[1411] in Humor
HUMOR: The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Mon Apr 29 10:39:01 1996
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 10:27:50 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 00:22:44 -0800
From: connie@interserve.com (Connie Kleinjans)
From: rocky@hal.com (Rochelle Grober)
Forwarded message from michael@elvis.hal.com (Michael Coxe)
> From: jokes@gag-o-matic.lowcomdom.com (Gag-O-Matic Joke Server)
The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People
Are you a poor listener? Negative thinker? Disorganized? If so, you too may
have what it takes to be highly ineffective. Since its publication, Stephen
R. Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" (Simon & Schuster,
1989) has been among the best-selling books on the market. People like
reading about success, I guess, but it seems to me that more people can
identify with failure. For the masses, then, here are "The 7 Habits of
Highly Ineffective People."
1. POOR LISTENING
A cornerstone of true ineffectiveness is poor listening. Church is a bastion
of poor listening. Why listen to remedies for your soul when you can
daydream about catching a large trout? God Himself could be delivering the
guest sermon, and half the congregation would be thinking about Egg
McMuffins. As M. Scott Peck says, listening is very hard work - though
nowhere near as hard as jackhammering. Many people feign interest, so it's
not always easy to know if they're actually listening. It's a bad sign if
they're humming show tunes.
2. NEGATIVE THINKING
All highly ineffective people share this trait. Not only do they see the
glass as half-empty, they see it as one more thing to wash. Not to be
negative, but negativity can be a very negative thing. Especially
interminable negativity that lasts a negative eon. There are, of course,
plenty of perfectly good reasons to be negative: pestilence, famine,
supermarket tomatoes.
And who among us isn't daunted by the Big Questions: Where did we come
from? Why are we here? And, if there is an afterlife, do they validate parking?
Negative people go through life saying, "I'm not good enough," "I can't do
it" and, inexplicably, "The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain."
Fortunately, they rarely say these things aloud.
3. DISORGANIZATION
Effective people are organized. They have their ducks in a row.
Unfortunately, I have mine in a column, but let's not get bogged down in
waterfowl issues. The point is ... well, I'm not sure what the point is. I
had it here in my notes somewhere, but now I can't seem to -- ah, yes, here
it is. The point is, not all organization is good. If all organization were
good, we wouldn't have organized crime. Al Capone was organized. Mussolini
was organized. Ants are extremely organized, but they have yet to win a seat
in the House of Representatives. They don't even hold much sway in the
animal kingdom, though in all fairness it's hard to hold sway when you're
holding dead moth parts.
To be sure, a fool and his attempts at organization are soon parted. For
example, the best-laid plans do you no good if you place them in your
briefcase and then drive off with your briefcase on top of your car. Sure,
disorganization can cause your effectiveness to take a swan dive, but there
we go getting bogged down in waterfowl issues again.
4. INAPPROPRIATENESS
There's a time and place for everything, which is why it's always good to
carry a watch and a map. Failures of time-and-place judgment result in all
sorts of inappropriate behavior. For example, it's OK to yell "Fire!" after
"Ready ... aim ... " but it's inappropriate to yell it in a crowded theater.
It is also inappropriate to yell "Avocado!" in a crowded theater - not
because it would cause a panic, but because it's inappropriate to yell
"Avocado!" anywhere except at produce auctions. It is inappropriate to rise
for the seventh-inning stretch singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" when
it's the bottom of the fifth and the ball is in play. Or to hum that catchy
little "Jeopardy" tune when your dinner date is taking too long with the
menu. Or to wear a bunny suit to a funeral, especially if it's your funeral.
Naturally, effective people never commit these honest but harmful gaffes.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas would never have survived his Senate
confirmation hearing had there been even the slightest suggestion he had ever
yelled "Avocado!" in a crowded theater.
5. DECISIONS BY DEFAULT
In my college days, which lasted two terms - Johnson's and Nixon's - I was
determined to squander the experience by spending a bare minimum of time on
campus. Thus, I made my course selections not according to academic
curiosity, degree requirements, professional goals or any other sane
criteria. No, I made my choices strictly for convenience, enrolling only in
classes that met during banker hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Each semester, my class schedule was a hodgepodge that appeared to have
resulted from an explosion in the registrar's office.
It was the "Big Bang" approach to higher education: Each semester, my class
schedule was a hodgepodge that appeared to have resulted from an explosion
in the registrar's office. At 9 a.m., "Intermediate Farsi." At 10:30 a.m.,
"Abnormal Ornithology." At 1 p.m., "Schopenhauer: Genius or Stand-Up Comic."
Eventually, university officials decided that my accumulated credits bore a
slight resemblance to a political-science degree, a conclusion derived
largely from the discovery that I had taken several classes "in or near the
political science building."
It's easy enough to get a degree by default, but to live a whole life that
way requires sheer, determined acquiescence - that is, a willingness to make
important decisions by not making them. Thank God so many people exist by
this simple code, allowing inertia to determine where they live, who they
live with and even what they do for a living. If the average apple fell
farther from the tree, no man would follow his father into sewage treatment
or embalming, and then where would we be?
6. RANDOMIZATION
This habit is the opposite of systematization. Quite simply, it is the
pursuit of tasks in random order instead of logical sequence. We all know
someone at work who operates this way - usually the head of planning. Reaping
before sowing, leaping before looking, dressing before showering - these are
illogical, inefficient ways to go through life. In Southern California, where
I live, we prepare for earthquakes after they strike. This approach has
proven highly ineffective, but by now it's tradition and, if I'm not
mistaken, required by state law. Apparently, putting the cart before the
horse is normal human behavior, even though carts are getting hard to find
these days. The consequences may be greatest where interpersonal
relationships are concerned, which is why the divorce rate runs higher than
voter turnout.
7. PROCRASTINATION
Interestingly, the beginning and ending of "procrastination" are "pro" and
"nation.' Someone who is "pro-nation" is called a patriot, and every four
years can be found at the Olympic wrestling venue waving a flag the size of
a fumigation tent. How, you might ask, does all this relate to the habit we
call procrastination? Well, it doesn't, really, but this little linguistic
digression has enabled me to put off writing anything meaningful about
procrastination, a task I've been dreading. And that's the true spirit of
procrastination, isn't it - avoiding what we don't want to do? Of course, 90
percent of life is "what we don't want to do," which is why we so diligently
devote ourselves to the other 10 percent. But there's a blessing in all
this. Putting off changing the oil in your car, for example, leads to costly
repairs, which triggers self-loathing, which results in erratic behavior,
marital discord, counseling, divorce-lawyer fees and so forth. A lot of money
changes hands, which stimulates the economy, which results in a higher gross
national product. So if you put off changing your motor oil, take heart:
You're not just a procrastinator, you're a patriot.
Lee Green is a Ventura, Calif.-based free-lance writer.
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