Management Lessons: That's What She Said

Faux Pas Friday: Two-Drink Maximum

Fashion is nothing if you don't know how to behave yourself.  You know the old saying, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.  Well, you can put a jackass in Armani, and it's still a jackass.  This week, I am writing about how to behave at an office happy hour or after-hours party involving alcohol.

I think it goes without saying that managers, above all employees, should be very careful of their alcohol in take at office functions.  You should never put an employee in the position of having to care for, or worry about you.  The last thing in the world you need is to have an employee pouring you into a taxi at the end of the night, or worse, bailing you out of jail on your DUI in the morning.  God forbid alcohol should cloud your judgment to the point that you end up telling that intern from Marketing just exactly what you'd like to do to her in the privacy of your office. Managers need to follow very specific codes of conduct in the company of their team members, be it 9 a.m. in the office, or 9 p.m. at the bar.  Whether you are standing in the office, or outside, you are still The Boss.  Don't kid yourself that your employees are evolved enough to compartmentalize your behavior.  Everything you do with an employee is on-the-clock.  You'll remember that even Phoebe turned on Chandler when she went to work for him. 

Obviously, I am fairly old school about most things.  When it comes to alcohol, I don't think a manager should ever risk overindulging.  That might mean not drinking at all. Your team members need to trust your judgment, and how you manage your liquor says a lot.  If you choose to indulge, two drinks should be the max.  Two is usually the number of drink tickets HR will hand out at wet events, and at two drinks a lightweight will be feeling all right, but very few people will be slurring and declaring their love.  

Your bartime behavior will set the standard for most of your employees.  Unless you want to take responsibility for seeing them all home safely, set the example you'd like them to follow.  Also remember that your sobriety might be the only thing that keeps a drunken employee from driving.  If for no other reason than that good help is hard to find, you don't want to send your team out into the night drunk as a cheerleader at senior prom.  (Should you have an employee over-indulge, then take the reins.  Call him a cab, or drive him home yourself, but do not let him drive.)

In short, if you want your employees to respect you in the morning, you've got to be respectable when you're with them in the night.  I know it's no fun, but that's why you're getting paid the big bucks.

Lane Buckman has been in love with fashion since she realized that her first Easter dress came with matching gloves, shoes, and purse. Growing up in the entertainment industry this former beauty queen, model and actress turned corporate career woman understands that dressing for success is just another form of costuming. And, since she has run the size gamut from 2 to 18, Lane understands dressing a variety of shapes. She has written dress codes and conducted Business Style and How to Dress seminars for Fortune 500 and finance companies, boutique agencies, and an international non-profit organization. She gives her stylish Southern mother credit for teaching her everything she knows.

Theatrical Thursday: Bermuda, Bahama, Oh, Barf Me Out

It is safe to say that THE consummate professional on the bar scene is Rick Blaine. Unfortunately, Rick is so well-guarded (and well-regarded,) his clips can't be embedded on piker blogs such as mine, so his insights will have to be saved.

If you can't have the sublime, then go for the ridiculous. Cocktail, with Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown fits that bill quite nicely. (The flick even features a nod to Rick Blaine: In one of the more overwrought scenes -- which believe me, is saying something -- a movie marquee in the background advertises Casablanca.)

There are a couple life lessons to be picked up from this travesty. Trust your working-class relatives, but do everything you can to alienate the rich ones. Mentors can also be assholes. If you have sex with Tom Cruise under a Jamaican waterfall, you'll get knocked up.

There are also a few slightly more useful lessons, if you squint hard enough. The first, obviously, is to be smart about choosing your mentors. If someone tries to give you advice that involves working hard and using your brain occasionally, you might want to listen. (Watch through 6:47.)

A huge part of Bri-Guy's problem, in fact, is he spends too much time looking for the quick fix and not enough time using his brain. He falls in with Mentor Doug, an aging lothario who wants to be a kept man. There is supposed to be a contrasting scene wherein the college professor's ability to impart knowledge isn't a patch on what Mentor Doug has to offer. (Watch through 3:53.)

What that scene should really tell you, though, is if you don't know what a money multiplier is, go to the professor's friggin' office hours while remembering your part-time job is the means to the end, and that if Mentor Doug really had much to offer, he wouldn't be tending someone else's bar. Or, you know, go ahead and learn you have a knack for the short pour and the long pour. I gotta say, though, if I ordered a drink and I had to sit through a Cirque du Soleil bottle act for a watered-down G&T, I am not sure I'd leave much of a tip.

Anyway, this being a bartender movie and all, there has to come a breaking point with school. It is conveniently provided by a particularly obnoxious and unpleasant teacher, who starts out nasty and flies into an obnoxious and unpleasant snit when Bri-Guy challenges him. So, yes, on first viewing, here is how not to teach a class: (Watch to 1:40.)

Take a moment to think about this, though, and you'll see a different problem with this scene. Foremost among them: If our hero is the Class-A bartender we are supposed to believe (not to mention having spent time in the service and theoretically gone through basic training,) shouldn't he be completely immune to taking crap from jerks like this? Shouldn't he be trained in defusing volatile situations instead of pushing a bunch of buttons to make the guy go off? Are we supposed to believe Bri-Guy has weighed the consequences of his actions, or is he just mouthing off like a stupid teen-ager? A point to ponder.

So our hero runs off and has a series of bartending misadventures with Mentor Doug, who boosts him to a bigtime establishment and promptly steals his girlfriend, mocking all self-improvement efforts every step of the way. Bri-Guy reacts to this by "going to the beach" as his uncle suggested in the first clip. He spends three years there before finding Elisabeth Shue (Jordan Almond -- well, Jordan Someone,) in a highly improbable scenario wherein our hero hurdles a bar and delivers a quip about a drunkass girl on the beach instead of just, you know, handing our heroine a phone to dial 911.

So, boy meets girl, boy bones girl, boy reunites with bad influence Mentor Doug and ditches girl for richer Old Girl, who treats him like the gigolo he is until he ditches her (with the aforementioned Casablanca shoutout,) and goes back to Miz Almond. Only, surprise! She wants nothing to do with him, even though he comes on bended knee to her place of employ. And, surprise again! She too handles difficult situations like a teen-ager. Here, then, is a scene on how not to mix your work and home life if you want to keep your job and/or earn any tips:

Additionally ... where the hell is her boss? She's getting pissy at customers who apparently have been waiting an age for her to take their order, she's dumping perfectly good food that costs good money on other customers, and her boss is nowhere to be seen? Bad management!

