Even if your employees aren’t working with loose diamonds, treat them like they are. When they see the cameras scanning every inch of your business, outside and inside, and know your security officer has a wall of screens, constantly recorded, where he or she can watch their every move, they won’t feel distrusted and become disloyal, they’ll just think you really care about protecting them, their jobs, and the future of the company.  When it takes them extra minutes every time they want to enter, exit, or move about the building just to type their pin number into a “scram-box” pad at every doorway they won’t be annoyed, they will tell each other how much they appreciate your investment in their safety and security.  Never mind the fact that your company makes cardboard boxes and hasn’t changed its technology much in decades let alone patented anything, your employees will just think you are looking out for them.

“Scram-box” is a euphemism for the latest access pads used in building security systems. A small box on the wall displays a scrambled array of numbers after a security badge is swiped across it, and the employee must input a pin code and press the correct unmarked button to unlock the door.  For entertainment you can have the boxes set at a height where virtually every employee will have to bend down at an awkward angle to see the numbers.  Make sure there is nothing nearby on which one can set what one is carrying while accessing the scram-box.  You can also place the scram-boxes close enough to the doors that someone coming through the door from the other side will inevitably hit the person trying to see into the pad, which is especially entertaining if the door is in a main path to the cafeteria and you can watch people dropping their food as they whacked with the door.

Try both audio AND video monitoring for even greater benefits. Audio monitoring is a powerful tool few companies use, or at least reveal to their employees, but it could be just right for you.  Watching people on video is an old and very effective technique for controlling them, but the addition of audio is every more inexpensive and easy, and can be much more powerful.  You can hide microphones in office areas in ceiling tiles, plastic potted plants, and in the video camera domes themselves.  Certainly it adds a lot more data to survey, but the ability to hear the complainers, whiners, and malcontents among your employees, especially when they might be saying something about you, is invaluable.

Computer security is important, too. It may slow your computers and networks down considerably to implement all the different key-loggers, constant-on virus scanners, and other similar software, but you will have every key stroke and URL on file.  Your IT (information technology) people may become a bit overloaded with the compaints about slow performance on your hot new computers, but they’ll live.  It isn’t necessary to hire a security expert who really knows what they’re doing, either, as all the information you could ever want is right there on the web.  Of course, you’ll have to allow someone actual web access to get to it, but that’s easy, and your employees won’t feel frustrated at the long “hour glasses” they get to watch every few minutes when they try to retrieve a file or email, they’ll just feel grateful that you care.  Your new security regime may cost each employee an eighth of their time on the job in wasted time, and a few malcontents may get frustrated and complain, but most of them won’t be smart enough to know the difference.

Security can enhance your personal position, prestige, and importance on the job, too. When employees know that you are the one in control, that you can see every time they move their mice, hear everything they say (if you even let them know you can do this) and can watch their every move in the office, they will not forget that you are the boss.  In addition, you can google them individually and check out their private lives on-line, look at their facebook and myspace profiles, etc., and then casually mention something so they know you are checking them out.  They will be flattered that you took an interest in them, and the thought that you might be thinking of promoting them will motivate them to work harder and put in more hours.   The psychological side of your security regime will be extremely low cost, so even if it doesn’t work well in all cases, you will still come out ahead.  Their knowledge that you can browse the internet at work while they can’t, too, will emphasize your authority in their minds, never a bad thing.  In fact, that’s almost as good as having your name broadly labeling your parking space, the one nearest the door so no one can miss it coming or going.

Having an elaborate and pervasive security regime will improve communications with employees. Since you will still be focused on saving money, as always, you can let the inevitable flaws in the system continue for months or years, and use the issues as reason to send frequent emails to the employees.  For instance, if your system automatically unlocks doors as people approach them even though there is a scan-pad on the wall next to them, you can issue frequent emails insisting employees scan their badges to get through the doors, even though they physically don’t have to. Communications the other direction will be greatly enhanced by your ability to eavesdrop on the offices and hallways, too.

A good security system can enable swift, low cost staff reductions when needed. If you need to reduce staff or get rid of an employee who complains too much about your wasteful security systems, you can catch them on camera going through automatically unlocking doors without scanning their badge, which is easiest at the doors one can’t get through easily while carrying anything.  You can also watch the parking lots to see if an employee parks in the wrong area or space.  Even better, you might record someone mentioning something questionable in the office that you can use against them.  It’s amazing what people will reveal when they think nobody is listening.

