and never relaxed.

After trading countless voicemails over a day or two, my boss, D—, finally called with time to talk. This was at about 5 p.m. my time; he was a couple time zones ahead on a HAZOP trip with one of our senior engineers, C—. Now, I need to pause for a moment to describe C—. He was a brusque, stuffy Englishman with little patience for incompetence … and this was a trait he ascribed to almost everybody. My own start with him had been rocky, as he’d had to interview me (along with the rest of the staff) before I was hired. I’d been coached by my wife on how to interview: at the end, you should ask the interviewer point-blank if he or she has any misgivings about hiring you, so you have the chance to address them. When I put this question to C—, he retorted sharply, “Well I can’t see that you have any experience or qualifications of any kind!” Over the time I worked with him, though, I managed to win him over. In fact, he became something of an ally: since he considered so few people competent, he valued those who passed muster.

Sure enough, when I gave notice, D— put up a big fight rather than simply accepting my resignation and wishing me well. “How can you leave?” he demanded. “I just gave you a ten percent raise!” This was true enough; since my interviews had been going well and I didn’t want to blindside my boss with my inevitable departure, I’d trotted out a laundry list of grievances during my last review, and he evidently felt desperate enough to keep me that he got pretty generous with the salary. (This was a lot easier than resolving my grievances, after all.) But money isn’t everything; I told D— now that my decision had to do with overall career prospects. “How can you say that when the sky is the limit here!” he cried. I mentioned my lack of an engineering credential and he boomed, “Just look at J—! Last week she was a junior engineer … now she’s Director of Software!” This didn’t make any sense in this context, because she did have an engineering degree. And “Director of Software” simply meant managing our HAZOP software vendor, which a rhesus monkey could have done.

We went around and around for something like 45 minutes, by which time I had ceased to bother explaining myself and simply restated, again and again, that I’d already made up my mind. Finally the dreaded call ended.

A couple days later, D— and C— returned to the office, their HAZOP over. D—, looking in at me, stood there in the doorway for at least ten seconds, clenching and unclenching his jaw, like he was trying to decide whether to even say hi. Finally he walked up and said, “I just gotta tell you something. When C— got the news you were leaving, he was—he was devastated. I’ve never seen anything like it. He was so upset, he had to leave the room.” I was, needless to say, totally taken aback. I mean, this was a company that simply couldn’t keep people. It seemed like every week someone left, and some new guy started, like a revolving door. Could C— really have been that surprised? And to be that upset didn’t make much sense anyway … it wasn’t like I was the backbone of the operation or anything (though I’m sure I had the fastest time of anyone on the run to FedEx). I didn’t know what to say, and D— left my office without another word.

I futzed around at my desk for a while and then C— came in. He said, in his starchy British accent, “I just want to say thank you.” I assumed he meant for all my hard work over the last couple years, but I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to assume. “Um … for what?” I asked. He replied, “For a really great evening. You see, when you gave notice, D— and I were at a restaurant, about to have dinner. We ordered a nice bottle of wine and a bunch of appetizers and then he stepped away to call you. Well, he was gone a good while and in the meantime the wine and appetizers arrived. I didn’t feel like waiting so I just tucked right in. I ate one appetizer, then another, had a glass of wine and then another, and still D— didn’t come back, so I just kept going, and before you know it, I’d eaten all the appetizers and drunk all the wine! Still D— didn’t come back, and after all that wine I had to piss like a racehorse! I couldn’t leave the table, though, because the waitress would think we’d skipped out on her. Finally D— came back and gave the bad news, but I couldn’t sit around and listen—I had to run to the bathroom! I barely made it in time! But other than that, it was great … all those appetizers and all that wine, all to myself, and I didn’t have to make conversation or anything. So anyway, I just wanted to thank you for a wonderful evening.” With that, he turned and strode out of my office. Ah, I thought. All is explained.

Epilogue

In those days, when you gave two weeks’ notice you actually did work for two more weeks, rather than being immediately escorted from the office by a security guard. Thus, I had a chance to help recruit and train my replacement. He seemed like a good guy and in fact held a law degree. He seemed to hit it off just fine with most of the office, though one colleague said, “Wait, that’s the new technical assistant? He doesn’t look anything like Dana!”

During my final two weeks I continued to wear a suit and tie, because I didn’t want D— to realize just how long I’d been interviewing (i.e., deviously planning my departure). The new guy wore a suit too, which I chalked up to his being new and wanting to make a good impression. But months later, I came back to the office to visit (and to buy one of their old computers), and this guy was still wearing a suit, despite the whole rest of the office being dressed business casual. I asked him why, and—looking confused—he said, “I just think it’s more professional. In fact … didn’t I get that from you?”

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From the Archives - HAZOP Blues II: The Spawning

Introduction

If you’ve been paying attention to albertnet, you’ll have seen my first “HAZOP Blues” tale, from my archives, four weeks ago. Despite popular demand, I am running the next installment, written about a week later (and circulated via email because this was before blogs were a thing).

In case you’re wondering, I left this job a few months after penning the below memoir. Like James Cameron, director of Piranha II: The Spawning, I went on to much better things.

HAZOP Blues II: the Spawning – September 22, 1995, 12:28 AM

Greetings from Pasadena.

Things are, if anything, worse now than they were last week, so if you enjoy only upbeat tidings, please forego this missive. But if you’re intrigued by the idea of a sequel that doesn’t cost $7.50, read on.

We’re way, way, way behind schedule on this HAZOP, so the general mood is panic. My boss underbid this job by an amazing amount. It’s tantamount to saying you could build a skyscraper in the San Francisco financial district for about $50,000, in three weeks. So he’s been very tense lately. Add to this, of course, a software problem. This time it isn’t a computer glitch, but operator error. Hang on tight, because the explanation is a bit complicated.