Our hero persists ... and it turns out Miz Almond is Miz Moneybags! (Which might explain why she is such a lousy waitress, if not why she is allowed to keep her job as such.) And Daddy Moneybags tries to buy off our hero! Who tears up the check and shows how much he cares! And how little Dad thinks of bartenders! All with really, really painfully bad acting! (Watch to 2:35. No, really, all the way through to the end of the scene. You'll be howling.)

Note to would-be suitors of knocked-up rich girls: Talking to anyone's dad this way is not going to gain you any allies. Seriously, if Bri-Guy had gone in there with an ounce of preparedness or any line worth selling, Pops probably would have been a bit more sympathetic. I mean, how much could he really want his unwed daughter dealing with 3 a.m. feedings at the penthouse? And where's Almond's mom for all this drama?

Fast forward some more. We learn Mentor Doug is a loser! A failure! Bankrupt and dissipated with a slutty wife, who leaves Mentor Doug passed out drunk on his yacht while she comes on to Bri-Guy -- giving rise to Bri summing up his morals in what might be the most eloquent line in the movie (It's the first line, but the scene runs to 0:30.):

"I can't make it with my best friend's old lady." Really? Well, you sure can't make it with her now, Bri-Guy; no woman wants to be called an old lady! Another scene badly acted and another situation badly managed. Every time Bri has a chance to bow out of something gracefully, he prefers to flail around knocking things off the shelves and smashing the dishes. Maybe that makes the scenery easier to chew, what do I know? Anyway, we return our attention to Mentor Doug -- who is now Dead Mentor Doug, having opened a vein with some busted Baccarat crystal.

An interesting dilemma, no? Does leaving your despondent drunk friend alone while you wander off with his slutty wife count as bad management? Or just bad judgment? If your judgment is that off, should you be trusted to do anything right?

Dead Mentor Doug still has one last bon mot in him, though, delivered via USPS, when Slutty Widow forwards Bri the suicide note. Because, no, that's not totally weird and creepy or anything. Not at all. I suppose you could construe it as effective communication -- it's written out longhand, it's pretty concise, and if the recipient doesn't read/understand/follow the thought, well, who cares? You're dead! (Watch to 3:42)

We wrap up with another positively dreadful scene wherein Bri and Miz Almond have a passionate, albeit extremely abbreviated catching-up chat while Daddy Moneybags proceeds to demonstrate every single stereotypically bad thing a parent can do when dealing with an emotionally overwrought offspring in love with the "wrong" person -- and calls in the doorman and the butler for backup. WTF? Note to would-be rich dads of knocked-up daughters: Delivering ultimatums while her version of Benjamin Braddock is howling "Elaine! Elaine!" in her ear is not going to sway her to your side. (Watch to 6:50)

An interesting side note -- watch the facial expressions during the ass-kicking scuffle. Don't the Moneybags both have looks on their face like they're upset about the property damage? Or was that just me going, "Well, good thing you've got some money saved, Bri, cos that weird art thing you just destroyed either cost a bazillion dollars or was some lame-ass creation of your future wife, and either way you're pretty much hosed."

What is the life lesson, here? If you judge by the final scene, wherein Uncle Pat comes through with a loan and Bri gets his bar, the lesson to be derived is "save up some money, find some family member willing to give you a loan even though you blew them off over three years ago back in the first 15 minutes of the movie, get a girl knocked up and you'll get a happy ending. Oh, and you'll get to recite really bad poetry and your bar's entire clientele will love it."

Serious management fail, y'all.  I'd love to see the sequel to this -- I envision it where he's mouthing off to beer distributors, she's smashing bottles over the heads of customers who piss her off, and their kids are all, "Yeah, we don't know these people. We're gonna go find some wolves to raise us." 

But that's a different movie.

No Management in Philadelphia

In honor of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia arriving on Comedy Central, this week I'll do my best to glean management tips from bar shows.

The only problem is, there aren't any real lessons to be gleaned from the self-centered owners of Paddy's Irish Pub in Philadelphia -- other than, "watch this show, and do exactly the opposite." Don't work with friends, don't get your dad involved, don't be a dick. Nobody's in charge, nobody's accountable, and nobody's a role model. Which makes it pretty great to watch, but painful to contemplate as a real-life work scenario.

And one note: Not that anyone under the age of 20 reads this, but being a cable show and all, this is a little raunchier than usual. Nuff said.

Don't try to get a job at the fern bar down the street. I guess if you do, and you get fired, farewell shots might be OK -- if you don't get caught.

Unless you've got someone as dumb as Charlie around, it's probably easier to just get the yuck work done yourself. But if you do have a plan, I wouldn't recommend sharing it with the person who isn't benefiting until you're out of range of the filthy mop she wields.

On the other hand, if you are the dumbest member of your gang, it might not be a bad idea to come to them in a crisis.  Except, of course, they aren't that much smarter than you are, and will be easily distracted.

Dee does one thing right -- she knows exactly what to expect of the rest of the gang, and she reacts accordingly. And ... diversifying exposure to your business isn't a bad idea either.

And finally, if you're going to run for office, you probably don't  want any of these guys to help you out. Also? Don't try to stop a stroller like that unless you've got some badass shoes.

Theatrical Thursday: Managing Editors

Every time I watch The Paper, I thank God that real life isn't like that, even on the worst days, even in modern times where the Internet makes every story's arrival a deadline.

So it is a lovely little escapist frolic. It is also a lovely study of three managers and their priorities, and of how their styles work, don't work, clash and complement.

Henry Hackett is the metro editor of the New York Sun, a fictional New York City tabloid. A workaholic who loves his job, Henry starts his day with a job offer at the Sentinel, a fictional version of the New York Times, on the line and a very pregnant wife (who is also a reporter on leave) anxious for him to accept. Once he gets to work a hot story confronts him with tough decisions, deadlines and personal crises and reluctant help from his star columnist, McDougal.

Part of the reason my life isn't like this movie is because I'm a very different manager from Henry. Or at least, I like to think I am.

Henry: What's the matter with Phil? It looks like he sat on something sharp.
Henry's Secretary: Well, you told him he could have Richard's old desk, right?
Henry: Right.
Secretary: And now you promised it to Carmen. Are you completely psychotic?
Henry: I have episodes. Nothing serious.
Secretary: Phil is still pissed you wouldn't approve his $600 orthopedic chair. And now with this desk thing, he's convinced it's a conspiracy to prevent him from sitting down.