In short, security systems are powerful tools, not just for protecting your intellectual property, but for controlling your workforce.  While the latest security systems may cost a pretty penny, they have all of the benefits outlined above, and more.  So even if your employees aren’t actually working with anything of particular value, in a proprietary sense, you can make them feel like they are – a powerful morale booster – and the enhancements to your power and authority are almost too high to measure.  Just don’t go overboard and monitor your own workspace, as your systems might record something that could become a liability to you.  Know your safe areas and use them effectively, so that you can speak to an employee off the record and, even if they sue you and subpoena your security files, there won’t be anything incriminating there and the case will be their word against yours.  Security can work for you and enhance your power because, after all, you’re the boss and they’re not.

Quality certifications are valuable marketing assets. Certifying your company to any of the popular quality standards can make both you and your company look good, and may even fool some customers into thinking you are better than your competitors.  While on the face of it such certifications can appear daunting, there are ways to obtain them with minimal impact to your your putting practice though you’ll still have to pay the auditing organization’s fees and bring in an experienced coordinator (preferably on contract so you can drop them from the payroll after your certifications are in place).

First, choose the certification you want carefully. ISO9000 certification (link), for example, is well recognized, has many established and accredited auditors.  This certification has been around since the 1980’s, and there has been plenty of time for many companies to figure out how to not just get around it, but to appear to be embracing it and thereby reap the benefits at lowest possible cost.  In this case achieving low cost means changing your existing ways of doing business as little as possible.

Many smart companies hire a specialist – someone with experience leading a certification effort – to help them get certified.  The good supply of experienced ISO coordinators will make it easy to find one who can slide you smoothly into an ISO certification that will not only enhance your market position and make you look like a truly modern business leader, but also  do it at a good price.  Such a person can be an expert point of contact in dealings with the certifying and auditing organizations.  They will know which auditing organizations are going to be most hungry for fees, and which are least likely to find anything that would block certification.

Preparation is key, but need not be expensive. Your hired expert can assemble a binder of appropriate reference materials to show the auditors.  Such a binder will include basic business documents like an organization chart, a list of key records and documents used in the business, and some procedures for creating, approving, and storing them.  It is possible you may need to document a few company procedures to flesh in the binder, but, in the end, it can be made substantial enough to impress a well-chosen auditor with how organized and under control your company is, and will be enough to get you that prized certification.

Passing audits is easier than ever with a bit of strategic planning. Since an auditor’s or appraiser’s job is to find discrepancies, you can make his or her job easier by creating a few well-placed issues to be documented.  A “red herring” may be achieved by a measure as simple as putting a product or component on the wrong shelf in the shipping or manufacturing area, or not labeling a few shelves in one of these areas.  The resulting audit finding can be easily resolved by labeling the shelves, demonstrating that the offending articles are properly stored, and training the people working in the area in how to answer if auditors ask them about such things.  Distributing some binders of procedures to appropriate work areas and instructing workers to consult the binder if an auditor asks them a question is a good idea, and fairly low cost.  Putting copies of the procedures on the company intranet and printing the link on the quality policy copy posted at every desk will complete the preparation and be even cheaper.  Be sure to book the auditors rooms at the best hotel around, and take them out for meals during the audit (only in the best gourmet restaurants, of course) to discuss their findings in private.

During the audit, have your coordinator guide the auditors to not only monitor where they are going, what they are seeing, and whom they are speaking with, but to subtly steer or distract them at strategic times to help you pass the audit.  Make sure all employees are on the alert and know to point out the quality policy posted above their desks, identify the website and/or binder where company procedures are held, and point out the coordinator or tell how to contact him or her.  It might even be possible to make the quality policy constantly available to every employee through the use of tattoos.  It’s also a good idea to subtly suggest that any employee who causes a finding will be docked a day’s pay, for example.  That will ensure the peons are on their toes.

When the audit is over you will review the final list of findings with the auditors.  This your opportunity to express your mea culpas, minimize the severity of the findings (you’re prepared if you created them in the first place), and help the auditors feel like they did their jobs.  At worst you’ll have a short list of issue to fix.  When the auditors check back in 30 days you will have those all cleared up, and soon you’ll be joining that elite crowd of companies who achieved major quality certifications (and can brag about it).