Just before I came down here, one of my colleagues showed me how to use this special HAZOP worksheet-building software, so that I could scribe this HAZOP without looking like an English major who isn’t an engineer. (Normally, the HAZOP leader records his own sessions, but this client wanted a dedicated scribe. Lacking one on staff, my boss pressed me into service.) This colleague warned me that my boss doesn’t quite understand the software, and invariably gets his columns screwed up. The program uses various user-defined columns in which you record various things: causes of problems; consequences; and, safeguards (one column each). Suppose your cause is “valve stuck.” You might have consequences like “higher tank pressure,” “possible line rupture,” and “backflow to vessel piping.” In the next column, you list the various safeguards. These safeguards can either mitigate the consequences (e.g., a relief valve to prevent higher tank pressure, or a vent system to prevent line rupture), or they can prevent the malfunction (e.g., alarm detects malfunctioning valve and alerts the operator). Thus you have two basic ways to set up the worksheet: safeguards either relate to causes, or to consequences.

Basically, you decide which way to set it up, and then you set up the software accordingly. Thereafter, the safeguards scroll appropriately, and you number them properly, and your worksheet is organized logically. The only requirement is, you must always enter data according to how you’ve configured the worksheet—once you’ve configured it, you’re committed and can’t change your data entry protocol. My boss, I’d been warned, sets it up one way, enters the data that way for a while, and then at some point wanders off course, forgets how he’d set it up, and starts entering the data the other way, so that when you look at the worksheet, it makes no sense.

Well, knowing of this problem, I was very careful when my boss and I set up the worksheet together. I asked him very specifically how he wanted his safeguards to scroll. He was emphatic about relating safeguards to consequences. He said he always did it that way. And for the first week of HAZOPing, he was true to his word and followed his format: I numbered the safeguards within each consequence (i.e., starting the numbering over for each new consequence) and everything worked fine. The problem began when, upon reconvening the study after the weekend, he evidently forgot how we’d been doing it.

Here’s how it played out: there I was, recording away, and he was having a bad morning knowing how screwed up this project is, deadline-wise, and he whispered angrily to me, “You’re not supposed to start the numbering over at each consequence. Number consecutively throughout each cause.” I whispered back that I was doing it exactly how we’d done it the week before. This he denied emphatically. I couldn’t argue further, so I obeyed. In short order, our columns were all fouled up. Then he snapped, “You’re screwing up the rows.” What could I do? I pushed on. As the worksheet got more and more bollixed, he got more and more irritated. Eventually one of the Colombian engineers said, “Why are you numbering the safeguards that way? That isn’t how we’ve been doing it.” My boss assured him that he was wrong. Now I really began to worry.

At the next break, while the HAZOP team was off scarfing doughnuts, I pulled up a worksheet from the first week and showed my boss how we’d been numbering. He told me I’d been doing it wrong all along. So then I pulled up the worksheet setup/option screen and showed him that we’d configured the worksheet to relate safeguards to consequences, and had correctly adhered to this standard for the first week. At this news, he bawled me out for screwing up the worksheet setup from the get-go, and bemoaned that now we couldn’t fix it—that I’d basically screwed up the whole project and set us up to fail. At this point I was becoming very annoyed—enough to go after his goat. I told him that he himself had very clearly specified the worksheet setup.

Now he was good and outraged. I mean, who was I, this utterly green, English-major kid scribing his very first HAZOP, after only learning the software a week ago, to tell him he was doing it wrong? Not only had he helped to develop the software—he’d practically invented the damn thing—he’d been using it for many years, over the course of countless HAZOP’s. Did I mean to say he’d been doing it wrong his whole career!? “It’s a hideous thing to contemplate,” I said, “but that there’s what is.” Actually, I knew better than to actually say this. I just sat there, silent.

As if to finish me off, he commandeered the computer and said, “Look, I’ll pull up one of my own worksheets, any of them, to show you how I do it.” He pulled up a worksheet, and to my amusement, the columns were all screwed up. Furiously, he pulled up the setup/option screen, and sure enough, he’d set it up one way and scribed it the other. Now he was fairly livid. “Wait, that’s not a good example,” he steamed. He clicked over to his latest, greatest, most prestigious HAZOP, and said, “Okay, this is a good example. Look at this one: unless I’m totally fucked up....”

He pulled up the screen. I was relieved, but not surprised, to see that it was just as fouled up as the first one. I didn’t say anything: nothing needed to be said. A small silence ensued, during which I put 100% of my energy into not smirking. Then my boss said, quietly, “Well, I guess I’m totally fucked up.” Less than a minute later, his shock had given way to abject panic. He immediately began complaining about the incredible stress he was under, and all the staffing problems he had, and this whole HAZOP team breathing down his neck all the time, everybody talking at once, etc.

Once the panic/excuse phase was over, he segued seamlessly into a newer, more ferocious anger, lashing out at me with everything he had, like a cornered badger. He began making harsh accusations, finding fault with every aspect of my scribing. He began to blame my inefficiencies for the project being behind schedule (which is a joke, since most of the time I’m just sitting there, waiting for the team to come to a consensus so that I can type something).

Perhaps he eventually divined that my response was not guilt and shame, but mere incredulity, for he eventually began to temper his litany with expressions like “I’m not accusing you, I’m just sayin’,” and when he had determined conclusively that I wasn’t going to cower, accept blame, apologize profusely, and commit ritual suicide by self-disembowelment, he began to shift the blame to the rest of the HAZOP team instead. Finally he settled on a single scapegoat, Salim B—, the project manager, for whom I cannot formulate negative thoughts, largely (if perhaps unfairly) due to his benign demeanor and his pleasant resemblance to Frog from Frog and Toad Together, that wonderful picture book I enjoyed as a child.

By now the team was reassembling, and we continued the HAZOP. Notably, my boss continued to force my documentation astray, continued to demand that I force-feed the data into the worksheet in a manner counter to all logic. As if he hadn’t, mere moments before, come face to face with incontrovertible proof of his error, he continued to chase me down the errant path. Resigned to our doom, I gamely continued to mangle our innocent data, hoping that nobody would spot the inconsistencies and errors we were promulgating. Sure, my victory during the break should have been sweet—it’s not every day that you can sit back and watch while your arrogant boss makes a complete ass of himself—but it was a hollow victory indeed, for this wasn’t Me vs. Him, it was Us vs. Chaos, and we were now going down together. He’s the boss, so when he loses, I lose. (And he then wins somehow, because he’s a winner—got it?)