Henry is frantic and disorganized. He's the only metro editor I've ever seen who has a secretary -- and an unflappable one, at that -- yet he still loses things, misses deadlines and can't keep his desk organized. 

Wilder: I struck out with the cops. There's something definitely going on. None of those sons of bitches are talking.
Henry: Where did you go?
Wilder: Police headquarters.
Henry: You gotta go to the precinct for this! Of course nobody's talking at headquarters!

Henry also spends a lot of time reacting when he could simply strategize better and do a better job prepping his staff to do their jobs. Presumably Henry knows Wilder is a stiff who will do the obvious yet incorrect thing. How hard would it have been for Henry to direct the guy to the precinct in the first place rather than wasting precious hours getting the runaround? Ultimately, Henry runs off to the precinct to get the quote himself with McDougal, who might benefit some from the experience, but if we accept that McDougal is operating at 80 or 90 percent, it should be Henry's job to bring the 30-percenters up to at least 50.

On the other hand, Henry does love his job and the industry, and he is beloved by most of his staff. He lets people try, and then, in his finer moments, helps them improve.

Ray: (for the fifteenth time in as many minutes) You got another word for ...
Henry: I got another word for all of them. Get out of the chair.
Ray: No, don't change that! (Reads over Henry's shoulder.) Oh. That's pretty good.

In the middle of all this, he steals the lead off the desk of his potential new employer. Needless to say, the job offer is rescinded, and the exchange turns toxic.

Sentinel editor: Well, I hope you're satisfied, asshole! You just blew your chance to cover the world!
Henry: Really? Well guess fucking what? I don't really fucking care. You wanna know fucking why? Because I don't fucking live in the fucking world! I live in fucking New York City! So go fuck yourself! (Henry slams down telephone back on the receiver.)
Henry's Secretary: You handled that well.
Henry: Thank you.

I rather get the feeling that Henry's secretary might be better at Henry's job than he is.

As the above exchange indicates, one of Henry's biggest problems is that he can't manage up at all. His issues with authority and inability to respond to the needs of others are sprinkled through the movie. Most detrimental to the current situation, he can't handle his boss, managing editor Alicia Clark, at all. Alicia is very good at a thankless job, but she hates her position and she resents Henry for making it harder on her.

Alicia: You son of a bitch. You promised me.
Henry: For God's sakes, Alicia. We're not gonna ask some news reporter to wait until after 5 to make out-of-state phone calls. It's ridiculous. I'm not gonna do it.
Alicia: Oh, fine! Let's let them make free phone sex calls too.
Henry: You mean as a kind of bonus? That's not a bad idea. Why don't you start with Phil?
Phil: Start what with Phil?
Alicia: You think my job's easy? You think it's fun firing people?
Phil: "Firing people"? Is that what you're gonna start with me?

Editor in Chief Bernie White does his best to give Alicia a pep talk when she comes in sniffing after a raise, but she is intractable.

Bernie: I know you loved running Features. I know Keighley shoved you into this administrative job you didn't want.
Alicia: I never knew how isolating it was gonna be. There are not exactly a lot of laughs around my office these days.
Bernie: You're in management. If everybody loved you, you'd be doing something wrong. But the fact is, I think you're working miracles with the job . . .  Thank you. But there's no more money for you. There's a ceiling in this business, and you're hitting your head on it.
Alicia: Okay. Fine. My contract's up in 8 months. I'd like permission to start interviewing now. You leave me no choice. That contract leaves me no choice.
Bernie: Pardon me saying this, and I know I'm no one to talk ... but the problem isn't with your contract.  ... Talk to Bruno about the decoration, renovation, whatever. Ask him to be reasonable. Your husband's a reasonable guy. Or give up the nights in town Bruno doesn't know about.
Alicia: What?
Bernie: It won't lead anywhere good. I know what I'm talking about.
Alicia: I'm gonna see Keighley tonight at the benefit. It's obvious that I'm gonna have to take this up with him directly.
Bernie: If you go over my head on this, you'll only make it worse for yourself.

Alicia, predictably, ignores Bernie's completely on-point advice and winds up confronting the publisher, Graham Keighley, at a social event and subsequently embarrassing herself when he brushes her off. She then goes on to round out her evening by firing Henry. Her priority: keeping down publishing costs. His priority: Getting the story right. 

Alicia: Given the information we had, it's right.
Henry: Yeah, but it's not right. I got a cop. I got a quote. It's wrong.
Alicia: Not today. Tomorrow it's wrong. We only have to be right for a day.
Henry: This shouldn't be semantics or money. People will read this, and they'll believe us.
Alicia: People take the "Sun" with a grain of salt. We'll run yours tomorrow.
Henry: No! Not tomorrow! Right fucking now today!
Alicia: I bet you thought it would never catch up with you-- that I don't know the shit you guys say about me. You think I don't get the bean counter jokes or understand your snide shit? You don't even have a college degree. You couldn't take the shit I put up with! You assholes think I don't know that you wait until I leave before you sneak off to the Bear's Head? Can't invite me for a lousy drink.
Henry: You jerk, it's not about you or me!
Alicia: Never thought it'd catch up with you. Well, fuck you. It catches up today. We run what we've got.

So many things wrong here.  Alicia's been in news long enough to know this merits blowing the budget. Henry's been in news long enough to know that union pressmen and truck drivers are fricking expensive. If there were any sort of reasonable employee-boss relationship here all this would have been figured out much earlier.  Newspapers push deadlines for big stories. If Alicia is as good at her job as is implied, she'd have budgeted for this sort of thing -- and she probably has, but she's pissed off at Henry not doing what he was told. Her resentment takes over, she has the upper hand and she uses it. Later, however, in trying to defend herself to McDougal, she realizes she's gotten it wrong.

McDougal: What do you want me to say? "Good job. You struck a blow for journalistic integrity today"? I can't do it. You abused your position to settle a personal score. It is what it is. Live with it. Henry was right.
Alicia: Henry was glib, that's all. I've become "everything I used to hate." What does that even mean? Henry wouldn't have a newspaper to work on if I hadn't saved it.
McDougal; Henry doesn't have a newspaper to work on. You fired him, remember?
Alicia: Oh, please! I'm ODing on righteous indignation tonight. We're not exactly the Washington Post, okay?
McDougal: No, we're not. We run stupid headlines because we think they're funny. We run maimings on the front page because we got good art. And I spend three weeks bitching about my car because it sells papers. But at least it's the truth. As far as I can remember we never, ever, ever knowingly got a story wrong. Until tonight.