Luckily for you, quality certifications are widely misunderstood. In the end, quality standards like ISO9001 only mean that you know what kind of “stuff” you make and sell, and that you can make stuff of the same quality level on an ongoing basis.  They do NOT mean that any customer knows what quality of stuff they are getting from you, but they create the impression that your products are better than those of competitors who are not certified – a decided marketing advantage, which is what quality certification is all about anyway.

CMMI is the latest fad in quality certifications. CMMI stands for Capability Maturity Model Integration (link), and this is a certification first developed for the software industry. It is attained in levels from 2 to 5, with 5 being the highest level attainable.  While it is intended to go beyond ISO9000 by adding a requirement that process improvement processes be part of the total set of procedures used in your business, it will undoubtedly soon follow ISO9000 as a marketing advantage that is easy to obtain at low cost.  Similar methods to those suggested above for ISO9000 certification can work, but this newer certification may not have as many available auditing organizations, and it may be harder to find auditors who will give you an easy pass for their fees.

The bottom line: Your company, too, can be certified to impressive-sounding quality standards just like many other successful companies, and with minimal cost and trouble.  With an experienced coordinator in your employ you will soon be able to capitalize on a hot business fad and still keep an edge on your golf game as your company grows.  In addition, once you have that nice certification logo on your marketing materials you can dump the coordinator and assign their responsibilities to one of your less expensive overloaded employees – an easy win.

In business, people are always b&ll$h|tting – subordinates to superiors, suppliers to customers, etc. The ability to do this can make you a certified bada$$ butt-kicking tough-guy manager almost by itself. A skilled manager can read BS in people’s faces and body language. In fact, if you can do this, you are certainly on a fast track to an upper management position. If you can’t read people’s faces, you still want them to think you can, so be sure to mention it once in a while, possibly as an opening statement at a meeting, making sure that everyone under you knows you are watching and are good at sorting the BS from the realities.

One way to support your contention that you can read BS is to cultivate connections deeper in the organization (or in supplier organizations) that can keep you informed about what’s really going on. This information can be used to confront subordinates or peers, preferably in large review meetings where they feel most vulnerable, and put them on the spot, thus bolstering your power. A few connections in key places can give the smart manager real advantages in the organization, just be careful not to get into a situation where you would have to disclose a source, as not only will that hurt the effectiveness of the source, but it could intimidate other sources into withholding information from you and could make you look bad.

Another way to spot B.S. is to watch the faces of a manager’s direct reports as he goes through his presentation. A subordinate shaking his or her head or otherwise “flinching” may tell you that what you are being told is somehow false or misleading, and give you a clue as to what to question to keep the presenter out of their comfort zone and at a disadvantage. Top management always likes a tough questioner, too, so keep the pressure on and keep asking questions to keep the presenter just barely able to proceed without breaking down.

Being tough on B.S. is very positive when it comes to bolstering your image with upper management or the board of directors. When it comes to the area you manage, you may not know much, but you can certainly look like you do by focusing on spotting and questioning the B.S., and if you are tough enough about it you will have the respect (or at least fear, which is nearly as good) of your subordinates, your peers, and your superiors.

This blog was set up to provide some very snide commentary on bad management styles and behaviors.  I really hope nobody is taking it in any other way.  If you got a laugh or two out of it, I am pleased as can be. 

As always, I welcome your comments.  

Charts R Us!  One way to keep employees organized and focused on the hierarchy (and your authority) is to maintain an organization chart and a decision process flowchart.  In either chart, all lines between objects should depict the flow of authority and information with one-way arrows.  In each case, the object representing your position in the organization or process will have arrows leading only away from it.  This will underline for all the fact that you are the boss, you are in charge, and you will give directions and information, not the other way around.

A chart only needs to show one view of the organization: yours.  The interrelationships of people and sub-organizations in your company are undoubtedly highly complex, and may represent nothing so much as a bowl of spaghetti in a tornado.  You can’t show all the dotted, dashed, thin, thick, and different colored lines, or the chart would be unreadable.   The key is to make sure the chart shows that you are in charge.  What the chart doesn’t show is open to you to define as you like, and change as suits your mood.  While your employees may struggle and waste time trying to figure out who is the right person to contact in any given circumstance, you will maintain control, and, their time is a sunk cost anyway.  In fact, they probably spend a hundred times more time looking at the Dilbert website than your organization chart, so there is no loss involved at all.