Perhaps the very worst part about the whole sordid affair is that when the day was finally over—eight grueling dog-hours behind us—my boss wanted me to be his pal, and go out on the town with him. We went to a restaurant; over great Thai food he attempted to find common ground with me by belittling every no-good, disloyal, stupid and immoral ex-employee we ever had (and there are a lot of them). I’m no slouch, either; I expertly tossed in detail after heinous detail about every one of them. I built up fabulous psychological profiles explaining the underlying nature of each one: “What S— lacked, essentially, was confidence. He couldn’t transcend his meager fire safety background and meet the challenge of holding his own among registered Professional Engineers and Certified Safety Professionals.” My boss—PE, CSP—nodded sagely in agreement.

I proceeded to spin elaborately sycophantic soliloquies: “I’ll never forget when you first saw the problem with S—, months before he left. You hit the nail on the head when you questioned his loyalty, way back in February. I think you knew his flaws even before they became obvious to the rest of us. It’s like you said, the cream rises to the top, and we’re better off without him.” My boss had never said these things—indeed, he had promoted S— only a month before—but that wasn’t about to stop him from savoring the memory of having totally nailed it. With great satisfaction, he dragged out his well-soiled cancer analogy, acidly lancing the tumors he had removed, and ordered us another round of beers. By the end of the meal, a dozen epitaphs later, I was beginning to feel sick.

Then we went out and shot pool, splitting (alas) a pitcher of beer. Our playing was absolutely abysmal; at one point, my boss managed to launch the cue ball off the table, where it rolled all the way into the bar. I, his obsequious little helper, shamelessly chased it down and retrieved it.

Now, we’re as chummy as ever; our worksheets, which continue to twist crazily on the page, are a taboo subject. More than ever before, HAZOP is a grind. Fortunately, I’ve developed a knack for recognizing, among the rambling discussions, the special lilt to an engineer’s voice (be his accent Indian, Colombian, French, British, or Turkish) that tells me he’s settled on an idea that should be recorded. Like never before, I swing to the music of valve numbers and failure modes. Between data inputs, while the team argues pedantically over the likelihood of a 2D low-low shutdown if the stage two crude discharge separator were to encounter a closed block valve at startup, I drift off into mental oblivion, fantasizing about being run over by a truck during lunch.

Note

An alert reader wrote to ask me how much of this I made up. Rest assured, nothing here is fabricated ... the sad tale is 100% true and (as I wrote it while still in the thick of the action) it doesn’t even suffer from the natural erosion of memory.

To be continued...

But wait! There's more! Click here to read HAZOP Blues III: The Final Insult.

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From the Archives - HAZOP Blues

Introduction 

Ages ago, before beginning the career I’m in now, I worked for a chemical engineering firm. That’s how it described itself, anyway. I never saw actual engineering take place; the day-to-day work was safety audits of refineries and chemical plants. It supposedly paid really well but I didn’t experience that firsthand.

What follows is a report I sent around via email, before blogs were a thing. This was almost before email was a thing … it was still pretty new and required me to plug my laptop (a prehistoric thing the size of a phone book—if you remember those) into a modem about the size of a pack of cards, and plug this into a phone jack in my hotel room. The bandwidth was 2400 baud, which was almost indescribably slow, as in 1/42,000th of what modern networks deliver. What’s more, you paid by the minute and had to be online the whole time you were composing your message, because it was a terminal emulator that didn’t support copy-and-paste. All this privation is surely why life expectancy was so much shorter then. It’s a good thing I lived through that dark period, so I can look forward to a long life ahead of me.

Okay, enough of this. It’s time to put up your feet, crack a beer, and enjoy this tale from my archives. It’s a sad one.

HAZOP Blues – September 16, 1995

I’m in Pasadena, California recording a Hazard and Operability study, which is interesting only to the extent that I can understand it. (Which I basically don’t.) The HAZOP process is really about as pedantic an exercise as I’ve ever been through. A team of six or eight people from a variety of engineering backgrounds sits around systematically brainstorming potential deviations from the design intent of a process (in this case, a gasoline field in Colombia, which is supposedly the largest construction project in the world right now). The team brainstorms the potential consequences of deviations, what safeguards are in place, and whether or not recommendations need to be made to improve the safety of the system.

It’s not as exciting as it sounds. The only consolation is the food: top-notch restaurants, every meal. Fortunately the Doubletree hotel here has a gym; unfortunately I have yet to take advantage of it. Instead I sit here, in my glorious new paisley boxers, with the rush of L.A. coming through the window. Still my guitar gently weeps.

The HAZOP team here (among whom I sit, pounding on the keys like a court stenographer) is made up of three local engineers (one a mad-scientist looking guy; one right out of Dilbert; an Indian American; a sporty fellow from BP in England; and two Colombians). Over lunch (lobster ravioli with lemon cream sauce, $15.95), I talked to the Colombians about cycling. They were very enthusiastic and knowledgeable, and were thrilled that I remembered that Jose Patrocinio Jiminez won the Coors Classic in 1982, and that Luis (or was it Lucho?) Herrera won the KOM in the Tour. They speak very highly of Andy Hampsten. They knew about the fistfight that resulted in disqualification of two riders a few days ago in the Tour of Spain. They understand that small front wheels do not result in increased aerodynamics in individual time trials. Finally, I’ve found some common ground with these fellows, since I don’t have anything interesting to say about chemical engineering.

While working down here in Pasadena I am continually faking an attitude of enthusiasm. This constant façade is difficult to maintain, so I’ve decided to vent all over you.

I’ve having a very hard time with the sessions. I don’t understand the chemical engineering aspects of the HAZOP, so witnessing the brainstorming is about as exciting as waiting for my wife at the cosmetics counter. At least I get to sit … otherwise I’d suffer a severe case of museum knees. As it is, my hands get sore because I’m typing like a madman the whole time, with my computer screen projected on the wall via a nifty (and expensive) LCD datapad. This means the team gets to find fault with what I’m typing. It’s not that I make typos; it’s that I don’t actually know what words to type. Everybody’s talking at once and I lack the knowledge to successfully synthesize and combine all of their various thoughts. It’s kind of like a psychiatrist attempting to simultaneously analyze both halves of a split personality. Except it’s worse: there are six engineers on the team, comprising four different accents and usually about six different points of view.