Of course, while Alicia is on the phone trying to get Henry's story back on the press, she gets shot. So no good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

(And what about that press run? The presses are running with the wrong story plated when Henry shows up. They keep running through the fight, through the aftermath, through the time it takes to get to a bar and sit down and have a conversation, plus they run through the time it takes Alicia to be shot, get in an ambulance, get to a hospital - IN NEW YORK! -- and fight with a bunch of doctors over getting a phone. Surely the press run would be nearly over by the time she finally made the call, wouldn't it?)

The pater familias of the picture, of course, is Bernie, though he denies it. He is at a point in his career where he can take the long view. He acknowledges his screwups, he accepts his place, and he refuses to be pushed into roles he doesn't want. 

Henry: Look, Bernie. I know you know about the Sentinel interview. It's an assistant managing editor thing. It's really more sideways than up. You can jump in here anytime.
Bernie: What are you looking for? You want me to make it easy for you to go to another paper? You want a ride uptown? You want me to wait outside and think positive thoughts? That's not my job. My job is to keep your ass downstairs.
Henry: What am I supposed to do?
Bernie: I don't know.
Henry: It's nine to five. It's more money. It's less hours. Martha-- We're having the baby, and she gave up her job. So it's for her. That's ... OK. Not just for her. It's for me too. Bernie, you've got kids. How'd you keep doing the job?
Bernie: Don't ask marital advice from a guy with two ex-wives  and a daughter that won't speak to him. The problem with being my age is everybody thinks you're a father figure. But you're really just the same asshole you always were. You do have a problem, Henry, but it's your problem.
Henry: Thanks, Bernie. You've been a big help.

Bernie is old, he's tired, he's sick, he's a sage. He uses stories to make his points, though Alicia won't listen.

Bernie: Let me tell you a story. Sit down. Sit down. It won't take long. Very interesting. You'll like it. In '68, a bunch of us were covering the Olympics in Grenoble decided to go to the best restaurant in town. Now, the menu didn't have any prices but we were on expense account, so we figured, "Fuck it," got drunk. Somehow there ended up being a bunch of us at the table and when the cheque came. it was $5,000.
Alicia: Jesus!
Bernie: Exactly. So now we're all starting to point fingers. We're trying to remember who invited who. We're talking about going to Western Union to get money cabled. And just when it was getting really embarrassing, this funny-looking old guy at the next table called the maitre d' over. Old guy. He drew a couple of squiggly lines on a napkin signed his name, winked at us, and that was that. The old guy was Pablo Picasso, and that napkin paid our bill.
Alicia: So? I'm not sure I caught the segue here.
Bernie: The people we cover, we move in their world, but it is their world. You can't live like them. You'll never keep up. If you try to make this job about the money, you'll be nothing but miserable, because we don't get the money.Never have, never will.

On the other hand, he is still a boss.

Alicia: If we miss them, the subway is page one.
Henry: The subway is bullshit!
Bernie: You don't have it, you know it. You wanna run the story? You got five hours. Get the story. Do your job! Do your job! Don't just take a position because it's the opposite of what she says! It's like watching a bunch of sixth graders, for Christ's sake! You make damn sure Photo's at the perp walk. I mean damn sure.

But in the end, the story all comes back to Henry.  The right story hits newstands, he has a new baby, his wife forgives him, presumably he still has a job, he got his way on all of it -- and odds are he hasn't learned a damn thing. He is a journalist, after all, and we are stubborn creatures.

News Anchor: Because your whole world can change in 24 hours. 

Or, you know, not.

Murphy's Law

Eleven years after Mary Tyler Moore went off the air, a different kind of career gal showed up. Murphy Brown, it is safe to say, is the anti-Mary Richards, and Miles Silverberg is the anti-Lou Grant.

The show in and of itself is an interesting sociological study.  More political than journalistic, more preachy than perky, it was a Diane English vehicle for a largely liberal agenda set in a newsroom that riffed hard off Linda Bloodworth Thomason's Designing Women.

Murphy to Miles: I just can't help thinking about the fact that while I was getting maced at the Democratic Convention in 1968, you were wondering if you'd ever meet Adam West.

The show started with Murphy back from a stint at Betty Ford and meeting her new producer. Suddenly, Murphy is a 40-year-old woman with a 25-year-old boss. And while Miles might be a whiz kid hired to bring in younger viewers and bigger ratings, he's also fresh from work in public television, has no experience with hardbitten news types and is in no wise any sort of authority figure to Murphy. He is out of his depth and easy prey.

Murphy: Stop looking at me like that!
Miles: Like what?
Murphy: Like Bambi caught in my headlights!

Basically, Miles is one long management don't. He's hyper. He's tense. He's indecisive and lives in constant fear of being fired, and he telegraphs that across entire continents. He keeps Tums in business singlehandedly.

Miles: Yes, God forbid you focus your energy on this show. The show that made you, the show that pays you six times what I make.
Murphy: Six? I thought it was eight!

I've talked before about how to deal with being in charge when you aren't the best or most experienced candidate. Be honest, be deferential, make good decisions and then follow them through.  Of course, that's assuming you've got a confident and assertive personality, and you've got a staff composed mostly of grown-ups who keep their exasperation to themselves.

It's tougher, of course, when you aren't an assertive personality, and when you've got a Murphy Brown rock star harassing you every second because she knows that's the best way to get you to fold. But as the series progressed, Miles evolved into a competent producer and manager who -- if not capable of shutting Murphy down --  at least managed to hold his own.

Miles: A retreat? No, no, no. This is just a little perk from your network, a network who appreciates your efforts and feels there's no reason we can't relax ... and get a little work done!
Murphy: Oh, god, it's a retreat!
Miles: Look, if I'd told you, you wouldn't have come. now we're here, we're gonna do this, and that's the last I want to hear of it. 

When Miles finally left the show, he was sent out on a high note. Standing up to top management and cutting a deal for his people left him in high esteem with his staff -- and left his bosses so impressed they sent him to New York for a shot at a big time CNN-style news service.

Miles: When I first got here, I really didn't know what I was doing.
Murphy: I know.
Miles: And you let me know you knew. You could have had me fired. But you didn't. Instead you subjected me to your endless reign of terror, but you were also teaching me, and even though your lessons were sometimes difficult and occasionally gratuitously painful, I never had a better teacher... you made me what I am today.  A nervous wreck who's getting in way, way,way over his head.