A confusing organization chart can set you free and bolster your power.  There is an additional advantage to keeping your organizational chart over-detailed and confusing.  If it is detailed enough it can daunt your superiors, thus underlining to them what a tough job you have, and how much better you are than they at organizing your complex part of the business.  At the same time it can keep your subordinates off guard as they struggle to understand how things should work.  Used correctly, an organization chart or process flow chart will support your position of authority yet give you the flexibility to control the organization as you see fit, while reinforcing to your superiors an appearance of how well you maintain a highly organized and efficient organization. 

interesting related reading:
What The Organizational Chart Doesn’t Tell You, Position descriptions in the IT industry

Overtime happens.  There are times in the corporate cycles of things when the business is being pressed, either by a bad economy, stiff competition, or by high demand (good times can be just as tough as bad times, if not tougher).  This can bring the need for overtime, which is generally a great way to get more out of your employees for next to nothing.  That is, the cost of hiring someone new is always far greater than the cost of getting your existing employees to put in extra hours, so maximizing overtime is a generally good thing for you.  How can you avoid paying a bunch of money for it, though?

Overtime cost can be controlled.  Make up confusing rules around overtime.  Set overtime compensation to start after significant overtime has already been accrued, such as “overtime compensation will begin after ten hours of voluntary overtime have been worked.”  That way, before anyone gets paid for their overtime, they will have already exceeded 10% overtime for which you won’t have to pay them.  Few, and especially those with families, will be able to exceed 50 hours on any regular basis, and you can always challenge the supervisors of those who do and ask why they can’t manage the work better.

Authorize overtime only for emergencies, and only when preapproved.  Since it is, by definition, almost impossible to predict emergencies, people will be generally unable to predict overtime requirements in advance, thereby further protecting your budget, and the work they do to cope with emergencies will be generally unpaid.  You may ignore your subordinates when they beg for overtime compensation for their employees.  They will probably say they fear the employee in question might be demoralized and leave the firm, but they are really just trying to stay on the employees’ good sides.  Avoid approving such ad hoc requests unless you are pretty sure the employee is serious about leaving and you know they are truly critical to the organization’s (and your) success.  Never let the employee know that they have any special importance to the organization, however, as there is no reason to give up any of your power or advantage over them.

Use metrics to focus the organization on controlling overtime.  Have one of your subordinates track overtime closely and maintain charts, and make sure the charts are reviewed at your staff meetings.  Monitor labor hours, highlight any overtime you have to pay for as excessive and ignore the rest that you get for free.  High visibility in this area will lend more power to you as you closely manage the business of your direct reports. 

Pay attention to overtime forecasts.  If employees wind up working more than they forecast, focus on the unexpectedly high cost as a bad thing.  If employees work less than forecast they will probably think they did well and saved the company money, but you can keep them at a disadvantage by suggesting they didn’t do a good job of forecasting, or that they were inflating their forecasts as a hedge.  If they hit their forecast exactly, you can suggest that there might have been some padding in the figures, or suggest they must be lying because “nobody’s that good.”

Effective management of overtime is another step up the ladder for you.  Correct management of overtime and related business issues can bolster your power as a manager, control your costs, keep your subordinates at a disadvantage, and enhance your appearance to your superiors, showing them what a savvy and cost-focused manager you are.  The employees you lose in the process are probably slackers anyway, and, when they’re gone they can’t say anything bad about you, which is a good thing.

copyright 1998, 2008, Timothy F. Prosser, This line must be included in all copies

Save money on building maintenance and grounds keeping while boosting morale.  Did you know that you can have your employees help reduce your building and grounds maintenance costs, and have them love you for coming up with the idea?  Here’s how!

Disguise working for free as fun.  All you have to do is create a fun, group event, serve some food, have everybody pitch in for an afternoon with rakes or paint brushes.  You can boost employee morale AND get your building maintenance or grounds keeping done for free.  In these troubled economic times, your regular grounds keeping and maintenance staff will be too worried about losing their jobs to object, even if they are unionized, and if they’re already outsourced you have nothing to worry about anyway.