The worst part is, when they recommend a double-failsafe trip on a check valve, I’m supposed to know what check valve it they’re talking about (UVV-493012-001, for example) and type the number into the worksheet. This is difficult because all I have to go on is a fifty-page, 11x17” Piping and Instrument Diagram that has about 1,000 valves on each page, the depictions of which would collectively fit on the head of a pin.

The end result is that I’m simultaneously overwhelmed and bored, which means I have a hell of a time staying awake. It’s just like college in that regard. Today my eyelids actually closed several times, each time for a dangerous and terrible one or two seconds. I may have to resort to double espressos if I’m to continue this for two more weeks.

I do derive some small solace from the hotel here, which is fabulous. I have a real furry bathmat, instead of just an extra-thick towel. Maria, my maid, leaves new bottles of shampoo and new soaps every day, even though I’ve obviously just pilfered the ones I already had. I left her a dirty shirt this morning with a note, and by the time I returned to my room in the evening, the shirt was cleaned and neatly pressed and returned to the closet, left hanging of a fine stout wire hanger that, like the soap and shampoo, I get to bring home with me. But that’s not all. The maid not only took care of my shirt, made my bed, and cleaned up my room, but she also got on my computer and repartitioned my fragmented hard drive. I tell you, the service here is fantastic.

Perhaps the best thing about this room is that the windows have giant wooden shutters that, when closed, are absolutely opaque. At night, the room is as dark as a cabin up in the mountains on a moonless night, which is to say, pitch black. This kind of darkness is about the only way I can really submit to an utterly complete and delicious sleep (a depth of sleep that I rarely even get at home).

Of course, this degree of submittal is very dangerous. I become so tranquil, and sink into such a heavy slumber, that almost nothing can awake me. However, if something does—for example, several cars outside my window defying the odds by backfiring simultaneously, or an anvil being dropped on the floor in the room above me—I do wake up. And when I do, I experience a sudden and terrifying shift from the sacred slumber to a state of alarm—head jerking back and forth, eyes darting around in vain for some kind of visual data with which to supply my information-starved brain. Basically, it scares the daylights out of me (a problematic metaphor, I know, since this happens in the black of night).

I bring up this awful phenomenon because it happened last night. I have no idea what awoke me, except for my own blood-curdling scream. The scream is an automatic part of the whole experience. The last time this happened at home was on the night of a power failure which rendered even San Francisco completely dark. I was awakened when a giant framed and glassed picture fell off the wall, hit the hardwood floor, and shattered into a million pieces. Although I woke up screaming, I had no memory of the sound, and no idea anything had fallen. (I do have a memory of my wife asking, when I’d finally stopped screaming, “What fell?” I was utterly bewildered. Something fell?)

This time was no different, except that I never did find out what initially woke me up. I just know that my own screaming scared the crap out of me.

I think you know full well how loud my voice can be, especially when I’m greatly excited; now imagine a scream. It would make Hannibal Lecter’s blood run cold. Perhaps what the most terrifying thing about hearing my own scream is that in a way, I’m a spectator to it; I don’t know why I’m screaming, but have a pretty good idea that I sure as hell must be in some kind of real danger to scream like that.

After the scream was finally over, and I was done shaking on the bed, spinning blindly in a black void, I gradually calmed down enough to consider the scream objectively. Then, I had the unsettling realization that the police could burst in at any moment to find out what was going on. I also was afraid to fall back asleep—and indeed, even in my greatly troubled psychological state I was quite close to complete unconsciousness—since whatever had awakened me, I feared, would repeat itself, and I would scream again and this time for sure somebody would come arrest me. It really ruined a good night’s sleep … sleep I badly needed before today’s HAZOP.

Today went exactly as I described above, except that I was extra tired, and the team was grumpy and argumentative. Somehow, I got a dumb old Journey song stuck in my head (“She took a midnight train going a-ny-where . . “) which only made matters worse. The breaks were also a drag because last night my boss checked his voice-mail and the last of his senior engineers had left a message announcing his resignation. (Such is the boon of high technology: you don’t even have to have a backbone anymore.) Well, that engineer had supposedly been my direct supervisor, the Group Leader, so his resignation is causing a shakeup in the company hierarchy, as can be expected. But what’s especially dismal about this shakeup is how half-hearted all the shakeup is: there’s simply nobody left to supervise here anyway. Our office now has a grand total of three engineers, including my boss. Of those three, my boss fully expects a certain one to quit shortly, leaving an absurd two engineers total.

This total engineer count is down from about ten when I started here, not all that long ago. I mean, we’ve always wanted a project backlog, but not like this! Now, we have all these projects (business was actually in the process of taking off) and no staff to do them. I expect to spend four hours tonight working on another project for another client, and tomorrow we have to drive down to Long Beach to meet with said client. It just never lets up.

I cannot tell you how relieved I am that I don’t have a chemical engineering degree. I’ll never have to step up and be one of the overworked engineers. The only other silver lining I can think of is that I get paid time-and-a-half for all my overtime, which means by the time this HAZOP is over, I’ll be ready to retire and buy a $6,000 house in Claflin, Kansas, where my wife and I can live out the rest of our days as clerks at the AM/PM Mini-Mart. If we save enough, we might even buy a carpet cleaning franchise and be bona-fide business owners. Stranger things have happened!

To be continued...

This tale continues here with HAZOP Blues II: The Spawning!

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Fiction - Guide to Managing Millennials

NOTE: This post is rated PG-13 for crude humor and mature themes.

Announcement

I am happy to announce that this is my 100th blog post since I started albertnet! My first post was in February of 2009. Funny … it doesn’t seem like that long ago.

Introduction

I got a solicitation in my work e-mail that was either spam or a reasonable business proposition, depending on your point of view. (As the aptly named Senator Packwood pointed out, “How can you know until you try?”) The solicitation was from whitepapersforbiz.com and was for a $99, 18-page guide on “Managing Generation Y.” The ad started out: “Generation Y. The Internet Generation. Millennials. Whatever you call them, this new generation of workers is the largest to hit the workforce since the Boomers, and they bring with them unique expectations.”

Right away this caught my attention. First of all, I was thrown by this term “Millennials.” Millennials? As in, born around the turn of the century? These people are eleven now. Please tell me they aren’t invading the workforce. Meanwhile, if the workforce is being flooded with these Gen-Y types, during a terrible recession with the worst unemployment in decades, who are they to be expecting anything? How about “being happy just to have a job”? Why should we coddle and cater to these people?

