Are you a people person? Do you love people? Or do you hate people who love people? If so, slide right on over. You're my kind of people.
We have to thank Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon for helping us see that people who hate people are, indeed, the luckiest people in the world. These two gentlemen, who I've never met, but who I am totally willing to hate on general principles, are the authors of a new business book called "I Hate People!" Their thesis: Being a hater can give you a significant business advantage.
It's true! According to their book's subtitle, it is only by cultivating your natural ability to hate that you will be able to "Kick Loose from the Overbearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work and Get What You Want Out of Your Job."
Of course, there's nothing new about hating your job. What Littman and Hershon have accomplished is to provide us with guidelines for focusing our hate. If you hate to waste your hate, you will love their list of the 10 most hateful individuals one finds at work.
Like "The Stop Sign," a shortsighted person who only knows how to say, "No," even when presented with an excellent idea, like the Kodak executive who nixed the idea of producing a digital camera, or the Decca Records honcho who refused to sign the Beatles, or your own management, who rejected your inspired idea of boosting profits by raising earthworms in your desk drawers.
The authors also hate "Sheeple," workplace zombies who "think alike, resist alike," and are "comfortable with the herd mentality." Personally, I think you should love the vast herds of Sheeple grazing on the workplace landscape. Compared to them, even a creampuff like you looks like a predator.
Unfortunately, it is not enough to simply hate everyone. Once you've categorized and pulverized all your co-workers, you must then emerge from your chrysalis of hate as the workplace butterfly Littman & Hershon call a "Soloist." No more group think for you. "The Soloist excels when he or she gets to perform alone, taking the Ensemble to new heights while demonstrating skills and talents that inspire."
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