I suppose the moral of the story is that every experience is a learning experience, if you can stick it out long enough. It seems unlikely Miles would have been able to stick it out with Murphy that long in real life, but this is what TV lessons are for, right?

News to Me

Rule number one: Never hire friends. I hired a friend once and you know what happened? Worked out great. But that's me. You couldn't handle it.

This week, we're going to take a look at shows that focus on a place near and dear to my heart -- newsrooms. My entire professional career has been spent in journalism, and it's always fun for me to watch such shows and think, "Yeah, that's close," or "Wow, so, so wrong."  It's like if you live in New York and watch the Law and Order people tooling around and think, "Well, wait. If they started in Greenwich Village, why are they going through Tribeca to get to the Upper East Side?"

So we'll start with the benchmark. Back in the day, Lou Grant was a good example of how you could be a good manager with a somewhat less than stellar personality. Starting out on the Mary Tyler Moore show, Ed Asner's portrayal of Grant was a bit of a caricature for the sit-com format. It was a different time, for sure. Grant is a hard-nosed old-school journalist, somewhat sexist, somewhat insensitive. Hard-drinking, workaholic, matter-of-fact and not the touchy-feely type.

Grant: You want a raise, is that it?
Ted Baxter: Lou, I've written a figure on this pad.
Grant: Ted, I've written two words on this pad.
Ted Baxter: Lou, I thing there's some room for negotiation between that figure and those words.

Impatient with foolishness, Grant wasn't really one for game-playing, figuratively or literally.

Grant: (Upon being told the rules of a word game where each player must come up with a word that starts with the previous word's last letter): Does this game go on forever or does it have an end?
Mary: It ends when a person can't think of a word.
Grant: Oh, I'll start. (Turns to Ted.) Box! (Ted cannot think of a word and says nothing.) Game's over.

Unsurprisingly, Grant was a lot of fun to watch on MTM. When he got his own show, he moved from broadcast to print. This version of the character, while keeping the same basic personality, was moving from sit-com to drama, and thus became much more serious in his attitudes and manner.

A precursor of Hill Street Blues in terms of ensemble casts chasing different aspects of an issue, Grant was a gruffer, tougher version of Frank Furillo, despite working in a more comfortable and less dangerous environment. He knows his stuff and isn't about to let anyone else phone it in on his watch. In one episode, In one episode, Rossi writes a story about a wilderness survival school without ever attending. Grant is less than pleased with the result.

It was a good piece, but you didn’t really get involved in it . . . You didn’t take the course yourself. Your piece didn’t have the smell of the forest. You didn’t make the reader taste dirt in his morning orange juice.

But like Frank, he is a person of great heart and dedication to his staff and his craft. When another reporter files a profile on an Orthodox Jew turned Nazi leader and the result is the man's suicide, Grant is there for the guilt-stricken reporter. 

We can’t weigh a story and say we shouldn’t print it because somebody might get hurt. Sometimes people do get hurt. Sometimes careers are ruined, governments are brought down. But, if the story is there, we have to print it. It’s our job. If you are going to be in this business, you are going to have to learn to handle it . . . A man is dead. A sad, twisted, tormented man. But, a human being, nevertheless. By writing about him, you help us understand him and maybe ourselves a little better. You have done a great job, and I am proud of you.

Sometimes Grant's enthusiasm misses the mark a bit, however. While his news instinct is always sharp, he can forget that sometimes a little pre-coaching will go down much easier than Monday morning quarterbacking.

Grant: You know what might be nice? Comparing the business 40 years ago with today. I’m talking about that as the focus of the piece. How the neighborhood has changed, his inventory, advertising practices. Is the standard of living better or worse now? Wouldn’t that be something?
Rossi: I’m on the last graf. Why didn’t you suggest this earlier?

It's a fair question. Rossi might not have written the best story possible, but he had put in the work, and it would have been far better if brainstorming on the "focus of the piece" had been hashed out before the shoe leather was expended.  Grant, one hopes, learned a lesson in planning despite later grousing that nobody wants to work as hard as he does to get it right.

Another positive aspect of Lou Grant that persisted across both shows was his willingness to foster new talent and give people a chance. In the drama, Grant takes an interest in Chris, a young copy editor aspiring to be a reporter. Grant gives Chris material to practice writing news stories and then critiques his work.

Why do it? Well, he says it best to Mary Richards.

You had zilch [qualifications]. Did I ever tell you the reason I hired you? A little run. A tiny little run in your stocking on your knee. You kept trying to cover it up. And I thought to myself, ‘What kind of a girl is this who is so afraid of a thing like that?’ Do you think that was a bad reason to hire you? ... It was damn sweet. That’s what I have been trying to tell you. There are plenty times in life when you do the competent, responsible thing. But, every once in a while, we need to be damn sweet. If we’re lucky, we’ll never have to regret it.

Theatrical Thursday: Management Goes Up to Eleven

Mockumentary week would not be complete without the granddaddy of them all, would it? This Is Spinal Tap satirizes the pretension and juvenile delinquency of rock bands while skewering the deifying -- nay, ass-kissing -- tone of rockumentaries of the time.

Band members  David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel are the core of the group Spinal Tap, which is being followed by cameras on a 1982 U.S. tour. David and Nigel are able musicians trapped in the brains of immature morons. But they are pure genius compared with their manager, Ian Faith.

Ian: The Boston gig has been canceled...
David: What?
Ian: Yeah. I wouldn't worry about it though, it's not a big college town.

Again, this is satire, so to make to big a deal of it is to risk appearing as if I don't get the joke. I do, believe me. But the sad truth is there are people like Ian out there, flailing away in a position that is clearly beyond their abilities and understanding.

Artist Relations' Bobbi Flekman: You put a greased naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man's arm extended out up to here, holding onto the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. You don't find that offensive? You don't find that sexist?
Ian: This is 1982, Bobbi, c'mon!
Bobbi: That's right, it's 1982! Get out of the '60s. We don't have this mentality anymore.
Ian: Well, you should have seen the cover they wanted to do! It wasn't a glove, believe me.

Not that he has much to work with in the way of reasonable employers.

