This Time It's Personal

I applied for one of those internal jobs this week, even though my application is doomed before it crawls out the envelope. I had to - I'm bored stupid and I'm going to explode one of these Monday mornings if something doesn't change.

You know how it is. There's always some totally useless idiot clogging up the promotion ladder. And they ALWAYS seem to be bossing me about. You know who I mean. The ones who've heard about the Internet, and once used it to find a phone number, but "Naw, it's just not me"

It's the "Oh I don't need e-mail - I get my secretary to print out anything important" brigade who really get my goat. How the hell do they get the bloody job in the first place! Surely any job advertised in the last ten years demanded some sort of interaction with the real world.

I know exactly what happened. I'm hip. These freaks always end up stuck between me and management and directly responsible for writing the Annual Personnel Report about me. So I grin and laugh and make em feel wonderful. Like I've a choice. The only way to get out from under is to make the silly sod look like God Almighty.

Everyone knows they were promoted because they were the most useless SOB in the western hemisphere. The only way to get them out of the way was to make them MY boss. You heard about Dead Men's Shoes? That assumes the old slimeball was ever alive in the first place.

I've got to find sommat else to do with my time. People are beginning to look at me and wonder why have I been at the same job level for half a decade. All the old ways of getting on are history. Loyalty? Seniority? Means bog all, nowadays. The crap you hear now is all about "constant flux", the "growing demands of the market" and the need for new ideas and new thinking.

This of course is management-speak for "he's younger, better looking, keener and cheaper than you, you loser!"

So I've got to shape up. Get my arse in gear. Find an angle.

It's a Dog Eat Dog world out there, they reckon. I'm not a employee, I'm a personal corporation! I've got to differentiate! Build demand for my product in my target markets!! I've got to work on my Personal Brand!!

This is quite a boggling concept, this personal branding.

I have to say I'm up for it. If it works for boring old buggers like Madonna and Richard Branson and Edwina Currie it's bound work for me.

The shtick is very simple. You've got to see the big picture - your vision and purpose (Yep, I KNOW it's crap but stick with me...) then you've got to get to know yourself - because the best brands have authenticity. If I'm a big ugly lunk I can't exactly sell myself as a stripper on a stick now can I. I'm less of a Chippendale and more of a George Hepplewight...

The next step is to express that brand! Create a brand profile! Walk the walk! It could be a daft waistcoat, an eyepatch, or a club foot. A fake accent perhaps (It's doing wonders for that Mike Skinner Street dude...) or maybe a tattooed forehead. That's going to set you apart from your personal competitors! Remember Tangled Spider's three rules of branding - Repitition, Repitition, Repitition.

Finally the deal is that you have to question everything you do. From the biro you write with, the bike you ride to the dole office, the cheapo clothes you wear. Are they consistent with the new corporate you. Jack Shit Ltd.

From now on, everything I do - the way I eat my Weetabix, the way I buy my Daily Mirror, The bus I catch, is all going to be done with a new sense of who I want to be! By the time I get to that next interview I'm going to be a new, switched on, corporately focussed, fully branded and trademarked Loser. If they are going to knock me back for a gorgeous blonde swot who will work for Wine Gums they're going to have to remember exactly who they forgot about!

Blogga.