As always, your people are your biggest asset.  Losing a few hours of your staff’s time to such a project is not a problem.  Most of them were probably going to be goofing off in any case, and they’ll be happy to get out of the office.  Besides, if you are paying them anyway then it’s all just “sunk cost”, and you don’t have to worry about it.  If you have lunch brought in, set up a large boom box or PA system to provide some music, and maybe a ring toss game or something, people will love it, and will totally miss the fact that you are getting skilled staff, MBAs, and even a few PhDs to do menial labor.  You can go out, make a short and grateful speech, and then retire to watch from your corner office window while enjoying a gourmet lunch and having a bit of putting practice.  The lull in the pace of business meetings will be refreshing, and the facilities will look great.

Hold the event at the same time every year.  Make your morale boosting event an annual celebration of the season.  Springtime is a natural for planting, mulching, and trimming around the grounds.  Fall is a good time to renovate parts of the office, shop, or plant.  You can even promote the event with posters and emails. 

Your management savvy will be the envy of your peers.  Your competitors will be jealous, and will start copying you immediately.  Of course, they may do that with the help of some of your ex-employees, who left you after becoming discouraged by such tactics.  A few may perceive your morale event as a misuse of their skills and talents, and get the wrong-headed idea that you don’t value them, but they are probably just the more troublesome employees and whiners anyway – the ones who think for themselves are usually the biggest problems.  You are better off without them, for a number of what should be obvious reasons.

How to make sure the event benefits you personally.  Unless you have budget responsibility for grounds and building maintenance this type of event doesn’t provide you much direct benefit in the all-important numbers, but maybe you can get the CEO to notice what a really committed and loyal team player you are.  In that case this could be another step on your way to the top. 

copyright 1998, 2008, Timothy F. Prosser, This line must be included in all copies

Low morale happens.  Sometimes, in the course of business, your subordinates’ spirits may become a bit low.  Although it is easy to attribute such occurrences to frequent layoffs and oppressive work conditions, it is best to attribute it to poor business conditions.  After all, if things are going great for the organization it must be because you, the manager, are doing a great job.  When the organization is doing poorly, however, it is inevitably because of outside factors such as a poor economy or a toughening competitive environment.  Still, it is well known that demoralized employees don’t work as effectively.  What should you do about it?

Low morale can sometimes be a problem.  Whatever the cause, it is a good idea to take steps to boost morale when it becomes too low, as it may lead to increased turnover and the exit of your best-trained workers, which can cause you problems.  You must be careful not to lose the lackeys and scapegoats you have cultivated in the work force, as they protect your back and can be used to take the heat off of you when things go wrong.   In any case, here are several approaches to boosting morale.

Hold a special lunch hour event for the employees.  This will show your sensitive, caring side, or at least the appearance that you have one.  Of course, you will need to hold the event when employees are not working, so an efficient approach is to hold it during the lunch hour.  Any company achievement or announcement, or any politically neutral holiday makes a good occasion.  It is also good to make attendance mandatory, as you want to make sure the positive effects of the event extend to everyone.  Serving refreshments is a good idea, but don’t provide them at your own expense (protect your budget).  Instead, make them optional to employees who pay for them, as everyone will already know that the company is struggling financially (an impression you always want to maintain, whether it’s true or not).  If you have the event catered, you might even arrange for a kickback from the caterer in advance, but don’t let the employees know about it.

Hold an after-hours or weekend event.  This is similar to the lunch event, but makes a bigger impression, is longer, and could be more expensive.  An outside-work event like this lets you decide strategically whether you want it to be easy or hard for employees to attend.  Also, by careful choice of location and time you can practically exclude whole classes of employees, those with children, for instance, or those on the night shift.  This is a good idea if you actually have to pay for the facility or refreshments. 

Make a short speech to the assembled group, at either type of gathering, and find some innocuous events to announce (or have your direct reports announce) such as promotions, new babies, and employment anniversaries.   This is expected at company-sponsored special events, so be prepared with a speech strategically chosen to say little of real importance, but to give the appearance that you are “part of the team” and care about the employees.