Nigel: There's a problem here, I don't even know where to start.
Ian: Sound check?
Nigel: No no no no, look. Look, this ... this miniature bread. It's like, I've been working with this for about a half an hour now. I can't figure out ... You've got this ...
Ian: You'd like bigger bread?
Nigel: Exactly! I don't understand how...
Ian: You could just fold it though...
Nigel: Well no, then it's half the size
Ian: Fold the meat.
Nigel: Yeah then it breaks apart like this.
Ian:  Well, no put it on the bread like this...see?
Nigel: But then if you keep folding it it keeps breaking.
Ian: Why would you keep folding it?
Nigel: Everything has to be folded. And then it's this, and I don't want this, I want large bread so that I can put this, so then it's like this, but then this doesn't work, cuz then its all ...
Ian:  Cuz it hangs out like that.
Nigel: Look, would you be holding this?
Ian: No I wouldn't want to eat that.
Nigel: Alright. Exhibit A. Then we move onto this... Look, look who's in here, no one, and then in here there's a little guy. It's a complete catastrophe!
Ian:  No, no, you're right.
Nigel: No really, it's no big deal, it's a joke, it's a joke.
Ian: I really don't want it to affect your performance.
Nigel: It's not going to affect my performance, don't worry about it, alright? It does disturb me, but I rise above it, I'm a professional.

The final straw with Ian, of course, is the famous Stonehenge scene, when Nigel suggests staging a performance of their epic song complete with a lavish stage show, and Ian provides a set that is 18 inches high.

David: I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object.
Ian: I really think you're just making much too big a thing out of it.
Derek: Making a big thing out of it would have been a good idea.

When David suggests his girlfriend, Jeanine, should co-manage the group, Ian quits.

Jeanine: If it got solved, that would be alright, but it doesn't get solved. I mean what do you think happened out there? What got solved tonight?
Ian: For one thing that goes wrong... one... one single thing that goes wrong, a hundred things go right. Do you know what I spend my time doing? I sleep two or three hours a night. There's no sex and drugs for Ian, David. Do you know what I do? I find lost luggage. I locate mandolin strings in the middle of Austin!

(The whole scene with Ian quitting is pretty spectacular, but I couldn't find a clip and didn't want to transcribe three pages. If you're interested, you can read it here, starting on page 29.)

Things continue to go downhill for the band: Jeanine is better at some things than Ian, but completely marginalizes Nigel until he quits. Finally, as what is left of the band considers doing a musical on Jack the Ripper, Nigel pops up and announces the group is big in Japan and that Ian wants to do a tour. So off they go ... and that's the end.

So there you have it. You can't be a competent manager unless you know your field and have some idea of what you're trying to accomplish -- and having some strong babysitting skills never hurts.  End of lecture. Up until the reasonably optimistic ending, the whole existence of Ian and the band reminds me of a management parable that is rather in keeping with the spirit of Spinal Tap -- except the moral actually winds up making sense:

A turkey is chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighs the turkey. "But I haven't got the energy."
"Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" asks the bull. "They are packed with nutrients."
The turkey pecks at a lump of dung, and finds it actually gives him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reaches the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, the turkey is proudly perched at the top of the tree -- whereupon a farmer spots him, shoots him, and takes him home as dinner.
Moral of the story? Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

Work-Life Balance

I've said before that a lot of managing is comparable to parenting, and I've also addressed the idea that sports stories offer a lot of lessons in the ways of good and bad coaching.  Interpersonal relationships are all largely alike, whether at home, in the office or on the playing field. A recent episode of Modern Family actually combined these two motifs, resulting in an interesting study of different approaches to all of the above. Another pretty good mockumentary on the air, Modern Family follows the lives of of Jay Pritchett, his two offspring and the assorted relations that come with them.

Jay is the patriarch, and he has little patience for the rest of his family. He's married to a much younger Colombian woman and is helping to raise her son, Manny. Jay's daughter, Claire, is married to Phil, who is a bit of a goofball with a strange array of unusual skills such as tightrope walking and breaking into houses. They have three kids, Haley, Alexandra and Luke. Jay also has a son, Mitchell, who is in a relationship with the Birdcage-ly flamboyant Cameron and with whom he has adopted a Vietnamese girl named Lily.

The episode "Benched" spends most of its time focusing on coaching of a "Li'l Dribblers" basketball team on which Manny and Luke both play. The team is in a tournament, and when things kick off, we see Eric Lange is the coach, and playing basically the same angry, obnoxious, loudmouth character he played on Lost. His style didn't win him any followers on the island, and it doesn't win him any fans at the game.

You're doing great, Luke, if your goal is to suck!

Jay and Phil intercede, with Phil taking a soft approach. Jay listens for maybe half a sentence before he attacks the coach.

Jay: What you need to start doing is a little more coaching and a little less yelling. Because if I hear you call one of these kids stupid again, I swear to god I'll throw a shoe at your head.

While the coach might have this coming, he, unsurprisingly, quits. Phil steps up and is ready to take over the job.

Phil: Your old coach had to leave for a little while.
Luke: Is he sick?
Phil: Yes! He is very, very sick.
Manny: Is he gonna die?
Phil: Everybody dies, boys, let's focus on what's important.  Our next game is in one hour; we are going to go from being five fingers to being a fist. How does that sound?

This, obviously, is a better approach to take with kids, but he gets bigfooted by Jay.

Jay: Phil, I coached football.
Phil: Jay, i actually coached basketball.
Jay: Hey, don't worry about it, you've got the assistant. coach job. How about you round us up some waters?

Phil, acceding to his role as son-in-law, steps aside again. But he takes another shot at trying to help.

Phil: The other team only has two shooters, if we isolate them ...
Jay: Good, Phil, good.  Manny, pay attention!
(Manny, of course, turns around and gets smacked in the head with the ball.)

And, once more, before he gives up. 

Jay: This is a uniquely frustrating group of boys
Phil: One thing that might help is if you switch from a zone to a simple man to man.
Jay: I got this.
Phil: Really? Cos according to the scoreboard the only thing you've got is four points.

Naturally, Jay gets frustrated when the kids don't make an immediate turnaround and suddenly start shining under his tutelage, and instead continue to play like, well, kids. To his credit, Jay does at least have the self-awareness to recognize when he's starting to sound like Coach No. 1, and seeks Phil's help. What follows is a pitch-perfect reconciliation and recognition of what was already obvious.

Jay: You gotta coach. I can't take it.
Phil: You talking to me?
Jay: Yeah, i'm talking to you! You gotta take over out there! I'm gonna lose it.
Phil:Yeah, sounds tough, Coach.
Jay: What's your problem? 
Phil:I was handling the coach; you pushed me aside. I was dealing with the boys; you pushed me aside. Believe it or not, jay, there are some things out there I'm better at.
Jay (lets this sink in): I don't blame you. I'm used to taking charge, that's all. I shoulda let you coach from the get-go.