Naturally, I’m just being a bitter old man here. Obviously we need these youngsters very badly, because they “get it,” they can conceive of the next great “killer app,” they can solve our office computer problems, and many of them are still good-looking enough to be the public face of our companies as the rest of us, skin wrinkling and backs aching, run out the clock on our miserable lives. It has always been thus. So, the management guide makes perfect sense.

This is where I come in. I’m guessing that most corporate wage slaves—especially “individual contributors” (i.e., non-managers) like myself—are going to find $99 a bit steep for an 18-page electronic document, especially when the advertisement has embarrassing typos like “3 way to develop productive relationships with Millennials.” (Whether they meant “3 ways” or “3-way”—which would be kind of shocking—that’s pretty sloppy). So I figured, why don’t I write my own guide, which would be shorter (and thus better), and much, much cheaper? I might not have done as much research as these guys, but a little advice is better than nothing. Best yet, I let my PayPal account lapse, so I’m not even going to charge you. You can just buy me a beer next time I see you.

[Please note that what follows is fiction. I do not allude to any actual company in this piece, nor am I a human resources type, nor do I actually have real advice for anybody in this realm. It’s just for fun. Okay? Good.]

THE ALBERTNET GUIDE TO MANAGING MILLENNIALS

Seven core traits of Generation Y

Naturally there are vast differences among the members of any generation, but certain generalizations can be made (and are essential to handy pocket guides like this). This guide will concern only Americans born in 1990 or later, and who are entering the corporate world of offices rather than service-sector jobs, self-employment, or itinerant farm labor. Also, this guide only discusses males. Research for the equivalent guide for female employees is still underway as it is a much more complicated matter. (The section about boots and other footwear, by itself, is likely to eclipse this entire guide.) Stay tuned for how to order this second guide as soon as it is available!

Here are the seven core traits of Generation Y:

Informal – They consider not only words like “sir” and “please” to be old-fashioned, but also formerly widespread ideas like politeness, hierarchies, and decorum.

Connected – They are continuously in touch with a very wide, though seldom deep, electronic network of other Millennials (along with older sickos masquerading as them).

Casual – Old-fashioned business attire like suits, ties, socks, and clean shaves have been virtually abandoned by Gen-Y.

Entitled – This generation was raised by parents who were kids in the seventies—that is, whose parents were only into themselves. The backlash of the seventies selfish parents has manifested in overindulgent nineties/aughts parents who showered their kids with love, attention, praise, and expensive toys, making Gen-Y hugely imbued with a sense of entitlement.

Scattered – Millennials don’t have time for MTV, full magazine articles, lectures, books, or this guide. Their intellectual activity is the equivalent of waiting tables. They’re able to keep a dozen different text/Tweet/phone conversations going while seeming to be paying attention to you, but their mental worlds are too frantic for deep thoughts or discussions.

Public – Generation Y has become so inured to self-disclosure, due primarily to Facebook and other social networks, that the line between public and private has been essentially erased.

Smart – As far as we can tell, these kids are really, really smart. (We kind of have to say this, in case one of them happens to read this guide and becomes really, really offended.)

Deep down, Millennials are not only aware of these traits, but are very proud of them. This means if any member of an older generation, especially somebody in management, demonstrates these traits, the Gen Y employee is likely to feel patronized. You will do well to be as polite, isolated, well-attired, timid, organized, private, and, well, clueless as possible in the presence of Gen Y. This shouldn’t be that hard. Just be yourself.

Getting off on the right foot

A big part of your success in managing a Millennial is hiring the right one to begin with. Careful recruiting has never been more important—or more difficult—than it is now. Here are some pointers.

One of the most common mistakes managers make when recruiting Gen Y is to be visibly startled by the candidate’s appearance. This can cause the candidate to clam up completely, or else to lash out. If you know what to expect, you can keep your cool and have a positive recruiting experience. Things to be ready for:

• The candidate may not wear a necktie to the interview. Many Gen Yers literally cannot believe that this would be expected, even in an interview.
• Clip-on tie? Hide your astonishment. The candidate may sincerely want to please but knows he could never actually tie a tie; or, he is wearing the clip-on ironically.
• Giant fist-sized perfectly symmetrical Windsor knot? You’ve got a great candidate: somebody who actually trusts the sartorial advice of his (albeit misguided) father or grandfather enough to get help tying his tie. This guy is more likely to be emotionally stable, and might also be more docile in accepting quaint workplace traditions like working hard.
• Corporate logo, penis graphic, or animal art on a necktie? Roll with it—unless it’s a donkey or elephant. That could mean a politically active person, who could seriously damage workplace productivity during election season.
• Totally oversized suit? Could be a loaner from Dad. Or maybe the candidate got a bad clothier recommendation from a pal and went to Big & Tall. So many Millennials are seriously overweight, Big & Tall has become almost the de facto clothier for interview suits. (In fact, the parent corporation, LivingXL, is considering rebranding the clothing chain “Big & Normal.”)

Traditionally, an interview consists of an employer asking questions of the candidate to find out if he is qualified for the job. Today, the candidate’s ability should be assumed. Technology is changing so fast, your candidate will probably have an innovative, super-efficient way of carrying out his work tasks—something you never would have dreamed of. Or, the Gen Y new-hire may think of totally different job activities, or even a totally new business for your company to get into. Thus, the main purpose of the job interview is to convince the candidate that your company is a cool place to work—even while you take care to avoid coming off as a poseur.

Three ways to Motivate Millennials

There are of course countless ways to motivate your Gen Y employees, most of which work only some of the time. But we have identified three surefire ways to get the most out of your Millennials:

Interns. Always have some interns around to do most of the work. Not only do interns not require motivation (after all, trying to turn their internship into a paying job is all the motivation they will ever need), having them to kick around will build and sustain the self-esteem of your Gen Y employees.

Rejiggered ratings. In the traditional ratings scale used for older employees, change “underachieving” to “achieving”; change “achieving” to “exceeding expectations”; and change “exceeding expectations” to “needs improvement.” The name changes to the lower ratings are to protect an employee’s morale, since Millennials in these rungs obviously came through the “praise everybody” system where every player on the soccer team gets a trophy, even the ones who never kicked the ball. The name of the top tier is designed for offspring of Tiger Mothers, who respond only to verbal abuse.