The following are observations of a morale-boosting talk given by a skilled manager, who was addressing low morale that had been assessed through a company employee survey:
1. Show up late.  You have more important things to attend to, and this only underlines this fact.  It establishes a context that keeps the employees in their places and minimizes the time in which you might have to actually rub elbows with your underlings. 
2. In your speech, first spend several minutes excusing your lateness.  Tell them you just came from an urgent situation that left you drained of energy.  This will decrease their expectations of you, and you can even suggest that you are frazzled and have “a short fuse”, which will dissuade them from getting too close to you, asking problematic questions, or possibly saying anything at all.
3.  Since this event was prompted by low morale, it is good to address the problem early on in your talk.  Spend a few minutes telling the employees it’s time to stop whining, and suggesting that whiners not only don’t get what they want, but may be looked on unfavorably by management in the future.  This will further reduce any willingness among the employees to answer questions.
4. Spend some time building them up by telling them what a great and accomplished group they are, whether you really think so or not. 
5. Tell the employees survey results showed that some of them thought they weren’t respected by other groups in the company or industry.  Then mention that the other groups were surveyed also, and confirmed that they didn’t respect them. 
6. End your talk with only a minute or two left for questions before the event is to end or you have to give up the meeting room.  If you absolutely have to take questions, make a show of having a subordinate write them down (a good delaying tactic if they don’t have something to write on at hand).  If you don’t want to answer a question you can always say it will be worked on in the near future.  Otherwise you can have one of your direct reports answer it. 
7. When the event is over, leave quickly to avoid any direct questions from attendees.  Avoiding questions (complaints) is a skill the best managers practice.

When it’s all done you can check this one off your list, your superiors will be pleased, and you can get back to the more pleasant, day-to-day domination of your subordinates.  If you had the bad luck to have “boost morale” appear on your annual objectives, you have completed that, turned it from a negative into a positive item in your file, and made another step towards your next promotion.

copyright 1998, 2008, Timothy F. Prosser, This line must be included in all copies

Management by walking around (MBWA), a popular concept back in the 1980’s, is still an effective way to manage people. Like most of us who have earned our senior management positions, you probably ignored this as “another new age fad”. You weren’t wrong in doing so, but you may not have realized how this progressive-sounding strategy can be turned into an effective means of control. Here are some ways to look like a progressive manager without losing your control and image of authority in the organization.

Walk around a lot, but don’t get friendly with the workers. Your presence will keep workers on their toes, and you can listen in on their conversations to pick up valuable information and identify the slackers and malcontents. Don’t join workers in idle conversation, though, or you will give them the idea you are accessible, and soon they will be coming to you with their concerns and “ideas for improvement”, which can be a real nuisance. Be sure to either ignore the workers as if they don’t exist, or stare at them coldly, if they look up as you come by. You must NOT appear approachable if you want to maintain your authoritative image in the organization.

Surround yourself with visitors and/or other managers. Employees will be much less likely to approach you when you have other “suits” with you. If you’ve done some previous walking around, though, you can impress those accompanying you with your knowledge not only of the operation, but of who the goof-offs and trouble makers are. Workers may even think that your guests are considering buying some of the equipment they are using. This will create a fear of losing their jobs that will *really* keep them on their toes. Effectively applied MBWA will ensure that nobody is sleeping on the job!

copyright 1998, 2008, Timothy F. Prosser, This line must be included in all copies

Minimize your headcount for maximum productivity. Keeping your headcount perrenially short will do more than just keep your costs low.  It is a well kept secret that it can also maximize the productivity of your workforce.  What do you need to know, and how do you go about using this concept effectively?

When times are tough, workers work harder.  Many studies have shown that employees are psychologically incapable of doing less than their best, except under the most extreme and demoralizing circumstances. Even when workers know they can’t possibly succeed, they will try endlessly to meet your expectations. No one wants to think badly of themselves, so, as you increase the workload, workers will increase their efforts until they either burn out or leave the organization. That means they will be working harder on average, and you have less people to “surplus” should the business take a downturn or upper management dictate some downsizing. 

Never let people think your organization isn’t under intense pressure.  As mentioned in other management secrets, always maintain the message that the organization is in a state of hardship due to extermal factors like competition or the economy, as that will help keep your employees’ noses to the grindstone, and keep them thinking they have no option to leave.  When their backs are to the wall you will get more work out of them.

Maintaining the workload just outside your staff’s capabilities, but not so severe that they leave, will provide the best return on your investment. You may lose a few employees along the way, but they were probably just wimps that couldn’t take it anyway.  You will look great to your bosses and your staff will be too busy to notice your long lunches and other executive perks.

copyright 1998, 2008, Timothy F. Prosser, This line must be included in all copies