And, because it is a comedy, this feel-good moment does not end in victory.

Phil: What's my coaching philosophy? Give a kid a bird and he becomes one of those weird dudes who walks around with a bird on his shoulder. But give a kid wings, and he can fly. (Manny misses the basket.) Unless he has aboslutely no hand-eye coordination.

Meanwhile, a secondary plot focuses on Alex trying to assert her independence from Claire. While Claire recognizes this is natural and normal, she is still somewhat hurt and taken aback when her daughter basically shoves her aside and runs off to her friends, telling her mom they should reconnect at the car. An afternoon of this ensues,with Claire being turned aside by Alex again until they finally do meet at the car, where Alex makes a transparent attempt to reconcile for personal gain. Claire, however, has the experience and knows better, and refuses to get played.

Alex: I am so so sorry. I know it's no excuse, but I've been feeling a lot of pressure at school -- with friends. And I love you so much and I appreciate everything you do for me. I'm still your little girl.
Claire: Aw, honey, that was so sweet.
Alex: Can i get $20? We're going to the movies ...
Claire: OK. Of course. Sweetie, you know what? Take 40."
(Alex can't believe her good luck. She gets out of the car and goes back to her friends. Claire rolls down the car window...)
Claire: Alex, honey, when you're out shopping, you might want to pick yourself up a training bra. I know you don't need one now but your little boobies are going to come in soon. Mommy loves you, kitten! (Puts the car in gear and drives off, muttering,) That'll teach her to screw with me.

Lessons here on both sides. Supervisors: Let your managers manage. Once you've given someone the skills to be independent, you have to actually give them independence. Employees: Don't burn the bridge to your boss seeking that independence, since you are doubtless going to need their support at some later point. There is a right way and a wrong way to avoid being smothered. And if you're going to suck up in an effort to get something -- do it better than a teen-ager.

Finally, Mitchell's job situation is the last subplot. Usually the breadwinner and high achiever, he's been staying home with the baby while his partner, more accustomed to being the domestic side of the partnership, is working at a greeting card store. How's that working out?

Cameron: I can't pressure Mitchell. But I really, really, really just want him to get a job so I can go back to being a stay-at-home dad/trophy wife.

Mitchell: I am losing my mind. As much as I love Lily, which is you know, more than life itself, I am not cut out to be a stay-at-home dad.  But it’s Cameron’s turn to be out in the world, interacting with other adults. While I get to stay at home and plot the death of Dora the Explorer…. Fill her backpack with bricks and throw her into Candy Cane river.”

Jay probably recognizes this as clearly as we do, and tells Mitchell that he set up a chat with a possible employer, one Charlie Bingham. Mitchell resents this interference, but goes along nonetheless, Googles the guy and winds up going to a party at his beach house, with predictable results. There is an interesting side exploration of the boss's character (played by Justin Kirk, the troublemaking Uncle Andy on Weeds,)  who is extremely clever, extremely well-informed and so laid back that instead of putting others at ease he makes them more nervous -- particularly Cameron, who bumbles around crashing into things and generally embarrassing Mitchell. The two wind up discussing the offer in a garage, where they get trapped, and in attempting to get out seriously damage a car. 

As Cameron and Mitchell survey the damage, Charlie comes out and see what's happened.
Mitchell: I'll take the job!
Charlie: Kinda think you have to now.

I'd love to see Charlie get more air time, because it would be fun to see how that dynamic plays out going forward. He has clearly absorbed the lesson mentioned above about letting the managers manage -- and he seems to recognize the lesson that Cameron and Mitchell have just figured out: Everyone on the team should play to his or her strengths. If you're an ambitious type A personality who thrives on organization and challenges, you're not going to do well in  situations that require things to be a bit messy, like staying home with a baby -- and if you are hard-wired to regard social interaction as the most important thing in the world, the last job you want is one in data entry where you just punch numbers into a computer all day.

Look around your own life. See if you can draw some parallels between what you're doing outside the office and how you're treating people at work. Do you see connections? Are you facing similar problems in different situations? Use what you know about being part of a family to be a better member of your work family. 

Office Politics

I'm a manager too. And the way I manage people is that I touch their hearts. And souls, with humor, with love. And maybe a dash of razzle dazzle! And I don't see that from you.

The Office, the show that gave this blog its name, is probably the best and most famous mockumentary on TV right now. The interview style allows us to get additional insight to the show's characters, which in turn allows for greater scoffing or sympathy for manager Michael Scott, depending on how you look at the world.

[My book] is called Somehow I Manage, and it is going to be a picture of me on the cover, shrugging, with my sleeves rolled up.

Michael Scott is the manager of the Scranton branch of a paper and printer distribution company. He wasn't always an incompetent employee: Before his promotion he was an adept salesman. But he took the wrong lessons from his predecessor and an equally wrong turn.

Ed Truck, yuck, Ed Truck was the manager before me. Horrible. He hated fun. It was like, oh Ed Truck is walking toward us, stop having fun. Start pretending to do work. What a jerk. He's... you know what... I swore to myself that if I ever got to walk around the room as manager people would laugh when they saw me coming, and would applaud as I walked away.

It's safe to say Michael tries to use his subordinates as a substitute for a family. It's also safe to say that being a good manager isn't really his first priority. Put those things together and you get a well-intentioned, incompetent guy with an almost complete lack of self-awareness.

My proudest moment here wasn't when I increased profits by 17 percent, or cut expenditure without losing a single member of staff. No, no, no. It was a young Guatamalan guy, first job in the country, barely spoke a word of English, but he came to me and said "Mr. Scott, will you be the godfather to my child?" Didn't work out in the end. We had to let him go. He sucked.

Poor Michael. While he has completely abandoned the company's mission statement and he is constantly saying things that are inappropriate, offensive or unwittingly mean in the hopes of getting a laugh, he nonetheless does know how to have fun and does his best to get the rest of the office having fun too. He holds impromptu contests. He organizes happy hour outings.

I think the main difference between me and Donald Trump is that I get no pleasure out of saying the words: you're fired. "You're fired." Oh, "you're fired." He just makes people sad. And an office can't function that way. No way. "You're fired." I think if I had a catchphrase it would be "you're hired, and you can work here as long as you want." But that's unrealistic, so...