Free soda. Fountain beverages are extremely inexpensive but really make your Gen Y employees feel valued. Put the beverage company’s marketing machine to work for you! (Note: do not offer Shasta or other off-brand beverages—this will backfire!)

Public vs. private

Self-disclosure is a habit for Millennials, so you should be braced for offhanded disclosures, ranging from the candid to the downright maudlin, that would have been unheard of a generation ago. The danger here is that your reaction could catch your employee completely off-guard and cause him terrible embarrassment. It is natural to assume that anybody of this generation would have pretty thick skin, but actually they do not. There is no non-verbal communication on Facebook, and face-to-face workplace interactions are not something the typical Gen-Y person is accustomed to. A poker face and a ready comment (e.g., “How did that make you feel?”) are advised.

For example, in his first or second week on the job a Millennial might make reference to something his therapist said to him. Generation Y, unlike the proud and/or shame-filled ones before it, is very relaxed about getting a little help sometimes. To show surprise at this disclosure—to say nothing of gasping—would be a very damaging, and alienating, faux pas. Instead you should respond (practice this in the mirror if necessary), “Wow, that’s very perceptive. Say, is your therapist accepting new patients?”

Of course, playing off your Gen Y employee’s disclosure is totally different from disclosing anything of an even remotely personal nature yourself. Why? Because you’re like the Millennial’s mom or dad, so for you to open up is embarrassing (in the “eww!” way). If, say, you mention that you have an appointment with a dermatologist, don’t be surprised if your Gen Y employee says, “Dude—TMI!”

To the great consternation of human resources departments nationwide, Gen Y employees cannot be prevented from Tweeting about just about everything that happens in the workplace. The only way to keep your company’s private business private is to require employees to create a Twitter alter-ego. You can put a positive spin on this requirement when explaining it to your Millennials. One benefit: with this alter ego they can be even more brash, insulting not just their enemies but their friends.

Of course, everybody mentioned in these Tweets must have a pseudonym as well. To assure this, have your employees refer to their colleagues (and yourself) by whatever secret nicknames they’re already using. Tell your employee, “If you think of me as ‘Balding Douchelord,’ just use that nickname in your Tweets.” If the employee resists, get him excited by saying, “As of yet nobody has created an iPad app that turns a name into an alias, like ‘Joseba Bloviatronica’ for ‘Joe Blow,’ then checks its availability. Somebody is going to make a killing on that app!”

Internet use

Telling a Millennial not to use Facebook while at work would be a real morale-crusher, so you have to allow it. But with other types of Internet abuse, you need to be more firm. Specifically, you can’t have employees using the corporate network to steal media content. Gen Y-ers cannot grasp that sharing MP3 files or downloaded movies is theft; this is literally beyond their comprehension. Explain that there are some upper-level managers who just don’t “get it,” and that these managers unfortunately have the authority to fire people. This will no doubt elicit a knowing smirk—Millennials are expert at covering their tracks—so you must follow up by saying, in a low voice, “Look, there are sysadmin people in this company very jealous of your success. They might just have nothing better to do than set up network traps to get you busted.”

Of course, even bringing up Internet acceptable use policy will get you labeled as one of “them,” so to build back the rapport with your Millennial, you need to get up, close your door, draw your blinds, and let him in on a little “secret”: that there’s a conference room with an extra PC that isn’t on the corporate network but instead steals Internet connectivity from the Starbucks in the lobby. He can use this PC to browse untoward websites, just like he did at the public library as a junior high kid.

Sensitivity training

Gen Y-ers are known for being sensitive. But this doesn’t mean they’re sensitive to others’ feelings—just to their own. We’d all like to think these kids have evolved into something kinder and gentler than we are, but honestly, what can we expect from a generation whose credo is “Sucks to be you!”?

It is widely accepted among Millennials that you can insult somebody as bluntly as you want, as long as you say, “Ha ha, you’ve just been punked!” afterward. It is very uncommon, however, for them to consider their audience for such gibes; that is, they’re just as likely to insult a grey-haired senior colleague as one of their pals. Naturally you cannot assume the senior colleague will understand, so you need to alter the Gen Y employee’s behavior.

The best angle to work here is the purely pragmatic. Don’t say, “Now Tyler, you shouldn’t give Donald a hard time just because he prints out so many documents. He’s kind of sensitive about his work habits and feels like you’re making fun of his age.” That’s just not going to work. What you should say is, “Tyler, don’t make fun of Donald. He’s a gun nut and kind of unstable.”

This sensitivity washes both ways. For example, if Donald, who is putting his daughter through Columbia, sees fit to pack a sack lunch every day, he certainly may. But just because he’s always eaten peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches doesn’t mean he can continue to do so. Millennials are likely to be allergic to peanuts, and even if they’re not, would be scandalized to see a peanut product right out there in the open. After all, peanut products are practically a controlled substance in modern schools. In deference to Gen Y, have your older employees switch to another type of nut butter.

Conclusion

This guide is really just the beginning. Behaviors among Generation Y are always changing and shifting, even as older employees become ever more rigid, even brittle, in their ways. Perhaps the best way to motivate Millennials, and make them feel good, is to ask their opinion about how you should behave. (It’s tempting to have them critique this guide, but of course they’re much too busy.)

dana albert blog

From the Archives - The Sissy Syndrome

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Introduction

My recent dishwasher installation project, and various other home improvement projects over the years, remind me of an essay I wrote long ago called “The Sissy Syndrome.” I wrote it because it needed to be written, but at that time I had no way to publish or otherwise propagate such essays. Thus, I’m not sure any living human has ever laid eyes on this one. As you will see, it concerns a double-standard: not a simple, well-understood one like women face, but a thornier, more complex one that torments men. I have found it and dusted it off, and present it here as a companion piece to “Dishwasher Man.”

The Sissy Syndrome - February 1, 2003

No doubt women have been screwed in many ways by the process of their liberation. For example, men expect women who work full time to continue doing most of the “women’s work.” But the glory days of this double standard are behind us; it was my dad’s generation who got to skip out on most forms of housework while enjoying the fruits of a double income. I’m always eager to pile on when our wives and mothers bemoan the complete injustice of the woman’s double role, but let’s let that be their thing. I have my own bone to pick with the evolution of the sexes.

