Get visible - Shine - PROMOTED

Do you know how to shine at work and get promoted?

• Stretch your responsibility?
• Always say yes to your boss?
• Positive attitude toward your job?
• Put pride and passion in what you do?
• See chanllenges as opportunity?
• Do more than necessary?

If you believe all of the above are true then you better not read further and get back to your work. What I'm going to tell you is something more practical, at least from my own experience.

Having been struggled in the office environment for more than 20 years, I have witnessed people gone up and down, fought to get to the top post, backstabbed each other, played dirty political tricks, butt kissing, brown nosing..

If you want to get to the top spot, there are a number of essential skills you need to master and manipulate along the way, you couldn't avoid it. All these skills will save your time enormously and produce excellent results.

The following are the skills you need to master. Please note that I did not make up for it but all these are what I have seeing people doing and with great results:

• Always choose high profile task. preferably task that require you to present in front of upper management, that give you a great chances to get visible.
• Networking. This is a very "technical" task, imagine you have to go every floors of your office just to say 'hi' for no reason or cut into the middle of any conversation while a group of people you don't know at all is having an discussion.
• Know the importancy of a meeting. Before going into an meeting make sure that you check the attendees list, you do not want to involve in those working meeting, that will only going to give you more work, none visible work. You only want to meet those people that can influence your future in your company. If you are forced to attend any working meeting, just attend the first or last 10 minutes and tell them you are busy with other works.
• The ART of letting people know "I AM BUSY"
  - If you need to collect a printout from a printer, do not WALK there but RUN (or walk at a very fast pace). While you run, there are some magic words you need to say, you need to say "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!" all the way to the printer. As if you are late for some important meeting.
  - Out of nothing, you can just stand up and RUN (direction is not important) and then return to your own desk and pretending typing something on your keyboard, as if you have forgot to send out some important e-mails. Don't forget to repeat the magic word while you are running.
  - If you are just came back from a meeting, always hold your laptop up on your shoulder to get notify and don't forget to breath loud and heavily as if you are very tired.
  - Stretching. This one different from office-egornomic strecthing. You just need to stand up with your hands at your waist, take a deep breath and exhale very loudly (very very loud), and then follow by the sound "chu, chu, chu, chu, chu, chu" (6 times). Repeat this exercise once every hour. If you have done this exercise enough, the sound that came out from your mouth will sound exactly like "bu sy, bu sy, bu sy". Naturally..
  - If your office phone do not have a headset, request for one now. Always have your headset on eventhough you are not talking on the phone. People who have the headset on always looks busy.
  - If you are talking on the phone, don't sit on your chair, STAND UP, with one hand at your waist and another hand's index finger pointing at 12 o'clock direction. As if you are having a very heated discussion. I have seen people doing this but didn't realise that the phone cord is not connected.
  - Always look at the monitor and mumbling to yourself, like "Oh my god! you can't do that !!", "Oh another idiot !!", "See! I've told you, you just don't believe me.."
• Flexi hour. Do you know what's the meaning of flexi hour ? Flexi hour means you can come in late and go home late as well, yeah! I'm right! go home LATE. OK, this is how you can make advantage of it. You come in just before lunch and go for lunch straightaway (great right ?). At 5:00pm, when everyone gone home, you also go out for a movie or dinner and come back at 9pm. Walk around the office to see if any managers are still around, if so, purposely bypassing their door and say 'hi' to them, tell them you are damn busy that's why you have to stay back. After you have visited each and every Managers at your floor, you can try go to another floor if you are aggressive enough.. Repeat the same for tomorrow, next week, next month, just do it EVERYDAY!! (Some companies allow you to claim for dinner if you work 'LATE' but no company in this world allow you to claim for lunch)
• If you come in late, you have to pretend talking on your handphone as loud as you can, the conversation sounds something like this: "OK, Just give me 5 minutes and I will drop by your place, I have review the document you sent me, in fact I spent my whole night working on it. Let's me summarize it and I will pass it back to you." or something similiar.
• Email. With all the conveniences you have on Flexi hour, you can send out e-mail at 11pm, so people thought that you are still working at that time, but don't forget to cc your boss as well.
• Disappearing. Most people disappearing from his/her desk but later got calls from their boss. Guys, if you want to do this, please check your boss schedule before you do so. With the advance in today technology, you can just click on your boss' schedule in the Outlook and plan ahead the time you clock-in/out or plan ahead for your 3-hours lunch.
• During festive season, buy your boss a small gift (a big one if you can afford), it will make him/her damn happy because you are the only one who bought them gift.

If you have read this far, I know that you have done everything without any great result. I promise you, if you follow all the steps provided above your next promotion will come very soon, at least I don't see any failure so far.

I wish you all success in your journey. If you have any tips or more advanced techniques to share, please let me know.