And that, right there, is Michael's saving grace. He's a bumbling moron, but he's a bumbling moron with a huge heart who cares about his staff. You can certainly watch The Office for a lot of "How Not To" lessons, and to take comfort that no matter how bad you are, at least you never did THAT -- but if you don't genuinely care about the people who look to you for leadership, you're probably making a more unforgivable mistake than Michael ever has: You're at risk of coming off as an empty suit who would throw his people under a bus. Your staff won't follow you to the gates of hell if you lack passion and dedication to the team.

The show even explored this, when Ryan took over as Michael's boss. While Ryan is smart, competent and analytical, he's also pretty soulless and can't get buy-in from his group. Ultimately, he fails.

The Office has a lot in common with Dilbert. While some might look at the show as allowing imbeciles to aspire to middle management, there's got to be some reason a lot of managers I know love this show. The takeaway lesson: Sometimes, you can't fix things. Sometimes, you just have to have a little compassion, find a way to laugh at the absurdity, and ... quick, let's have a contest to see if anyone in the room can eat a dozen doughnuts before the phone rings!

Friendly Faces Everywhere

Unless you've been under a rock this week, you know that the South Park boys deserve a big round of applause and support.

Good managers keep their employees focused on the work, right? Like a cocktail party or other polite gathering, you don't saunter into a place of business and start spouting off about religion, politics, or how people discipline their kids.

Thank goodness South Park isn't focused on the work. Fan-freaking-tastic television. Heaps of love from this corner.

Where most of the characters on the Simpsons serve as the personification of some negative characterization or stereotype, South Park isn't really rooted in the same kind of mean-spiritedness.  Where Matt Groening is flipping you off and laughing, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are standing agape next to you and going, "WTF, dude?"

So it's hardly surprising that the authority figures are a little more nuanced, a little better-rounded, and offer more good with the bad. They are also, for the most part, acting in good faith and with good intentions.

As an ensemble show, there are plenty of management aspects to explore -- Mayor McDaniels, Officer Barbrady, Principal Victoria -- but it's easiest to observe cause and effect by looking at parenting styles of each of the boys.

Randy Marsh: Your mother's been worried sick! And I've been watching TV.

Randy and Sharon Marsh are the most prominent set of parents on the show. Randy is basically an intelligent idiot, as well as a doting father. He has a habit of being led astray by new fads or events, but also has been known to go completely against such things.

Sharon Marsh: "Stan, what did I tell you about watching the Osbournes? It's going to make you retarded!"

Sharon, in earlier seasons, was portrayed as a loving, but stern, suburban mother, and in later seasons she continued to be the saner half of her marriage, and generally doesn't get too worked up unless she's angry or embarrassed about something Randy did.

In short, these two are basically the normal ones, and Stan is arguably the most normal of the four kids. And, like most normal kids, he's got a healthy skepticism that adults know what they're talking about, which makes him the least likely to be sucked in by scams and other mass influences. Stan's parents would be harmless, if average, managers, and it would be nice to work for them because they'd genuinely care about their staff.

Sheila Broflovski: Just remember what the MPAA says: Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words!

Sheila has a strong moral core and tends to go too far in her efforts to oppose what she deems bad influences and steamrolling Kyle in the process. She also reacts unreasonably when told she's wrong. Case in point: Shooting Terrance and Phillip when Kyle told her she was wrong in starting a war with Canada when all he did was go see an R rated movie.

Gerald Broflovski: Tell Ike how much fun Squirts is, Kyle.
Kyle: What? You want me to lie?
Gerald: Yeah, lie.

Gerald seems to be the most caring and rational of all the male parents in South Park. He is concerned with Kyle learning about moral values, and about the environment and current events. He is typically portrayed to be kind and friendly, though he can be stubborn, sarcastic and impolite at times.

Kyle, unsurprisingly, is probably the most discerning of the kids, and the most sensible. But -- equally unsurprisingly -- he's also a bit more timid than Stan, and less likely to get into a head-on confrontation when faced with adults behaving badly. Kyle is exactly the employee you get when you hire a smart person and then alternately smother them with affection and scare them to death with tirades.

Liane Cartman: Eric, dear. I just got a call from your friend Kyle's mother. She said this show is naughty, and might make you a pottymouth.
Eric: That's a bunch o' crap! Kyle's mom is a dirty Jew!
Liane: Oh. Okay, hon.

Ah, Liane. A single mom who is busy, guilty, clueless, who knows what. She dotes on her son, and turns him into a vile human being. Constantly deferential and bowing to his will, she spoils him rotten with only occasional stabs at practicing discipline and firmness. And while it seems entirely one-sided, you can see that the boy loves his mother too and there is some kind of genuine bond there.

But as any real-life parent will tell you, love and compassion aren't enough. You have to have rules. You have to have a purpose. Bosses who bury their heads in the sand and pretend not to notice they've got Problem Employees are likely to wind up with Bigger Problem Employees and a whole lot of smartmouthed insubordination. Being permissive may seem like an easy way out, but it's really an easy way into a much harder situation.

Carol McCormick: He is a lazy-ass motherf*ker!
Stuart McCormick: Look what she did to my f*kin' eye.
Carol McCormick: I'll do it again!
(She kicks him in the ass. Kenny just laughs at the sight.)

Stuart and Carol McCormick are a pair of unemployed alcoholics raising three kids in a small, dilapidated house overrun by rats. They run a meth lab, they rely on welfare. While they don't take out their misfortune on their kids, the two do vacillate between a contented marriage and utterly despising one another. That doesn't leave much time for parenting. Philosophers can debate whether it's more deplorable to be aware of a problem and ignore it, as Cartman's mom does, or to simply be completely oblivious, as are Kenny's parents. 

And yet, Kenny is ... well, he's Kenny. He chugs along and accepts his position in the pecking order. But he also makes the most of what he's got to work with, and he is probably the most loyal to his friends. Kenny is sort of a wild card -- he might be the employee who just disappears midway through his shift one day and never comes back, or he might be the guy who starts in the mail room and winds up owning the business. But however he turns out, it'll be his own doing, not due to any external pressures, be they positive or negative. 

Part of what makes good comedy great is when it is based on what is familiar.  I'm not entirely sure which of these traps I fall into. I have a sneaking suspicion I've got a big streak  of Sheila in me, though I try to keep a lid on it.  If you can see yourself in the satire, use that to work on laughing at yourself and striving for a little self-improvement.