My beef is this: men have come a long way toward contributing equally to the ongoing housekeeping and child-rearing duties; have developed impressive cooking and diaper-changing and even ironing skills; have sincerely adopted the principles of gender equality; have even learned how to be emotionally sensitive in a manly, non-effete way—and yet both women and men alike are still immersed in the timeless conviction that all men should have the robust, uncomplaining, tireless physical strength and invulnerable armored flesh of the day laborer.

It’s all well and good that modern men are comfortable with abstract mental operations, delicate sociopolitical maneuverings, and ballsy professional grandstanding; that we have a real appreciation for high culture; that we possess the unflagging patience and tenacity required by, say, a mortgage refinancing transaction—but all of this is for naught if we men don’t have an intuitive understanding of, and love for, every power tool and toxic solvent known to man, along with the cheerful willingness to haul all manner of large heavy object. It’s understood that we have a natural affinity, and even enthusiasm, for any brute-force earth-moving project our women can throw at us.

Men don’t get to substitute the ability to choose a necktie for, say, the willingness to unclog a rain gutter. If for all our amateurish efforts with the belt sander we still can’t make the doors in the house close quietly, it doesn’t matter if we can go eyeball-to-eyeball with an angry executive and successfully push through a deal he’s not happy with. Modern business tools or intellectual powers alone cannot make us men, they just makes us better Smurfs. But it’s not the women applying this judgment; the self-loathing comes largely from within. If I can resolve a static IP routing problem on a frame relay interface and bring all the Jiffy Lube stores in the nation back online, but still have to pay somebody to change the oil in my own car, I still feel like a poor excuse for a man.

In fact, if I can have a heart-to-heart talk with my wife and help restore contentment after a painful emotional storm, that almost makes it worse when I get a paper cut in the tender, peach-skin flesh of my finger. On some level, I truly believe that our women would secretly jump at the chance to trade in our advanced verbal skills for the chance to watch us bore a mining tunnel into solid rock with nothing more than a pickaxe swung by graceful and powerful muscles. Beyond the show of strength—and here is the important point—there’s work to be done. And often they need a man to do it.

On some base visceral level, women must be as conflicted as modern men are about our modern refined sense of home-decorating aesthetics and our spirit of familial cooperation. So what if we do half the diaper changing around here? It’s helpful, sure, but a woman doesn’t need a man for that. Women sincerely love it that we’re affectionate with our babies: but wouldn’t it be even better if we could cuddle those babies after building a redwood deck out back?

Perhaps the modern woman would hold firm and maintain that she really, truly is above all that, and if given the choice, she’d actually trade in our ability to fix the sump pump for a willingness to read a book on ovulation. But I know all about spoken positions: they’re easy enough to have because they seldom get tested. (My dad is a feminist from way back, as fair and even-handed is they come, but—happily enough for him—this managed not to result in his doing any laundering or dishwashing when I was growing up.)

Without any behavior to study, the only way to prove or disprove one’s progressive attitudes would be to employ a polygraph machine. And I think it’s the same way with the attitudes women have toward backbreaking manual labor and the male. It’s subtle. They don’t have to say, “Hey, are you going to dig up that tree, or are you worried you’ll get a blister on your finger or throw out your back or not end up being strong enough for the job?” It’s all implied. All they need to say is “That tree needs to be dug up,” and the following chain reaction is automatically kicked off in the man’s brain:

She wants this tree dug up.

Digging up a tree is hard work, requiring strong muscles and tough hands.

She is not as strong as I am.

Her skin is not as tough as mine.

Based on my superior strength and tougher skin, I am not only the logical choice for this job, but it would be shameful for me to allow her to do this herself.

Hard though it may be to dig up a tree, this and countless other much harder jobs have been done by normal male individuals throughout time.

Based on the countless number of individuals who could dig up this tree, if my muscles are not strong enough or my skin not tough enough to do the job, I am actually a lot more like her than I am like the men who do this kind of thing routinely; that is, I am not really a man at all, but more like a modern woman who happens to own a penis.

If I do this job but complain about it, I am maybe just barely a man, since I live in a world of real, uncomplaining men, any of whom she might come to wish she had around instead of me.

Naturally, it doesn’t seem appropriate for me to complain about this state of affairs. After all, men enjoy being stronger; on average we make more money than women, for no good reason; we still dominate high offices throughout the world; we get to pee standing up; and we never have to wear panty hose. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut. But I do feel justified in pointing out that at least on this homemaking front, the tide is turning in an unfavorable direction for us men, and not just in the reversal of past ills. Without attempting an exhaustive discussion of the equality of the sexes—after all, I don’t want to stray too far from my main thesis—let me take a minute to address the chance examples I just gave:

Without much hand-to-hand combat or many long marches through the mire with a badly injured comrade on our backs, the modern American adult, male or female, has little need for great physical strength; indeed, there’s a downside to this strength—the burden of it—that I hope to make clear in this essay.

It’s immaterial how much money the average male makes compared to the average female, since a) my wife’s and my incomes are combined anyway; b) this is just another area where I risk falling short of my male peers; and c) it makes zero sense for me to actually wish for this state of affairs, since I want my wife to make as much money as possible, ideally many times more than I do.

Men’s high office stranglehold is of no benefit to us, as these leaders are totally beholden to corporations, lobbyists, and pundits anyway; moreover, the tendency of people to elect men instead of women only benefits me if I’m a chauvinist (which I’m not) or want to run for office myself (which I don’t).

Okay, I have to admit, peeing standing up is great, but the average person only goes six times a day, and one of those times is at night when we have to sit down anyway, so it’s just not that big a deal.

Women almost never wear panty hose anymore, and women’s slacks today don’t look any less comfortable than men’s.

But these considerations are beside the main point: that there is really no female equivalent to the double-standard of the modern, sensitive male needing to have the physical attributes of the sinewy, gritty landscaper. Is there truly a female equivalent to a man’s not being manly enough? I can’t think of one. Not being feminine enough? No, guys love tomboys, and if asked any woman can put on makeup and flattering attire. A woman wearing her man’s clothing has a certain type of sexy chic that takes nothing away from her femininity and if anything enhances it when employed properly. Not being good looking enough and/or thin enough? Not a good example. There are obvious benefits to looking good, whether you’re male or female, and if women are scrutinized the most, at least their investment in their appearance is well amortized across virtually every waking moment of every day. How does it benefit a man to build up the strength, stamina, and calluses necessary to occasionally build a fence or landscape a yard? Who’s going to know he did these jobs, besides his wife? (Yet if he shirks them, he has to face himself.)

Sure, I could brag to my male buddies about how I dug up and fixed a leaking sprinkler system (if I’d actually done this), but how much mileage would I get out of that? The difficulty of the task doesn’t speak for itself. And generally the wiser tack is to avoid discussions of home improvement altogether, lest we end up admitting to something we’d rather not: “Well, actually, we paid a contractor to build the fence. I’m sure I could have done it myself, but being so busy at work and all [unspoken details: driving a desk, typing all day, making phone calls] I just didn’t have time. I did stain it myself though. Yep. Tough job. The stain really didn’t smell very good.” No, better just to field a complement by saying, “Yeah, it’s a good fence,” and then changing the subject. (Perhaps this explains the origin of the strong, silent male.)

Nor is there a female equivalent to the inability of a self-respecting man to gracefully get out of doing a man’s work. The entire notion of “a man’s work” is completely solid and inarguable. Sure, there are tasks formerly thought to be the exclusive realm of the male, that it turns out are equally achievable by a female, like doing math and programming electronic equipment and driving a car in bad weather and barbecuing. And other tasks, such as taking out the garbage, have belonged exclusively to the male for reasons involving, perhaps, the last vestige of chivalry rather than any notion of difficulty. But there are other jobs that simply demand too much strength for a woman to do. It’s obvious to anybody, progressive or not, that the man is the appropriate person to do this work.

The notion of “women’s work,” on the other hand, is a total anachronism. Name a single job that a woman can do that a man truly cannot. There isn’t one. Sure, there are skills that have traditionally been in the women’s domain, like knitting and crocheting and sewing clothing from fabric and patterns, but nobody does that stuff anymore, and no woman would ever have her womanhood challenged by refusing to do them. Lots of women don’t even cook much these days, and they practically boast of it, since it marks them as modern and liberated. (Note that this does not cast doubt on their femininity.)

Worse, if a man gets sore about the home project double standard, the woman doesn’t have to take any blame—she gets to chalk the whole thing up to a man’s hang-up. It’s unbefitting of a male to complain about the difficulty of the work, and in fact can cause big trouble. Envision this scenario: a man—okay, a male adult—does some yard work, and he gets completely pissed off because he has just developed, and in the process lanced, a large blister, and it hurts. He complains bitterly, and there is absolutely no appropriate course of action for his wife to take. If she snidely says, “Oh, poor baby, did you get a little boo-boo?” or “Get a backbone, you pathetic excuse for a man,” the effect is obvious. But if she sweetly coos, “Oh, I’m sorry, let me kiss it and make it feel better,” even if she could do this without a trace of irony, that’s even worse because it makes the husband a child and his wife a mother figure. There is no human social protocol for this scenario other than the man to grimly and silently bear it. Only if he sustains a respectable injury like the loss of a limb is there room for the woman to notice it, freak out, and let the man shrug and say, “It’s nothing.”

By complaining of a blister, the male paints both himself and his mate into a corner socially, and there is no escape. Though we can’t complain about the work itself, at some point the unfairness of the situation begins to grate on us. When I say “unfairness” I’m referring to all the progress men have made toward being more thoughtful spouses, better parents, effective housecleaners, fairer people, and yet how little these things do to relax our duty to take on all the physically strenuous jobs.

If the male decides to point out the double standard, then the female really has him over a barrel. Because she hasn’t said a thing! All she asked was for the job to be done, since she couldn’t do it, so his plaintive response takes on the aspect of some difficult male complex, his internal emotional struggle, the kind of thing that can be summed up as a man talking about his feelings, which is an acceptable thing for the modern male to do under certain circumstances, like when all his manly obligations have been met, but not right after he’s made a big fuss over having to do the kind of work that real men have done cheerfully for millennia, without sustaining even a slight soreness, much less a blister, much less a spoken grievance. No, the abuse comes from within the male himself, so women don’t even have to fess up to it. It’s an invisible button they don’t even have to push.

So what is to be done? I guess we men could maintain the role of sensitive, articulate, well-educated, fair, sweet housekeepers, and loving, doting fathers and husbands, but take careers as day laborers, to build up the strength and stamina and (let’s just say it) manliness required for the occasional home improvement project. But then we wouldn’t make enough money, which is a pity when you’re as educated and articulate and sensible as the modern man has become.

So should the women try to even out the playing field by building up the strength and firmness of flesh to do the jobs themselves? Of course not. They’d be snared in their own ideal of femininity and beauty. No good for them, and besides, no man wants his wife to be tougher and manlier than he is.

So should women relieve their men of all housekeeping and child-rearing duties to give them time to work out and toughen themselves up? Yeah, right—and recreate the wretched state of affairs my generation grew up with, the overburdened career woman/homemaker/mother, but now with both parties resenting the man for the injustice of it? Not a good solution.

Perhaps the only kind thing for women to do is to silently hire somebody to do this work, and let the husband find out only after it’s too late. Then the man can save face by pretending to be annoyed at his wife’s fiscal irresponsibility, saying “Hell, honey, I could’ve done that!” while secretly breathing a sigh of relief. (And the woman can humor him in this bluff.)

If this scenario isn’t practical, or the job is something truly within the husband’s grasp, at least the woman can let the man seem to talk her into letting him try it himself; she can exercise saintly patience while he struggles with it; and she can make sure she never, ever downplays the difficulty of the job, and never shames him into doing it by starting to do it herself. And if he complains—not about the job itself, he would never do that—but about the injustice of this double standard, she can make sure she readily agrees, and acknowledges the absurdity of it. She can concede that males have come too far in our evolution from jerks to be subjected to backbreaking slave labor, that he should be spared this work not because he’s not capable of doing it, but because it’s not interesting enough for his heightened intellect and his advanced appreciation of the higher planes of human existence to which he has ascended. And she can bring him a beer.